The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
New head coach to lead squad
by Than Acuff
Shari Sullivan-Marshall stepped down after years of coaching the Crested Butte Titans cross-country team, but they are far from lost as Bart Spedden has stepped up into the role after watching his daughter race as a freshman last year.
“I got excited about jumping in and supporting her,” says Spedden. “And when I look back, coaches were some of the most important people in my life and now I get to pass that on.”
Spedden is fortunate in that he has two assistant coaches helping him with Laura Puckett Daniels, who has spent years as a head and assistant running coach for the Titans, and Colton Stice who ran for Gunnison High School and Western Colorado University.
“I’m so grateful to have both of them and so much credit goes to Shari,” says Spedden. “She has established a great team and a great structure.”
Spedden’s coaching experience and his history with running are an interesting mix. He wrestled and played soccer in high school as well as coached wrestling and admits that running was something he always did with other sports. Then, the trail running bug bit him and he entered the 100-mile racing fray competing in the Run Rabbit Run race in Steamboat. A career that started with a DNF, then an injury a week before his second attempt but culminated with finishing the race on his third attempt with a more focused regimen.
“I changed my focus to training,” says Spedden.
Spedden has nine runners this year with no seniors, four juniors, three sophomores and one freshman. And the plan started for him well before they all met on Monday, August 10 for their first practice.
“I looked at their best times from last year and decided to start off at 70% of that,” says Spedden. “Week after week, if we can stay healthy, we will keep adding a little until we reach 100%.”
And health is the overriding theme for Spedden and his athletes. He points out no one enjoys being injured and with health come happiness and, ultimately, progression.
“Happy runners are fast runners, so we want to keep them healthy,” says Spedden.
Spedden points out that with nine runners, some of whom are looking to make a big step this season of running, he can focus on some individualized training appropriate for each runner with the overriding focus on health.
“Having a small team allows us to do different things with a lot more individualized attention,” says Spedden. “We’re going to start with strength and once we have strong bodies, we can work on other things. Building strong bodies before we bring in race pace. But we do have a mix, so we have some kids that are ready for that.”
The Titans get their first test when they head to a race in Buena Vista on Saturday, August 29 and based on those initial results, Spedden and his coaching staff can then start to tweak training accordingly.
“We’ll find out where they are to then structure training from there,” says Spedden.
In the end, Spedden looks to accomplish one main goal when they wrap up their season, hopefully at the state championships.
“When they come out of the program, we want them to have the intuition on how to run in a healthy way,” says Spedden.
