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| Colorado state championships. Two first place finishes at the NXN Southwest Regional. Successive seventh place showings at NXN Finals. Division I recruits. For the past two years, the "Lambkins" of Fort Collins High School CO have embodied success at the highest level. Over the next nine weeks, assistant coach Phil Latter will be tracking the ups and downs, triumphs and challenges of the Fort Collins girls’ cross country team.
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the lambkin way | part 2
10.13.09
by Phil Latter, Special to DyeStat
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Back to the Grassroots: Dakota Ridge Invitational
Tuesday, October 6th- 4:55 p.m.
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| Denise Chilson bundled before a run in the snow.
Photo submitted by Phil Latter
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I stand at the top of a hill. Bit by bit the tiny ants in the distance are forming into people, real people, and now they’re making their final approach up this endless hill. Their progress looks slow and labored from this vantage point, high atop the most easterly range of foothills, but step by labored step I can tell purple is not in the lead. I applaud quietly for the first wave of leaders, then see a Lambkin about to summit.
There’s a bit of déjà vu.
“C’mon, Denise,” I shout at Denise Chilson (right). “Twenty meters to the top and then you can kick.” Last time I saw her running up a hill she was closing on opponents, a glimmer in her eye saying, Hey, I can win this thing for us. The déjà vu ends right here. Today there is just the anonymous pain that all but smoothest runners wear on their faces.
“Good job,” I yell as she rounds the corner, a track’s length away from the finish. She’s in fourth, fading to fifth. Another purple jersey appears barely fifteen seconds later.
“That a way, Taleah. Almost there! Get to the top and kick.” This is a great race for her, and the confidence in which she is attacking this hill says she knows the same. I clap a little louder.
This repeats several more times over the ensuring three minutes, each cheer the same, but with a different name. Aubrey. Gretchen. Lizette. Ashlyn. Maddie.
Tuesday meets are relatively uncommon in Colorado, but we are giving it a try. The course is spectator if not runner friendly. Run down a big hill, loop around a lake twice, then run back up a big hill. The excitement comes in the wave format employed – the girls merge into the boys’ race like rush hour traffic on a cloverleaf exit as the boys go around the lake for their second lap. It makes for interesting cheering as names like Eli and Abe are quickly interchanged with Annie and Sarah.
Five of our seven varsity girls have been left at home, leaving behind a team that is anxious to show they will belong on the big stage sooner than later. While Denise is a bit upset she comes up short in her quest for an invitational win, Taleah is ecstatic with her performance, as are most of the other girls who have been called up from the minors for their first big league at-bats. The boys’ team – running only three of their varsity seven and paced by two sophomores – ends up taking the win. The girls place fourth, missing third by one point. While lacking the drama of nationally ranked teams colliding, today’s races symbolize the egalitarian nature of cross country: Work hard, and sooner or later you will be rewarded with a shot of your own.
Violent High Fives and Marshmallows
Wednesday, October 7th – 4:00 p.m.
I am quickly learning that coaching cross country at the high school level is all about balance. One cannot simply impose his or her will on a group of fifteen- to eighteen-year-olds and expect there to be no backlash. Those who have done this for a long time, like Coach Chris Suppes, find ways to strike a balance.
Once upon a time a trip to Pineridge Natural Area and the Foothills Trail had been planned for today, but not only does that require carpooling to the west side of town, but it would also potentially interfere with everyone being able to make it to tonight’s team dinner. Instead Suppes has taken the time to map out a route that relies on pretty much every single soft surface trail on the east side of town to form a convoluted loop. It’ll lack the magnificent views of Horsetooth Reservoir and will be far flatter than the Foothills Trail, but this run will allow everyone to be out of the high school and on their way to the team dinner by 5 pm.
Wednesday long runs are one of the more unique aspects of Fort Collins’ training program. The program is predicated on aerobic development, and the incorporation of a bi-weekly long run during the season (weekly during the summer), along with a heavy dose of tempo runs, keeps the runners’ aerobic engines humming throughout the season. That it is on a Wednesday, and not a weekend, keeps it from taking on the feeling of an additional requirement.
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| Marci Witczak at the 2008 NXN SW Regional.
Photo by John Dye
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I drop off the back of the varsity boys’ pack when I receive an overly violent high five from Taleah. Running in the opposite direction with her freshmen cohorts Erin Hooker and Maddie Staab, the blow nearly knocks me down and leads to our elbows violently colliding.
“Jesus, Latter,” she shouts. “You could have killed me.”
“My bad,” I say, shaking out my arm.
“I think you broke my elbow.”
“Probably.”
“All right then.”
“Enjoy the rest of your run.”
“I will.”
5:40 pm
When I arrive at the team dinner, the homeowner’s deck is covered in skinny kids eating pasta. Thirty-five of them. Looking out over Warren Lake, with a beachfront, multiple benches, and enough trays of pasta, salad, and cookies to feed at least sixty, this home is the ideal place to host a team dinner. Every week since the season began, a different parent has opened their doors and allowed anywhere between thirty and fifty teenagers into their homes.
Conversations veer wildly throughout the dinner. Some discuss homecoming dates. College visits. One kid has a conspiracy theory. Others whisper barely audible inappropriate jokes, jokes that inevitably end with the line, “Quiet, [insert coach’s name] is coming.” Most everyone has giant Kool-Aid mustaches.
Marci Witczak (leftt) walks in midway through the dinner. In an attempt to keep her in running shape while she’s forced to cross train, Suppes has upped her biking and elliptical time. Today she has spent nearly two hours in the saddle, pedaling away hard while listening to her iPod. Various baseball players and weight room monitors float in and out, one kicking her out to lock up shop, but Marci finds another one to let her back in. She may not enjoy the cross training, but she is dedicated to it nonetheless.
Not long after her arrival, the host mother asks if anyone wants to toast marshmallows. The answer is a universal yes. Only six large marshmallows exist, however, so the team members take to roasting fingernail-sized ones on sticks and kabobs. The jokes continue. The Kool-Aid flows. A few of the more restless youth walk down to the lake and wade in, skipping stones and the remnants of a cinderblock. The lake frames the setting sun and panoramic view of the Rockies perfectly.
It is a good night to be a team.
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| The team lines up for the beginning of the "Death Quest" workout.
Photo submitted by Phil Latter
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DEATH QUEST!!!!!!!
Friday, October 9th – 3:05 pm
“Please explain that to me,” I ask one of the sophomore boys. I’m standing outside the coaches’ office, looking down a long hallway. Every other person seems to be wearing a Superman t-shirt or cape.
“It’s Superhero Day.”
Most of the runners will not feel like Wonder Woman or Spiderman by the end of practice. If there is a Kryptonite to most Lambkins, it is surely the challenging and relentless workout known simply as Death Quest.
The ultimate cross country simulator, Death Quest is run on all grass at a large park located about two-and-a-half miles from the high school. Viewed from high above, the course resembles an infinity sign, with each half containing a long uphill and downhill. Obstacles include a sandbox, evergreen trees, and the ever present flying discs of the local Frisbee golfers, who, to their credit, have adjusted well to having thirty boys and girls running all over their course. The object of the workout is simple: get as far as you can in four minutes, knowing you have a three minute recovery afterwards. Try to hit the same spot or farther each time around. Death Quest, and its sister workout Lappers (which emphasizes the hills and is run continuously with built-in recovery points), are not for the fainthearted. Only the more advanced runners are permitted to tackle the course.
Today’s workout is notable for who is not here. Rachel Viger and Kirsten Follett, the top two runners on the squad, are taking an official visit to the University of Colorado in Boulder. Freshman Erin Hooker is also sitting this one out, the coaches having made a conscious decision to monitor her shins and play it safe for the time being.
Marci is running, however. She cuts back on the warm-up and cool-down by getting a ride to the course and back to the high school, but in between all her pent up energy comes out full force. She runs a brilliant workout, flooring it up the hills and showing that when healthy she is one of the best juniors in the state. The two freshmen running today, Maddie and Taleah (having suffered no lasting injury from our failed high five), also look great. Seeing the underclassmen shine in the absence of most of their senior leaders drives home a point Denise told me on the drive home from Classical Academy.
“I think the team is really well balanced this year,” she said. “I think we worried a lot about if the leadership would be as good as last year’s with Tati [Ogen] and Miranda [Benzel], which was really good, or if we’d feel really young because we are really young. We were the babies until our senior year. Even the freshmen, who are the craziest people alive, work really hard and are intense. There’s no weak link, and it’s just a really strong team so it’s easy to be serious and have fun at the same time.”
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| Taleah McClintock, Denise Chilson, Maddie Staab run the state meet course in the snow.
Photo submitted by Phil Latter
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The lone senior doing Death Quest, Denise pushes hard for all four and helps pull the freshmen along. She relished the chance to be a team leader at Tuesday’s meet, and now she is getting the chance to once again direct a team on a workout that she feels is integral to the team’s continued success. Even so, it’s hard to imagine her reaching this point without her two senior teammates.
“Rachel and I have always been close,” Denise said, commenting on her connection to her classmates, “but Kirsten and I are closer than we’ve ever been this year. I think that kind of since our freshman year we’ve just been like, ‘If we all work hard together, we’ll all be able to have a lot of great years together.’ Even when we haven’t been the best of friends, there’s always been that [sense] that we really care about how each other did. If one of them wasn’t here, it would be completely different for me, because unconsciously they’re the two pillars of my running here.”
Even in their absence, the program remains strong at its core.
Three Inches of Snow
Saturday, October 10th – 8:25 am
Today it’s pretty obvious I’m not a native. Even though I’ve read about it and known it to be a trend, I still can’t wrap it around my fingers. That may be because I can’t feel my fingers, having given my gloves away to a runner who needed them more. But still, in between jumping up and down to get some circulation back in my toes, and blowing repeatedly on my hands, I can’t believe it.
We’re holding practice on the State Cross Country course and it’s under three inches of very fresh, still falling snow. And it’s only the second week of October.
“It’s pretty normal,” Coach Craig Luckasen tells me, pointing out soon that the gloves have already been returned to him and that my hands are therefore freezing for no apparent reason. “Lot of times we get one like this in September. It’ll just blow in and melt the next day. Other times we get through December and haven’t had any that sticks.”
Today’s is definitely sticking. I have no idea where the starting line or the course is; the finish line is known only because of the large observation tower that sits just beyond it. Most of the runners have previewed the course a few times this season, so they set off, encountering slick hills and an occasional icy puddle in the process.
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| Taleah McClintock makes a snow angel in the fresh-fallen snow.
Photo submitted by Phil Latter
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I talk with Luckasen as we wait for the runners to reappear from the hidden fields that make up most of the course. He has put in enough years of service to Fort Collins High School to retire this moment if he so chose, but coaching has been his lifeblood too long now to call it quits. A volunteer in pay alone, Luckasen is the straight man to Coach Suppes, laying down the law whenever and wherever it is needed. He thrives on holding athletes accountable for their behaviors, ensuring their health and safety, and making sure the program is organized and well run.
His ancient orange truck is a testament to this. It contains large plastic bins of individually marked cups and water coolers, tarps, bungee cords, hammers, and oftentimes the team’s tent and all its accoutrements. If something is needed, odds are the truck has it.
A pack of freshmen girls and Denise wraps around a tree swaddled in orange padding and head toward the presumed finish line. After one loop the freshmen girls are done with their mileage. Unlike me they are warm and energetic. Maddie throws a snowball; Taleah makes a snow angel.
Luckasen orders her up. There is only one week to Conference. Two to Regionals. Three to State. Now is not the time to risk getting damp and cold while waiting outside in sub-freezing temperatures for a parent that might be late.
Taleah gets up and skips off with Maddie and the other runners who are just returning from their own loop. If there is any concern about the future, about the races and challenges that are just around the corner, none shows on their faces.
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