It's Thursday, and that means we're just hours away from the beginning of another exciting weekend of high school cross country in the Land of Enchantment.
Only, there's a lot of New Mexico leaving the Land of Enchantment this weekend. I'll try to help you to get a grasp here on just how much of New Mexico is making a run for the border. Albuquerque Academy is heading up to Littleton, Colorado, to run in Friday's Liberty Bell Invitational, a screamer of a race that just might be the biggest meet in the entire Rocky Mountain region.
A couple of schools in the Farmington area are rumored to be seeking the coolness of the Durango air (but it's always a two-edged sword as cooler air is also thinner air) at the Southwest Cross Country Invitational. Last year, that course ran extremely fast, which may have been due to ideal conditions, perhaps a slightly short course, or maybe a combination thereof. The Coronado Invitational in Texas has Gadsden and Mesilla Valley Christian on its list of attending schools.
There are likely others to be aware of, but my tentacles of information are still in the process of developing reach across the state.
For those schools staying in New Mexico, the action packs pretty much exclusively into Saturday.
On Saturday morning, the two Albuquerque meets are hosted by Albuquerque High at Hard Rock Pavilion and Atrisco Heritage at I'm-not-sure-exactly-where. Presumably, if you're going to the meet, you have that information. If you'd like to pass that information along, I'd be happy to update the information available on this site. The Atrisco Heritage meet looks to be the bigger of the two meets and should be drawing La Cueva, Hope Christian, Eldorado, Rio Rancho, and Volcano Vista. That should make for some very nice compeititon.
Up north, if you like altitude but can't make the trip to Durango, Taos is welcoming folks to their invitational at Kit Carson Park. If you don't get enough exercise there, find a road into the Sangre de Cristos and check out the fall colors in the aspen groves. The Jemez Invitational also qualifies as "up north," but maybe more northwest than north. Laguna-Acoma headlines the list of teams headed to the Jemez Valley. Way out there in the northwest is the Shiprock Invitational. Shiprock looks to pick up Zuni and several other schools from their corner of the state, and beyond. Shiprock's Invitational has a long history of reaching into Arizona, Utah, and Colorado. You can access results from the last couple years of this meet on the Shiprock Invitational meet page.
At the oppositive corner of the state, Roswell will be the site of the Pecos Valley Invitational, co-hosted by Roswell and Goddard. Given that there isn't much else scheduled in the south of New Mexico for this weekend, I'm guessing this meet will have a big turnout. Either that or a few meets in Texas are raking in some New Mexico entry fees.
As with every week, the invitation stands to send in results, photos, and even videos (please contact me first if you'd like to submit video) to go up onto this site for all to enjoy. Mostly, though, have a great weekend of cross country!