Cross country runners battle heat while scouting state venue at Cheyenne Stampede
COLORADO SPRINGS — For a fall competition, the elements on Friday presented anything but a crisp autumn day for cross country runners.
On Friday, 89 teams converged at the Norris-Penrose Event Center for the Cheyenne Stampede cross country meet. The site will once again host the state cross country meet which will be held in October.
The hope for many teams in attendance is to get their runners a glimpse of what the state championship course looks like so that there aren’t any surprises to the athletes. For teams such as Alamosa, it can be a long trek for such a short competition window.
“We’ve done this every year for the past four or five years,” junior Lilly Lavier said. “It’s really helped the girls coming up to varsity really recognize the course a bit for when they run it at the end of the year.”
It certainly helped Lavier. In a very competitive Class 3A girls race, she claimed first place, beating out Holy Family sophomore Alyssa Wells who finished sixth in last year’s state meet.
Last year Wells show competitive grit in coming into her first year of high school competition and finding her way onto the podium. The Tigers had a loaded senior class and ended up finishing fourth as a team at state.
Part of that was the seniors leaning on their star underclassman, something that Wells hopes not to do in 2018.
“Honestly, the first year don’t put so much pressure on it,” Wells said. “It’s really hard coming into (this level of competition in) high school your first year. I don’t like to put a lot of pressure on freshmen because last year my team didn’t put a lot of pressure on me. But that’s when I thrive the best.”
She thrived on Friday with her second-place finish. The familiarity with the course aside, the biggest thing she and the other runners had to battle was the heat. The temperatures in August (low- to mid-80’s at race time) are much different than what they’ll see in October during the state meet.
“It’s a lot hotter right now,” Wells said. “That’s the thing about October is there’s more shade, it’s a lot cooler. I think it makes a big difference.”
The fact that the temperatures were high — yet manageable — wasn’t news to the teams. If there is one benefit of competing on this course now to prepare for October, it’s that the head can introduce a mental barrier that the runners can face head on.
“For me I had a plan in my head to go a certain speed in between the second and third mile and you feel the heat getting to you by then,” Lavier said. “It affects you mentally and if you can somehow push through that, it won’t affect (your performance) too much.”
The next time this many runners will compete at Norris-Penrose will be on Oct. 27 at the 2018 state cross country meet.
