Cross country gets back to 'old-fashion' racing

Of all the new restrictions and changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic, sports tend to look about the same as they always have.

That wasn’t the case for cross country this fall.

Instead of having runners start together on the starting line as has been the tradition since the first race was held, the National Federation High Schools, which oversees rules for prep sports in the United States, recommended that cross country put in place methods to spread out runners to keep them socially distant at meets.

Some meets this fall featured “wave” starts in which teams started the 5,000-meter course at different times. Essentially, runners were racing the clock and not each other.

While that happens a lot in track with different heats, or marathon running when it’s impossible to line up hundreds or sometimes thousands of people at the same time, cross country is a completely different sport.

Each course is different and each race gives runners a different challenge.

While they compete against the clock and each other, there’s the challenge of hills and various types of surfaces to cover. Knowing when another runner is struggling on a hill, or taking a better line into a corner and running as a pack are all ways the sport separates itself from other types of races.

The SEMO North Conference cross country meet last week at Cape Central High School featured what one runner called an “old-fashion race.”

Runners on your mark. (bang). Race.

“Way better,” Poplar Bluff’s Salah McCormack said. “It’s way better to pace with everybody in it.”

Deaton had broken 16 minutes on the same course on Sept. 19 in a race that used the wave start, winning by 32.5 seconds. His margin of victory last week was essentially the same (30.3 seconds) in an impressive performance.

“Jaden is a great runner. It was going to be tough getting anybody past him,” said runner-up Evan Stephens from Jackson.

“He’s a stud.”

The cross country season unofficially heats up when the temperature cools off. The conference meet — the Heartland Conference meet was held Tuesday — is the first championship runners covet.

Deaton had come close before, this was his fourth all-conference medal, as he placed third last year and second as a sophomore.

Up next, after a season-ending tuneup at Dexter today, will be the MSHSAA district championships. Deaton won it last year in the rain and mud at Jackson City Park. He also qualified for state by placing fifth at the sectional, then earned all-state honors finishing 22nd.

Deaton can join a rare group of Mules who have qualified for state three times in cross country, becoming the seventh Poplar Bluff runner to do so.

The virus will make the cross country championship meet different this fall.

Instead of all the races held on the first Saturday of November with runners and spectators crowded together and lining either side of the course, MSHSAA will spread it out over three days and attendance will be limited to two spectators per runner and masks will be required.

One thing that will be the same, Gans Creek in Columbia will have a starting line and a finish line 5,000 meters away.