2025 Results

The Boys Varsity won and the Girls Frosh/Soph were second, ahead of Mountain Vista (last year's NXN National Champions) and behind Niwot (2nd at Nationals two years ago and projected top 10 this year.)

It was a great performance. Conditions were good - overcast and no wind - and the team capitalized!

There were a ton of huge improvements at Vista. 

 𝚫 TT = time change from our time trial (many were faster, despite the 2-mile being about 220 meters farther!) 

𝚫 LY = time change from Vista last year. Sophie, Lila, Marin, Jay and Lukas were well more than a minute faster than last year! 

The average time of our top 5 boys was 10:23, which was 26 seconds faster than last year, despite the graduations of Josh and Will. The girls top 5 average time was 12:45, 42 seconds faster than last year despite the graduation of Ella and Avery.

Dillon Benbow compiled this great merge of the Vista 2-mile results: 

Lots of great photos by Myrth, Paul and Dillon are here.

2025/8/26: Summit cross-country begins season with strong performances in Highlands Ranch

WHEN:  Saturday, 24 August 2024

WHERE:  Mountain Vista High School, 10585 Mountain Vista Ridge, Highlands Ranch, CO 80126

TRANSPORTATION: Bus pickup at SHS (back entrance/track side) at 6:00. Depart by 6:10. 90-minute drive. Return approximately 1:30 pm. We will likely stop somewhere for food after the race.

OUR RACE TIMES:

8:30 Frosh/Soph Boys 

8:50 Frosh/Soph Girls

9:10 Boys Varsity 2-Mile

9:30 Girls Varsity 2-Mile 

9:50 JR/SR Boys 

10:10 JR/SR Girls 

10:45 Awards After Final Race

SCORING:

Varsity - Run 7, Score 5

Frosh/Soph and Junior/Senior - Run unlimited, Score 5

COURSE: The course is on a spectator friendly 1200-meter loop that runs around the perimeter of Mountain Vista High School. The loop is 90% dirt trail and 10% grass. You will be able to see nearly 100% of the race. 

AWARDS: The top 10 individuals in each race will receive a bag of Sour Patch Kids.  Trophies that have nothing at all to do with running will be given to the top team in each race.

Live Results: https://fitmap.app/events/vista-nation-xc-2-mile-invitational 

course Map

directions

Mountain Vista is hosting the SAT at the same time as the 2-Mile on Saturday morning. Parking was a bit of a challenge last year between the SAT and race. If the front and back parking lots are full, they recommend parking in the neighborhood off of Poston Parkway and walking up through Red Tail Park. 

2024 Results

The Mountain Vista 2-Mile was a great first race for us. Now, you could view it pessimistically and think the race results show cause for concern. The girls placed 7th in the merge of all divisions, one spot lower than last year. The boys placed 7th as well, two spots below last years 5th. The average time of our top 5 girls was over 40 seconds slower than last year. The average time of the top 5 boys was 10 seconds lower than last year.

Put into context, though, this was a strong and encouraging start. Better than last year.

First, the meet was much more competitive this year, with more and better teams. This meet was a showdown of very strong 5A teams. Last year there were 10 teams. This year there were 14 teams, with the addition of very strong 5A teams Northfield and Erie and 4A Thompson Valley.

The girls side featured the #1, #2 and #5 pre-season ranked teams IN THE NATION! On the boys side, Niwot is pre-season ranked in some polls as #3 in the nation, Mountain Vista is perennially a top 5A team and Northfield was 2024 State Track and Field Champions and is a rapidly growing school and team, while Thompson Valley is ranked #2 in 4A State and as an outside contender to qualify for NXN. (After Saturday, I'm contemplating voting TV as #1 in the 4A coaches poll.)

Second, it was quite a bit warmer and windier than last year, with a direct headwind in the finishing stretch. I estimate the conditions differential as 30 seconds or even more this year.

In that context, there were several outstanding performances, led by Josh's 6 second improvement from last year for 2nd place overall. (Remember Niwot is ranked #3 in the nation.) Cain had a big 19 second improvement, Gavin 7 seconds and the biggest improvement of the day went to Owen at 56 seconds faster than last year. For the girls, Ella was 18 seconds slower than last year, arguably a relative improvement given the conditions, for a 5th overall place in a very stacked field. Lily also had a relative improvement at 20 seconds slower than 2023, placing 24 places higher than last year in a considerably larger and stronger field. Ashley also placed higher than last year. Lila was closest to last year's time, at 9 seconds back.

Third, several Summit runners were missing this year, including Avery Eytel, Cece Miner, Milla Phaf, Carter Niemkiewicz, Jens Phaf and Johnny and Levi Ryan. Plus, last year's average time for girls included Lindsey Kiehl, who couldn't run for us at Regionals and State. 

Fourth, and hugely, our freshmen showed strong!! Cooper placed 6th for Summit followed five seconds later by Sophomore (but first year XC runner) Malachi. Sophie and Paige placed 3rd and 4th for our girls and show that they will big contributions to our team performances. All of our other freshmen did great in their first high school race and showed they will be big contributors to the team now and as they develop.

Add back in the missing runners and we have a lot to be proud of. We should be confident that with continued work and gradual improvement, we will compete strongly at the big meets at the end of the season.

As I've said, running requires patience. It can take some time before all the work and all the miles you run express themselves in the form of the improved times and placements you desire. Enjoy the process of putting in the work. Believe that the delayed gratification of improved performance is well worth the journey and effort.

PTE - Pursue Team Excellence

"If you pursue team excellence you will achieve individual excellence."

Looking forward, we can be certain that Summit runners will be advantaged by longer 5k races and cooler temperatures at the important meets in October and November.

Full merged (all divisions combined) results are here.

Cody Jones breaks down the races in this great Summit Daily Article: Summit High School cross-county team kicks off season with numerous top-10 finishes

Thanks to Paul Steinweg and Dillon Benbow for taking a bunch of great photos. Below are just a few. See them all here (and add your own) here.

You did a lot of things very well beyond your running. You responded calmly to the late bus and resulting minimal warm up time. You organized your warm ups well on your own while the coaches were at the coaches meeting. You set up and took down the team camp and cleaned up the area. Upperclassmen were great mentors for the freshmen.

I was especially impressed and want to compliment you and express my gratitude for a comment I received at our post-race meal. The boys and girls separated to different restaurants. Naturally! When I shuttled back to the boys restaurant, a waiter and waitress both said, without prompting, "Your TEAM was very polite!" That is outstanding and reflects the character of students drawn to cross country.

Now, there is one area that needs improvement. I would have "chewed you out" on the bus, but with the bus being late, decided I didn't want to add another stressor at the moment. I told everyone to wear Summit gear onto the bus and at all times at the meet. We weren't close to 100% compliance.

Our appearance impacts the reputation and performance of the TEAM.

Let's do better next time. 100% seems reasonable.

Course Records

freshman Course Records

2023 Results

This was a good season opener for us and our results show great promise for the season. Starting the season with a 2-Miler that had a Freshmen/Sophomore division made for a different feel than our normal start at the Battle Mountain 5k, which this year is next week.

Running a 2-Miler was perhaps a little less intimidating for our new runners, but speaking with them afterwards, all are also confident about and looking forward to stepping up to the normal 5k next week.

Highlights of the meet include Josh placing 5th overall and Jay winning the Frosh/Soph division. Jay's time placed him 10th in the merged (combined) results. Will was close behind in 17th. 

The merged results below were compiled by Dillon Benbow, for which we are very thankful. It is very helpful to see the merged individual and team results. While it is great for the freshmen and sophomore to have a race just to themselves early season, it is also good to know where things shake out had they all run in the varsity division.

Highlights on the girls side are Ella placing 2nd in the varsity and Lindsey placing 3rd in the Jr/Sr division. Lindsey will gain post-transfer varsity eligibility for Liberty Bell.

As this was the first time we have competed in the Vista Nation 2-Mile, we don't have any prior SHS times to compare to. The results of this year's race are our all-time records. However, we can compare our times this year to the course records, and we made some marks on those lists.

Josh's time was the 9th fastest ever recorded on this course! That's something, as the race has been held many years and always attracts some of the top teams in the state. Scrolling down the list, I see the names of a few state champions below Josh! And his time was only 6 seconds behind Gatorade athlete of the year and Stanford runner Cole Sprout! Josh is 4th on the Junior list.

Jay's time places him 2nd on the all-time Freshman list and 24th overall!

Ella is 3rd on the all-time list and Lily and Ashley are 53rd and 73rd on the Freshman list.

As a team, our girls placed 6th after the merge, which is what really matters. Three nationally ranked teams were ahead of us. Mountain Vista and Air Academy looked very strong and highly deserving of their national rankings - and Air Academy rested U.S. #1 (in some rankings) Bethany Michalak. The Chaparral girls also did very well and will rocket up the 5A rankings because of this performance. Nationally ranked 4A competitor Niwot wasn't that many points ahead of us, but rested most of their top girls. 

Both Air Academy and Niwot are expected to qualify as teams for NXN, so their seasons will be going into December. Thus they decide to push back their season start for many of their runners.

The boys team finished 5th in the merge. Multi-time state champions Niwot and Mountain Vista were #1 and #2. We finished ahead of former 5A State Champions Broomfield and Dakota Ridge and last years #6 5A team Cherokee Trail.

All of the above is contingent on it being early season and too early to tell if some teams withheld some of their top runners.

We had very strong performances by our new Freshmen boys and girls. This is hugely important in improving our team depth and is crucial to our placing in bigger meets and at State. Had we run this course before, I'm sure our upperclassmen would have shown big improvements year to year, which also is critical to a high placement at State. 

Compared to last year, we continue to have great "low sticks", but more importantly we have much improved depth all the way to the #7 positions and well beyond. This means we can have much better consistency and have considerably more room for improvement as the season progresses. With continued hard work by the entire team, our 3 through 7 positions can improve considerably. At a large and competitive meet like the State Championship, it usually the strength of the 3 through 5 positions that determine team results. This year we can do better than EVER in these most important positions. 

I am also enthused by the fact that for the first time ever, we can compete to be the top JV teams - boys and girls - at many meets, especially against 4A competition. Going for team JV victories makes it fun for everyone and is how teams really develop into feared competitors.

Looking forward to this Friday at Battle Mountain we can expect strong competition from our regional 4A rivals Battle Mountain and Eagle Valley. Based on Vista Nation, I believe both our boys and girls can make strong challenges for the top step of the podium!

Full Results are on MileSplit, here.

The full merge prepared by Dillon Benbow is here.

2023 Photos here. Please upload your photos.

2023 Race entries

The seed times are very incomplete. They only include those that have done a 2 mile time. These are only the top varsity entries with seed times from previous years. Many of them are times from middle school. There are many top runners entered who have no prior 2-mile time, so don't appear below.

Full entries are here: https://co.milesplit.com/meets/563319-vista-nation-xc-2-mile-invitational-2023/entries

Course records