Widefield High School Cross Country Team Blog
Week 2 Announcements
Hello WHSXC! We hope everyone has had a good weekend. As a quick reminder, we are aware you get Parent Square messages from the district, school, and individual teachers. We are going to do our best to send out a weekly message with info on the upcoming week and then only send out messages for updates or changes during the week. As such, please be sure to read our weekly announcements to be up to date on all upcoming information.
We got our racing season off to an unofficial start with the Doherty Scrimmage this past Saturday. Congratulations to everyone who ran in this “practice” 5k. We had some very solid starts and a number of people completed their first 5k. This is such a big accomplishment and we are very proud of all of you! Now we have a starting point and a place to improve from.
This week we continue with our typical schedule:
Monday–long run (for those not doing it on Sunday) or speed development
Tuesday and Thursday–workout
Wednesday–swimming pool and weight room; Parents Meeting (see below)
Friday–run and weight room
Saturday–Cheyenne Mountain Stampede at Norris Penrose Event Center/Bear Creek Regional Park
Parent Meeting
We will have our parent meeting this Wednesday, August 19, after practice at 6pm. We will do our best to keep this brief, but we do need to go over policies and expectations, how to letter in XC, and answer any questions. The location of this meeting will be announced ASAP.
Cheyenne Mountain Stampede
Bus departs from WHS–7:45
Varsity Boys–9:30
JV Boys–9:32
Varsity Girls–10:10
JV Girls–10:12
Estimated bus return–around 11:30
-We are using times from the scrimmage to determine who is eligible to race at the Stampede and in what races. We are considering an alternative method of qualifying to race for those who did not get to run in the scrimmage.
Running Gear/ Team Store
Our Mile Club and team shirts this year are being provided by a new, exciting running apparel company called Terignota. Mrs. Coach and I have been running in their gear for the past 6 months or so and have been very impressed with it. It is all designed for trail running, but we have enjoyed wearing it for everyday running. One example of the features we appreciate are the running shorts have several pockets, including a rear zip pocket large enough for a large cell phone. Their prices are ½ to ⅓ of what we would typically pay for comparable running gear with a large, well known company, but seems to be very high quality.
We have the ability to place a group order to save on shipping if anyone is interested in purchasing gear from Terignota. However, as a small company their inventory sells out and is not quickly replaced.
If interested in purchasing any of their gear for your personal use, please check out their website at https://terignota.com/collections/all and bring orders and money to Coach Nelson by the end of the week (Friday, August 21st) so we can place a group order and have gear in hand before the home meet.
Training Schedule
Please note cross country is typically a 6 day a week commitment, with practice every weekday and meets on the weekends. Later in the season when we have weekday meets, we will have Saturday practices.
At this point, we have 2 weekends we will not plan on practicing. The first is Labor Day weekend, September 5-7. We have a WHSXC reunion all members of our team are invited to on Saturday, September 5th, but there will be no practice over Labor Day weekend. Everyone should run 1 day over the long weekend on their own.
The second weekend we take off from team practice is September 26.
Both of these weekends will work as recovery weekends to allow everyone a mental and physical break from the grind of the cross country season.
Growing our team
Finally, we would still like to grow our team! Ideally, we would love to get another 10-15 runners to join us. We will allow juniors and seniors who have been at WHS to join our team until the end of the upcoming week (August 21st). After that we will only allow freshmen and sophomores or juniors and seniors who are new to WHS to join our team.
Please continue talking to interested individuals, creating interest as you meet new people, and communicating the need for a sense of urgency to join us.
That is all for week 2. See you all tomorrow!
WHSXC 2026
Here comes another great season of cross country!
Our first day of practice will be Monday, August 10. We will start at 3:05pm sharp.
Our first opportunity to compete will be at the Doherty scrimmage at Monument Valley Park on Saturday, August 15 at 7:30 am. We will not have a bus for this scrimmage, so anyone wanting to compete will need to get themselves there. We will also not issue team uniforms for this meet.
Joe Vigil Open in Alamosa
On Saturday, September 6 our team will be traveling to the Joe Vigil Invitational in Alamosa, Colorado. The meet takes place at the Cattails Golf Course in Alamosa.
Girls run at 9:40am with boys following at 10:25. There are no separate Varsity and JV races at this meet, so everyone will run in these 2 races.
The course is very flat and a combination of grass and dirt trail. It tends to produce fast times for being at 7000 feet. The forecast calls for partly cloudy skies and temperatures in the high 40s to mid 50s while we are there. This is absolutely perfect racing weather, but it might be chilly for warming up and standing around, so everyone needs to bring layers. It is also forecast to rain in Alamosa overnight before the race, so please bring extra shoes and socks to be dry after the meet.
The bus for the meet will depart at 5:30am sharp. We will leave anyone not there at 5:29 behind. Please arrive at 5:20am so we can load up and be ready to leave. In addition to extra layers, everyone needs to eat breakfast before coming to the school or bring breakfast to eat on the bus. Everyone also needs to have healthy snacks--eating at 5am and not again until a race at 9:40 or 10:25 is too long and can lead to issues finishing the race feeling well. Be sure to hydrate on the drive as well. We will make a bathroom stop half way.
After the meet we will get pizza for the runners. We should return home around 3pm.
We are looking forward to a great race in Alamosa!
WHSXC 2025
Our team web site is back up and running! There may be a few glitches to be ironed out still, so bear with us. However, this is the best place to go for results and details on meets. In addition, we are starting to use Parent Square for announcements and reminders.
It is going to be a great season!
Scrimmage 2024
Congratulations to everyone who ran at the scrimmage this morning. We had some very good and exciting things happen. Please see the results and highlights below.
Jose Nelson and Gracie Mikan both ran under the Automatic Letter Time and led the team for the first time ever.
Isaac Wallace ran over a minute faster than he did at this race last year. He and Jose did a nice job feeding off of one another and pushing each other.
Aidan and Jayden both ran under 20:00 to start the season. For Jayden this is over 90 seconds faster than he started last season. For Aidan it was a very good start for his first ever 5k.
Lexi was less than 45 second from the Automatic Letter Time in her first every 5k!
Ayden ran his first race since he began dealing with health issues last winter and did so very successfully.
Khawaun, Gabbi, Bri, and Marley all completed their first high school 5k in an impressive manner. For Khawaun today's race capped off his very first week of high school running. For the ladies this was a very solid starting point of what will undoubtedly be a season full of big improvements.
Great job to everyone who competed today! The times we got for everyone are below.
Runner Mile 1 Mile 2 Final Time
Jose Nelson 5:54 12:00 18:42
Isaac Wallace 5:50 12:00 18:55
Aiden Estrada Garza 6:16 12:40 19:50
Jayden Gomez 6:17 12:57 19:56
Ayden Merrick 6:39 14:11 22:13
Khawaun Baptiste 7:05 15:06 23:24
Gracie Mikan 6:53 14:10 21:50
Lexi Marjerrison 7:35 15:10 23:24
Gabbi DeLeon 8:39 17:50 27:46
Brianne Krolikowski 8:39 17:50 27:47
Marley Paul 10:23 22:15 35:06
We encourage everyone to go for a long run together this weekend. For those who raced today that run should be at a relaxed pace but long enough to qualify as a long run.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend! See you on Monday!