Only 24 days left. Not even a full month remains before Colorado puts the 2011 cross country season in the history books. From all four corners of our state, and everywhere in between, athletes have a small window of opportunity to accomplish the goals that they and their teams have set. All those long summer months of training and the killer intervals of the season have set the tone for this final finishing stretch.
Our two Boulder Running Company athletes of the week, Ian Boucher of Crested Butte High School and Erin Hooker of Fort Collins High, have positioned themselves very well to blaze through the final weeks of the 2011 season.
Sophomore harrier Ian Boucher has blazed a trail of top finishes across the state this fall in meets as fast as the Anna Banana and as brutal as the Leadville Invitational. Ian’s accomplishments belie his underclassman status. As Ian so succinctly put it, “Age doesn’t matter”.
Most recently Ian won the Anna Banana Invitational with a time 16:05. Running against schools much larger than Crested Butte was not a limiting factor for Ian. His racing demeanor, to put it simply, is aggressive. Ian states, “I’m not intimidated by other runners in the least. I’ve noticed runners attempt to manipulate one another preceding races.I turn off my ego, and turn on my game. To sum my Anna Banana experience up, I just went out there willing to suffer.”
Currently the Crested Butte team is ranked second in state behind rival Telluride. Ian’s confidence in his team and their chance for victory on October 29th is telling. According to Ian, “I know that we’ve the ability to beat teams like Telluride. Each one of our men are experienced endurance athletes whether it be biking, Nordic skiing, or running, These guys want to win a team state championship as badly as I do.”
On the other side of the Rockies a clash of the Titans literally occurred at the Saucony/TCA Titan Thunder Invitational. Erin Hooker and her Lambkin teammates took on The Classical Academy on their home course. Erin swept the field with a commanding 27 second victory over Regan Mullen of TCA with a time of 18:03. Erin commented, “I decided to treat the race last week the same way that I had treated it the year before. This year I pushed the pace but had a more relaxed mentality during the race and I focused on just rolling my legs over efficiently.“
Erin, a junior, had a bit of a slow start to the season with a minor leg injury but has progressed very well as the season has matured. Erin’s finishing spot has risen in each meet throughout the course of the season.
The Fort Collins girl’s team, no stranger to success, is once again poised to repeat their national caliber finish of last year. “My team is working hard and we are still figuring out who will be on Varsity for the bigger meets coming up,“ according to Erin.
Erin shows her leadership through her care and compassion for her Lambkin teammates. “The best parts of cross country for me are the coaches, the teammates, and the unique experiences that each course has to offer. My teammates are my best friends. I am so thankfl to have both the girl’s team and the boy’s team to be so close to one another.” In fact, Erin wanted it mentioned that the Fort Collins girl’s JV team finished 1-7 at the Saucony/TCA Titan Thunder meet.
s the 2011 cross country season builds to its finale, the intensity level of these final few weeks skyrockets. Ian Boucher and Erin Hooker symbolize the effort that thousands of harriers across the state have put in for many months. These next few weeks will be memorable as teams are made or broken and dreams fulfilled or dashed. As Erin Hooker summed it up, “Cross Country makes every day truly different”. Only 24 days left.