After a summer of preseason training that focused on activities that equated to 150 miles of running, the Pagosa Springs High School Pirate cross-country teams are ready to hit the course for Saturday’s Durango XC Relay Carnival.
The team is opening the season both with a new coach at the helm, Josh Kurz, and a new kind of meet with the Relay Carnival.
“The Durango meet is different than anything we’ve done before,” Kurz explains in an email to The SUN. “They’re calling it a Relay Carnival. We’ll form coed relay teams and each relay team alternates running one mile until they’ve covered 8 miles collectively. So it’s basically four, one-mile repeats and you get to rest while your partner is running their mile. The top five coed relay teams for each school will score points for the team.”
Kurz indicates the event will be a good fit for the team early in the season.
“It’s a great early-season event and fits our philosophy that races are really just the hardest workout of the week,” he wrote. “So our main goal is to use our competition to stretch our pain threshold and improve our fitness.”
Kurz notes the team’s roster features 18 this year — 11 Pirates and seven Lady Pirates.
He adds the Pirates’ roster includes four new freshmen, while the Lady Pirates’ roster includes one freshman, one new junior and a new senior.
“All of our athletes have a great work ethic and are willing to push through tough workouts,” Kurz highlights. “We also have a pack of boys with similar abilities that will push each other to become faster, and that also gives us some depth in the event of an illness or injury. On the girls’ side, we have two seasoned juniors (Kaiya Lyons and Madi Stretton) who both put in a lot of miles this summer. These leaders will show our newer runners what it means to train hard.”
Kurz also noted that three athletes ran 150 miles or more over the summer, with a handful of others running 50-100 miles.
“Those kids have a bigger base to build upon and hopefully will be less injury-prone,” he wrote. “All of the competitive teams have strong participation in off-season training. This is the first year we’ve done the 150-mile club, so I’m hoping we’ll get more athletes training in the summer next year.”
And Kurz indicates the team’s goal is for both teams to make the state championship.
“The top 4 teams in each region qualify and our region is the toughest region in the 3A classification,” Kurz explains.
The coach also notes what it will take for each team to meet that goal.
“Based on last year, our top 5 boys will need to average around 18:30 and our top 5 girls will need to average under 21:00,” he wrote. “I think the boys have the ability to hit that time goal and they have made one of their team goals for the season. I never want to put limits on anyone, but the girls have to make up a bigger gap to close to get to State Championship. Our goal is to be open to the possibility of qualifying and chip away at that gap as much as possible.”
He adds, “We can’t control our competition, so we’re going to focus on maximizing our talent, work ethic, and attitude. Kids can also qualify individually if they place in the top 15 at the regional meet. Last year, the 15th-place girl in our Region (3A Region 2) ran 20:57 and the 15th-place boy ran 17:33. Our fastest runners will target those times as one of their season goals. The regional course is pretty fast so we won’t have a clear picture of our chances until we run the fast Monte Vista course in late October.”
Kurz further notes that, beginning this weekend and continuing until regionals, the team will have three hard workouts a week and will treat the week’s races as the hardest workout of the week.
“The great thing about races is that there’s a fresh group of competition to help our athletes draw out a 100% effort,” he wrote.
Schedule
The following schedule was accurate as of press time, but is subject to change.
After this weekend’s Relay Carnival in Durango, the Pirate squads will head to Alamosa for the Joe Vigil Invitational on Sept. 6, where the day’s action is set to begin at 8 a.m.
The following weekend, on Sept. 13, the squads will take part in the Bayfield Invitational, which will kick off at 9 a.m.
On Sept. 27, the Pirates will host their sole home meet of the season, the McGinn Memorial XCountry Challenge, where action will begin at 10 a.m.
The team will then head to Alamosa for the Intermountain League meet on Oct. 3, with action scheduled to begin at 9 a.m.
On Oct. 11, the team will take part in the Chicken Creek Challenge hosted by Mancos, which will begin at 9 a.m.
On Oct. 17, the Pirate squads will head to Monte Vista for the Eric Wolf Invitational, which is set to kick off at 9 a.m..
Regionals is slated for Oct. 23, with the state meet following on Nov. 1.
randi@pagosasun.com
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