The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
“We told them, embrace the suck”
By Than Acuff
The Crested Butte Titans track and field team returned to action following the April break with three workouts and a meet in Olathe on Thursday, April 23 and coach Shari Sullivan-Marshall admits the coaching staff was pleasantly surprised with what they saw as eight athletes set new personal record (PR) marks, eight set new season best (SB) marks and the team cracked the top 10 in 10 events.
The Titans were handed suggested workouts heading into the week break and while an entire week would have been ideal to prepare for the first meet after break, they had to push up to competing in the Olathe Pirate Invite since Prom would trump any meet scheduled for Saturday. As a result, the coach’s mantra for the team heading into Olathe was simple.
“We told them, embrace the suck,” says Sullivan-Marshall. “We treated the meet a little bit like a practice but really to get them back into racing.”
It became apparent that some did the work that was asked while some did not but across the board, they were at least well rested and were ready to compete and locked in.
“Everyone came back refreshed and ready and our strategy was to not worry about times and goals, just work on race strategies,” says Sullvan-Marshall. “They rose to the occasion and exceeded our expectations.”
Case in point, on the girl’s side Dari Spedden set new PRs in the 1600 meters and 800 meters to finish in fourth and seventh place respectively. Spedden, Barbara Siqueira, Ilo Hawley and Sophia Bender then teamed up for a SB in the 4×400-meter relay to place sixth and Bender doubled down with a fifth-place finish in the 400 meters.
“The girls 4×4 was so competitive and super crowded with dropped handoffs and they ran great,” says Sullivan-Marshall.
Additional fire came from the boys’ side as well starting with the distance runners. Cody Pleak ran a PR time to place second in the 800 meters and Flint Hoyt set a new SB time in the 3200-meters to place third. Noah Lockman and Eero Stai showed no signs of the April Break setting PR times in 800 and 1600 meter runs respectively while Micah Hansen, John Lockman, Noah and Oskar Camp teamed up to place ninth in the 4×800-meter relay.
Within the big races were numerous other races that allowed Titans to get back into racing form as well.
“The heats were seeded really well so there were some really good races going on throughout the day,” says Sullivan-Marshall. “It gave our kids the opportunity to compete in their heats and do their best.”
The Titans have a huge test coming up this week as they hit the road for back-to-back meets Friday and Saturday, May 1-2. The team will kick off the two-day stretch in Cañon City and then head to Colorado Springs.
“It’s exciting,” says Sullivan-Marshall. “It’s fun to see some new competition and we’re definitely being strategic about who is competing in what events over the two days.”
