Titans track looks ahead to solid 2022 season

“We’ve got our eyes on state for a couple of people”

[  by Than Acuff  ]

Transitioning into a new coach is always tough for any high school sports program and while the Crested Butte Titans track team is doing just that, it’s not a totally new coach at the helm.

Christa Meilak has been working with the middle school track team for over 20 years. Last year she was called upon to assist at the high school level and when the head coach stepped away from the program, Meilak stepped into the head coach role for the 2022 season.

“I thought I was retiring this year,” jokes Meilak. “I’ve seen a lot of them over the years and it’s kind of neat to watch them from sixth grade to when they’re seniors.”

Meilak has Shari Sullivan Marshall as her assistant, another coach with a long history in the Titans running program as she coaches cross-country in the fall. Not to mention the number of volunteers she has that can help out when and if needed.

Good thing too as Meilak has 26 athletes out this spring including six seniors and similar numbers from all of the high school classes.

“It’s a good number, it feels good,” says Meilak. “It’s pretty even across all of the classes.”

As is always the case, Titans spring sports have the snow to battle and some years are harder than others as winter can hang on until May. The track team often searches for hallway space, gym space and the occasional muddy road to get preseason workouts in but Meilak made it her goal to get the team better opportunities to train.

“I pushed really hard to get us time on a track,” says Meilak.

As a result, the Titans get two afternoons a week to train on the track at Western Colorado University. Two other afternoons are a mix of time in the gym and outside and then Friday morning is all about pre-meet prep.

“We have a meet pretty much every Saturday so Friday morning is prep day for meets such as stretching, mobility work and yoga type stuff,” explains Meilak.

The season started with preseason workouts on Monday, February 28 and the focus through the first two weeks has been fairly succinct.

“We started with basic fitness and strength and getting our warm up routine down,” says Meilak. “Slowly now we’ve been building up our fitness level and really learning how to run again and establishing what it feels like to run at pace.”

Now, while the team continues to build on their preseason workouts, the coaches and athletes are also working out who is going to compete in what events from sprints, to distance as well as jumps.

“We kind of have a bit of everything, we’ve got a good base all over,” says Meilak. “What we’re allowing them to do is pick their one event and then trying them out in other events.”

Ten of the 26 Titan athletes made it to the preseason meet in Montrose on Saturday, March 12 to start the process of testing the waters of different events and competing in their pre-determined events. Additional fine-tuning will occur as the team heads to Delta for a meet on Saturday, March 19.

“We have eight meets plus the state meet and that’s great,” says Meilak. “They’ll be locked into their events by our meet on April 9 and start getting some state qualifying numbers. We’ve got our eyes on state for a couple of people.”