CMC’s first cross-country meet of the season was the Joe Vigil Open in Alamosa. The prestigious meet is named after the legendary coach who took Adams State University to 19 national titles in cross-country and track. In this same event, I also would have the improbable experience of coaching my middle- and high-school teams, while watching my son run his first college race. Once again, I drove Harrison home from Leadville Friday morning after uniforms were issued. The next morning we left the school in Westcliffe in the dark, with Mary following the school bus with Harrison in her car. He would meet up with his CMC teammates at the meet.
It was foggy and slow driving for a good part of the way, throwing us off-schedule for the middle-school race. I called ahead and asked that organizers give us a little extra time. We arrived late and Coach Heather and I literally jumped off the bus with our small squad of middle-school girls and ran to the starting line. The girls barely got lined up before the starting gun sounded. I took a deep breath of relief. The middle school boys ran right after and then it was time for the college races.
The Joe Vigil meet is considered a “fast altitude course” at 7,500 feet elevation. While it is fairly flat, there’s a loop with a gradual uphill, and the route alternates from golf-course grass to gravel golf-cart paths. There was a festive buzz building for the college races and a good number of spectators had gathered, while many of the high school teams were also starting to arrive.
The standard men’s college cross-country course is 8K, just short of five miles. I was nervous for Harrison in his college debut. I wondered how would he perform under the pressure and at this new distance and level of competition. Years of coaching and preparation — and hundreds of setbacks and breakthroughs — seemed to lead to this moment. Although he was wearing a dark-blue and black uniform, my hopes and dreams were standing quite naked next to him on the starting line.
He bounced excitedly up and down alongside his teammates and runners from other colleges like NCAA Division II powerhouse Adams State, Fort Lewis College, and arch-NJCAA rival Trinidad State College, as well as several unattached entrants. Of course the CMC team was going to get destroyed but these guys were undaunted in their excitement. There was, if nothing else, a friendly competition among the mens team as Darren had said he might only be able to take the top-five runners to the NJCAA National Championship.
The Blur jumped right into the thick of things on the uphill start and rounded the first righthand turn in heavy traffic. He seemed to be focused and running with a joyful gait. There was something both exhilarating and surreal about watching him settle confidently into his race.
While coaching an event I often run more miles than my runners. Today with Harrison’s college race, in addition to middle and high school boys and girls races, I would get a workout, sprinting from point to point to cheer and encourage all my athletes.
The other Harrison, now well-known by teammates as “Blueberry,” held down CMC’s top spot, followed by Ben, Kenneth, Nate, Harrison, Korben and Paulo. At one point Ron Shepherd, Nate’s high school coach, and I were standing together cheering on both of our college guys. Then I took off up-course to catch them on another loop, sprinting past Darren to another vantage point. Darren yelled at Harrison as he passed: “Let’s go Blur!” Then he turned and said loudly and cheerfully, “He’s going to score points for me!”
Indeed, if Harrison could hang on in CMC’s fifth position he would score points in his debut race. He seemed to be focused on Nate up ahead, but gradually Nate pulled away. Still, Harrison maintained his pace. Then on the long sweeping uphill in the last mile, he secured his position. He turned onto the final downhill stretch of grass to the finish and sprinted across the line with a slight smile. After all the drama of the previous two weeks, he couldn’t have been happier.
Following their race, the CMC guys watched their teammates — Abby, Anna and Lexi — in the women’s race, and ran their cooldown, while I got my high school runners warmed up and coached them through their races.
On the return bus ride I gazed out at the San Luis Valley scenery in the late summer light and reflected on the momentous day. The jagged peaks of the Sangre De Cristo mountains passed like a movie through the bus window just as they had during Harrison’s first cross-country season in middle school so many cross-country seasons ago. In all of them, I could have never envisioned the experience I‘d just lived.
Notes from The Blur
The first meet of my collegiate running career was the Joe Vigil Open in Alamosa hosted by Adams State University at the Cattails golf course. This meet included middle school, high school, and college runners. My dad had to coach both high school and middle school, and also watch me in my race. I felt excited about this race since it was my first one in college and was very much looking forward to running in it. Also several of my teammates from high school would be there to watch. I wanted to do well.
This course was familiar to me since I ran there in high school my sophomore year. The start was on grass and slightly uphill on grass then it turned onto a gravel golf cart path. This trail made a big loop around the entire golf course. In the high school 5K, you only run this loop once and then to the finish. In the college 8K, there was an additional loop around the lower end. Of course the level of competition was much higher than high school. I felt like I was well-prepared for this meet due to all the training I did all summer long.
In the first mile I was not too far behind Nate, but I passed two other guys on the team. This made me fifth position on the team. There was one spot where I started to turn the wrong way, and some people redirected me onto the course. Nevertheless, I scored points for my new team in the first meet. Also, I felt good running in the new On shoes and also running my first race as a college athlete.
Meanwhile, the men’s team was cooling down and the women’s 5K race was starting. I cheered on all the girls but still referred to Lexi as “Mini Taylor Swift” when cheering her on. I knew later that this was odd, and was a lingering thought ever since that day I had the problem with her.
Also at one point, the team got several yards ahead of me and I tried to catch back up to them. In the process, I happened to stand on a golf green and some people told me to stay off of those golf greens. This startled me and I didn’t react well to that situation. In a fit of lost impulse control, I screamed “YOU IDIOT” to them, then ran towards my teammates.
After the cool down and after the women finished, a photographer came over and got individual pictures with the teammates to put up on the team roster section of the CMC Athletics website. Everything was all good until my mom and dad learned about the incident about the golf greens. After that, they became frustrated with me and warned me about possible consequences if I kept this up. Of course, this upset me even more.
Despite all this, I got to run in my first race as a CMC athlete and actually scored points for my team. I felt like this was a great start to my collegiate running career, and paved the way for even better races in the future.
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