A unique course around the school. CCAL gets creative with cross country meets
Work with what you’ve got.
With the cities of Modesto and Turlock unable to give permits for cross country meets in time for schools to begin hosting events, the Central California Athletic League administrators and coaches became creative.
Design courses around school campuses.
On Wednesday, Pitman’s course included running through the campus that included starting on a grass field before heading diagonally across the football field and into the hard pavement near the main buildings of the school.
The course, a far cry from typical venues like Legion Park in Modesto or Donnelly Park in Turlock, also featured runners running around both the baseball and softball fields.
With various angles to the race, runners could easily get lost and some did before being re-directed by race organizers and teammates.
The Pride hosted Enochs and Turlock and Pride boys cross country coach Eren Fisher was running around campus to make sure the “course” was easily marked with arrows and tape for runners to navigate, despite some still having trouble.
“It’s been a year since I’ve been yelling,” Fisher said in-between races.
In windy conditions, junior varsity runners, both boys and girls, ran together, before boys varsity took their turn through the Christoffersen Parkway campus. The girls race came next.
Junior varsity ran one loop of the course for two miles while varsity added a second half loop to make it three miles.
To help stop the spread of the coronavirus, parents were not allowed on campus and three “zones” were created at the starting line for each school and masks were required at all times unless a competitor was racing.
After running between 30-45 miles a week for eight months, Pitman junior Efren Sanchez looked to build off of a strong sophomore campaign on the varsity squad and led the boys race wire-to-wire, winning with a time of 16 minutes, 32 seconds, a 15-second personal best.
“I felt good and strong as a runner,” Sanchez said.
Maci Day played on the Pitman junior varsity volleyball team before she joined cross country just in time for the last league meet in 2019 and competed at the section meet.
“I realized I was better at cross country and have stuck with it,” Day said.
It was the right choice as the sophomore won the girls varsity race in 19:31, a personal best and her first career win.
“I didn’t know what to expect (today) and just wanted to see where I am,” Day said.
Gregori hosted Downey and Modesto and Jaguars’ junior Jaren Johnson won the boys race with a time of 18:20 and senior Madison Kackley won the girls race in 20:57 for Gregori.
