Fort Lewis College head women’s cross-country coach Brett Sublett hopesto see some familiar faces at Friday’s Tom Standt Memorial at the Old Fort Lewis College campus in Hesperus. After a number of runners came to last Tuesday’s Durango Trail Runners Cross-Country Club’s practice, it’s easy to see why.
About a dozen runners from the FLC men’s and women’s teams went to Fassbinder Park for some quick warm-up laps around the park which followed a two-mile trek through the neighborhood with the middle-school aged runners.
“This practice has been on the agenda for awhile now, and it’s great for it to finally happen,” Sublett said. “It’s a good reminder for our runners to see these kids running and see how much fun they have with it. Competition and results are important, but it wasn’t that long ago that our runners were in sixth or seventh grade laughing and having fun. That’s what running is all about, and that’s what keep us involved in it.”
Trail Runners’ coach Chad MacCluskey said having the Skyhawks as part of practice even for a day can make a big difference in helping younger kids envision running well into their future.
“As these young kids are getting oder, especially my seventh and eighth graders, they’re already looking at high school and what sports they want to participate in,” MacCluskey said. “Just knowing there’s a collegiate presence in this amazing community, it’s huge.”
Last week’s practice was part of an ongoing effort to keep up a strong relationship with Durango’s avid running community and extend an invitation to new runners.
“I think one of the best parts about running is that everybody can do it. Old, young, male or female,” said FLC men’s coach Josh Coon. “If you’re on the starting line for a race, you’re a runner. It’s just the nature of the sport. It’s easy for everyone to come together. Hopefully for our runners, they get to feel like kids for a bit.”
Sublett said having the Skyhawks practice on different routes, from the Animas River Trail to Horse Gulch, has helped grow the close-knit bond within Durango’s running community.
“It’s motivating for community members, middle schoolers and it’s motivating for our runners knowing that they’re recognized in the community, too,” Sublett said. “They’re not just up on the hill isolated. They’re part of the town and part of the community, as well.”
While community engagement certainly helps the program, having strong results is key, too. The Fort Lewis men’s team is ranked No. 7 in the USA Track and Field and Cross-Country Coaches Association’s South Central Region after a third-place finish at the Joe Vigil Invitational in Alamosa and a 13th-place finish against stiff competition two weeks ago at the UC-Riverside Invitational in California.
With the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Championships looming at the end of October, Friday’s meet will be an indicator of which runners to keep an eye on and how the team’s strategy is panning out.
“The guys clearly care about each other, and if we can execute that in a race and run together, we have a nice pack up front,” Coon said. “In practice, they’ve been executing the pack running very well. A lot of them are putting egos aside and are hurting for each other.”
On the women’s side, Sublett, a longtime assistant who was named the women’s head coach shortly before the season kicked off, said that now that he is head coach, he is able to give the women’s team a platform that they never had before.
“It’s quite a bit different, and the buck sort of stops with me now,” Sublett said. “Changes that I’d want to implement, now I have the freedom to do so. Mostly, I have the time to give the women’s team the individual attention they deserve. Increasing the ratio of coach to student-athlete is vital, and so it’s been really been fun to sink my teeth into it.”
Sublett’s biggest success so far is realizing how evenly-matched the women’s team is.
“We have six or seven women that, on any given day, any one of that seven could be the top runner on the day,” he said. “It’s fun to have a really tight pack both emotionally and physically. They’re all within a step or two of each other, and it creates great synergy at practice.”
With the youngest runners in town practicing with a program poised for a breakout season, Sublett is hopeful that the Skyhawks will capitalize on the momentum, both on race day, and in town.
“I hope that it’s the first of many practices we do with this group,” Sublett said, “It’d be great to have the high school team plugged in here too and get everybody in together. We might need a bigger venue for all the runners, but it’d be fun to have them come up and see us at Fort Lewis and go through a practice up on our turf and get more people involved.”
bploen@durangoherald.com
