Cross country takes center stage
Vacaville Christian athletes patiently await the starting gun
Until now, cross country has generally been the red-headed stepchild of high school sports.
Overshadowed by its fall counterparts like football and girls volleyball, long-distance runners sometimes went under the radar. But all that changed when the California Interscholastic Federation classified sports by COVID-colored tier.
Cross country, one of a handful of sports CIF said could start if a county was in the purple tier, was suddenly thrust into the spotlight. The CIF had divided the January through June calendar into two seasons. Cross country was the only purpletier sport in season one, which is slated to begin competition on Jan. 25.
Suddenly, cross country became the envy of the other purple tier sports — golf, tennis, track and field, and swimming and diving — all of which were not scheduled to start until season two. But at least two sections — the North Coast and Central Coast — have now moved those sports to season one.
The Sac-Joaquin Section has yet to follow suit. However, the section’s Board of Managers is meeting on Tuesday to discuss possible major changes to the current seasons one and two, according to Joan Mumaugh, commissioner of the Monticello Empire League.
However, no sports will begin competition until stay-at-home orders are lifted.
In the meantime, cross country runners like Josh Shelby and Laura Everett of Vacaville Christian High have continued to train since COVID restrictions began in March. Running is not a sport one can let lie dormant.
“I attended a level 2 USA Track and Field coaches certification,” said Shannon Bubar, head track and field coach at VCS. “After just two weeks off there’s a reduction of 6 percent of VO2 max (the maximum amount of oxygen a person can utilize during intense exercise), a 19 percent reduction and a significant decrease in power after
30 to 63 days off, and a 25.7 percent reduction and a severe decrease in power after more than 63 days.”
The track and field season was shut down early last spring due to COVID, so Everett, Shelby and their teammates kept training and set their sights on the fall cross country season. Then that got pushed back to December, and then to January. And now… who knows? How do they keep motivated?
“I just kept going and I also pray to God that everything would go back to the way it was and end the pandemic,” said Shelby, a senior. “Then we could have a season.”
“Thankfully our girls varsity team, we’re very close,” said Everett, a junior, of her cross country squad. “We’re pretty much a family instead of a team. We’re definitely bonded and I think it’s unique that even lowerclassmen and upperclassmen, we are still so close as team members… So that way we just remain motivated and we still come out every day to train even if it might not be for a season because of how much we care about the team.”
“Since cross country can compete when in the purple tier,” said VCS head cross country coach Mia Sarah Douglas, “we are just waiting for the shelter in place for the county to lift to compete. We are up against the clock, however.
Season two starts in March and most if not all of our kids are dual athletes. With us training since June, running fatigue has kicked in and kids just want to compete and move on.”
Shelby runs the 400, 800 and 1,600 meters and the 4-by-400-meter relay for the track team. If the SacJoaquin Section moves track to season one, Shelby and other cross country runners will face the challenge of taking on both sports in the same season.
“That’s one thing that I’ve been thinking about because I don’t know what dual sports are like,” said Shelby. “So maybe I would do one day dedicated to cross country and the following day track. In track I would focus a little less on running and work more on my abs and muscles. For cross country I would run more… I think if the meets for cross country and track were different times (days), I might be able to handle it.”
Everett is a four-sport athlete — cross country, track, swimming and basketball. Those first three could all end up in season one if the Sac-Joaquin Section makes that move next week.
“Because of the intensity of track and cross country, I would probably only choose one of those two and swim at the same time,” said Everett, “because personally swim is a nice way for me to work out my muscles but also remove any soreness I might be feeling from cross country or just running in general. Most likely I would pursue a swim and cross country season.”
If basketball, which cannot be played until a county is in the yellow tier, got under way in season two, she would compete in that sport as well.
Even when the stay-athome order is lifted in Solano County, VCS will face a challenge to complete a cross country season.
“Our small Sierra Delta League only has four out of the seven schools that are ready to compete as soon as Solano is cleared,” she said. “Dual meets, instead of full league meets, is what we are looking at, if any, and casual staggered fun runs with local schools are in the works.”
In the meantime, it’s practice, practice, practice.
Prior to fall practice, some of the VCS cross country kids got together informally.
“We were making little unofficial workout plans throughout the time that we were in that threemonth quarantine,” Everett said. “And we would all run two miles or six miles on any given day and just all try to get that done independently.”
Shelby spent a lot of time running on his treadmill and doing pushups and planks (abdominal bridge exercises).
Since school started (which is in-person at VCS), the team practices three days a week — hills one day, speed intervals another day and distance running the third day. Practices are from one-and-a-half to two hours. The student-athletes run anywhere from 5-7 miles on the distance day. For speed intervals, they run around the track at specific distances, such as 800 meters or a mile, and repeat those patterns. The goal is to increase their speed for the day they get to run a 5,000-meter (a little more than three miles) race again.
“Our coach has been very mindful about not overworking us because it’s been such a long season,” said Everett. “She is tweaking workouts a little bit and really adjusting them to fit this elongated season… That’s with the goal of us not having any injuries from overwork of our muscles. We’re trying not to have any sprains or shin splints or tendinitis.”
While waiting for the season to begin, the athletes focus on personal goals. Shelby, who would like to run for Sacramento State next fall, wants to break the 17-minute mark for three miles. His current best is 17 minutes, 13 seconds.
Everett said, “This year I am trying to seek consistent improvement by putting all of my effort into every race. I am hoping to improve on my times from last season.”
They and their teammates long for actual competition.
“I just want to give these kids something tangible already,” Douglas said. “They have been working so hard and I think their hands are just as tired as their feet with hanging onto tiny glimmers of hope.”