CANMORE – Winter weather smacked down on local runners fighting for some hardware at cross-country zone championships.
Frosty elements were just a passable obstacle for the Canmore Collegiate High School team as it took second place in the 3A group on Oct. 10 on a snow-covered Okotoks course.
“In the last two or three years, (CCHS has) been doing really well as a team,” said head coach Rod Falkenberg.
Individually for CCHS, Isobel Hendry won gold for intermediate girls, and in intermediate boys, Luke Fricker won gold and Jack Menzies took home silver.
Emma Hendry won gold for juvenile girls and Sophia Wilson placed third.
Xavier McKeever secured silver in the juvenile boys division.
The outdoor course was made for cross-country running, mixing rolling hills and flats to sprint on for the high schoolers, who dressed warmly for the white stuff.
But the local mountain athletes have been battle tested in unseasonal conditions so far this season, having not cancelled a practice yet due to snowfall.
“We had to modify one practice slightly,” said Falkenberg. “We started indoors, but it wasn’t that cold so I took them outside and we did hill repeats.”
Out of 23 local racers at zones, the 14 fastest qualified for provincials this Saturday (Oct. 20) in Vermilion.
However, only two of those athletes – Grade 12 Zack Zawada and Grade 10 Alena Kohl - will travel north to represent CCHS in the year-end championship.
Coach Falkenberg said Zawada has made incredible strides over the past three seasons and finishing sixth place at zones is his best result.
The other member going, Austrian-born Kohl, has shown her mental toughness matches her natural speed.
“(Zawada and Kohl) worked the hardest this season, in my opinion,” said Falkenberg. “They came out in the snowstorms and haven’t missed a single practice. They’re the most committed to the program and now they’re the ones going to provincials.”
