Despite the presence of more than 100 runners, it may have been the course that was the star of the Camp Verde Invitational cross-country meet Saturday, Sept. 29 in Camp Verde.
While most cross-country courses are run on golf courses or in city parks, the Camp Verde cross-country course ambles through the rough and rocky terrain that surrounds the town.
Cowboys’ cross-country coach Mike O’Callaghan described it as “challenging.”
“We had some nice comments about the course,” O’Callaghan said. “The junior girls winner said that she really liked the course. ‘It was fun,’ she said, which you don’t often hear about a course like ours because it is so different.
“One of the coaches said she [brought her team] because it is different.”
But as they say, “vive la différence,” as many of the Cowboy runners achieved personal records, and the winners of both boys and girls races came within seconds of breaking the course record.
Senior Joey Benson said that he and his fellow Cowboys harriers have an edge over visiting runners because they know what to expect on their home course.
“On the hills, you don’t always know how hard they are until you run them,” Benson said. “So I think we had a pretty big advantage knowing where the hard parts are in the hill, and when to speed up, when to slow down.”
For the full story, please see the Wednesday, Oct. 2, issue of the Camp Verde Journal.
