Guthrie coach moving team in right direction
Rounding the bend near the white A-frame pavilion, James Strahorn’s red Nikes pound the pavement as he catches up to his pack of runners.
“Everybody feeling good?” Strahorn asks. “Two more laps and then we’ll run back to school.”
As he came around the loop at Mineral Wells Park in Guthrie, Strahorn speeds over to another group of runners as they make their way past a pond and back onto the asphalt road.
“How was everyone’s first day of school?” he says as he strides in line with the group. “Have any fun classes?”
After making small talk for a few hundred feet, Strahorn spies a lone runner coming the other direction.
He turned on his heel and followed.
Strahorn, the 25-yearold coach at Guthrie High School, could run all day if he needed to.
Literally.
When Strahorn is not busy running with his team, he's either preparing for or running in an ultramarathon, taking on gruelling 100-mile marches that can sometimes last more than 24 hours.
“When people hear what it is, they think I’m kinda crazy,” he said. “But I really love the challenge and just knowing I can take on something that sounds so impossible.”
Since becoming the head cross country coach a year ago, Strahorn's main challenge has been getting Guthrie back in contention. The boys cross country team has six state titles in program history, the last coming in 2010. The girls team won its only state title in 2003.
Strahorn didn't run in college but did in high school at Blackwell. He took a job as the physical education coach at Guthrie when he heard about the job opening.
"It seemed like a perfect fit," Strahorn said. "Amazingly, Guthrie felt the same."
This Friday, Guthrie is hosting a meet filled with some of the state’s best teams in what should be one of the first big races of the cross country season.
For practice, Strahorn and about 40 kids traverse from the school through historic downtown Guthrie and over to Mineral Wells Park, the site of the very first Bedlam Football game in 1904.
Strahorn runs with the team, talking to his athletes about technique and form as well as what’s going on in life.
“I just think we have the greatest group of kids,” Strahorn said. “I love getting to talk with them and I let them kind of guide the conversation. It’s amazing how well we get to know each other just on those runs.”
It’s a far cry from the runs Strahorn does in his spare time.
Running ultramarathons is rough on the body. Strahorn's most recent races came in mid-August when he ran the Habanero Hundred in Cat Spring, Texas just outside of Houston.
Billed as the hottest competition in Texas, the race is known for pushing runners to the limit.
Strahorn finished third overall with a time of 25 hours and 10 minutes, taking breaks only to eat, drink and use the bathroom.
“It wasn’t pretty,” he said. “I just had to battle through.”
Why would anyone put themselves through such a grueling task?
Strahorn says he enjoys the challenge as well as the time to reflect.
“It’s a lot of time thinking about life,” Strahorn said. “It’s a time away where I can forget about anything personal or work related and I’m just away from the world.”
What do his runners think about their coaches long-distance endeavors?
"I think he’s crazy," says junior runner Mercy Dement. "But he loves it and he’s good at it."
Guthrie's girls team finished fifth overall last year at the state meet and the boys placed eighth. Guthrie has gotten off to a good start this season. The girls won the Carl Albert Titan Cross Country Invitational last week and the boys finished second.
Dement said it's also cool to know that her coach knows exactly what they are going through during a race.
"He knows what it’s like to be in our shoes," she said. "He levels with us and I think we are finally figuring out our potential."