Running sucks. Running more than a mile REALLY sucks. But Rocky has a whole team of kids who run multiple miles basically everyday. That’s weird. The fact that someone takes hours out of their day to run multiple miles every day is mind boggling. Why would you do that? I have no idea, and I’m one of the people who do it.

Fort Collins High School hosted the second JV cross country meet of the 2020 season last Friday, August 28. It was a brisk, cool day, with the sun covered by the clouds–a perfect day for a cross country race, i.e. two laps around Fort Collins High.

The race preceding this one had been an awful experience for everyone running. It was hot, and the course was quite slow (it was mostly grass, providing much less resistance for the runners, as opposed to concrete which provides a lot of resistance) so these two laps around a high school in perfect weather were a welcome change of pace.

The first group of JV (supposedly the faster of the two groups), set out on this 3.1 mile course at roughly 4:00 pm. The course began on a long straight away of grass, before winding around a soccer field and continuing around the school. Cross Country ladies and gentleman, running through a soccer field.

 After the second lap, the course brought you back down the straight away, and into the finish. The first boys finished at about 18:12, with Rocky’s Luis Caballero coming in second overall.

The first heat finished at about 4:25, and the second group got in the blocks and headed out at 4:30. Rocky dominated this race, with the top ten boys through the first mile all being Rocky runners. Rocky’s Jackson Menand took and held a dominant lead throughout the entire race, finishing with a time of 19:46, more than half a minute ahead of the next runner. Rocky also ended up dominating the team aspect of this race with well over half of the top 20 runners being from Rocky. 

This heat of boys finished up at about 5:00 pm. The first and only heat of girls got their start 10 minutes later, starting at 5:10ish. The first of the Rocky girls came through at 21:41, and the meet came to an end near 6:00 pm.

In conclusion, running sucks, and I don’t recommend anyone doing it. With that said, all of the people who participated in this race are really cool, and I look forward to running with them the rest of the season.