COLORADO SPRINGS – Discovery Canyon’s Emma Lindsey had a plane to catch, but there was no way she going to get off the course sooner at the expense of what the Thunder was looking to accomplish.
The cross country race at the Coronado Cougar Classic was going to be a team effort. It’s by design that they run that way and it makes for a great team result while still promoting individual excellence. Lindsey finished eighth at Monument Valley Park on Thursday, running the race in 20 minutes, 46.91 seconds.
The first five runners to cross the finish line all hailed from Douglas County which easily gave them the team win. Discovery Canyon finished third and finished there because of a very clear blueprint for the runners.
“We had our top three runners go out and try to stay together,” assistant coach Ashley Frye said. “For our other runners, we had them stay together for the first mile and if they felt good, they could pick it up. Running seems like such an individualistic sport but cross country is really a team sport.”
Less than a minute after Lindsey crossed the finish line, Annika Hammatquist became the second Thunder runner to finish.
Going out in the race together and feeding off each other was exactly how it was drawn up for the duo as they spent much of the summer utilizing the same method in their training.
“The girl that’s right behind me is my best friend Annika,” Lindsey said. “We’ve been training together all summer and it’s nice to have her there to push me when I need her to push me the most.”
This isn’t the first time this season that they’ve fed off each other. At the Liberty Bell Invitational on Sept. 11, they finished within 21 seconds of each other with another teammate, Kate Morrow mixed into the picture as well.
It’s not by accident that there is such a tight grouping between the teammates as they cross the finish line.
“I feel like our team has a lot of (range) of talent,” Lindsey said. “It’s hard to pull everyone up, but it’s such a good strategy because everyone runs faster times and it’s nice just to have them up there as teammates.”
It’s not so much a strategy as it is a belief in each other. They don’t consider themselves teammates during the race, but more so a family. It’s part of the culture of the team that is generating the exact results that the runners and coaches are looking for.
“We never want to point out that someone is our best runner,” Frye said. “We treat everyone completely the same and we encourage each of them to reach their goals and to dream big.”
Whether the dream is capturing a league, regional or state title or if that dream is simply including all runners to create the best possible result, it’s something the team will continue working toward this season.
And even if only one runner can be the first on the team to cross the finish line, she’ll do it in a way that is for the betterment of the team as a whole.