Senior Rosie Mucharsky became the first Angel to earn All-American honors at both the Nike Cross Country Nationals and Footlocker National Championships.

Mucharsky joined Cerake Geberkidane (4th at NXN in 2013) as just the second East High School runner to compete at Nike Nationals, finishing 21st in cold, rainy conditions in Portland on December 7th. A week later, she joined Harrison Scudamore (13th at FLN in 2017) as the second East runner to compete in cross country’s original national championship in San Diego, where Mucharsky finished 15th overall.

While the race and conditions were very different, Mucharsky employed similar strategies, getting out into good position position over the first half-mile, more or less defending her place over the next two miles, and then finishing strong over the final 1000m, passing multiple competitors to move her way up to finish high enough to grab All-American honors in each race.

A winter training schedule is posted on FinalSurge. If you have not used Final Surge in the past, please create an account on FinalSurge.com and let Coach Kohuth know you have joined. He will invite you to join the EastXC team on the platform and you will have access to the training plans, and you will be able to log your workouts. There are a number of cool features on Final Surge for you to use. Goal paces for different types of workouts are available on the workout calculators (the stopwatch icon) on the site. There are a couple different calculators – try the Tinman Pace Calculator.

The volume/length of runs described in the Winter Conditioning schedule are directed towards a 2nd or 3rd year runner. More experienced runners who have run higher mileage previously may want to increase the length of the workouts by 20% while first year runners should decrease the volume of workouts by about 20%. Email your coaches if you have questions about how to approach this schedule. Strides should be run at the conclusion of every run, with the final two at 800m race pace or faster, and everyone should be incorporating the pre and post race routines you learned during cross country season.

Following the winter break we will be meeting twice each week for the harder workouts until the start of the official track season and daily practices at the end of February – follow the website for exact dates, which may change depending on the weather. We are looking forward towards another amazing track season.

There have been more than a couple outstanding performances by East athletes in the post-season, and for one athlete there are a couple more races to go.

The Angels were well represented in Arizona for the Nike Southwest Regional Championship on November 23^rd. The Toka Sticks course is flat and primarily on well groomed fairway grass making for some favorable conditions for fast times, though as the desert sun rose through the morning, the warmer temperatures moderated paces somewhat.

Ninth grader Paola Ochoa was the first finisher of the day for the “Angels on Colfax Racing Team,” taking 32^nd in the Large School Girls Open Race 1, as she dropped a personal best time of 19:59 passing 11 runners in the final mile.  Junior Mary Clare Nussbaum passed 17 runners in the final mile on her way to a time of 20:25 for 46^th place, and senior Rae Tatel ran a personal best 21:56 for 88^th place.

Eight boys from East ran in the Large School Boys Open Race 1, led by junior Henry Bennett who ran a personal best 16:02 for 21^st place. Junior Isaiah Springer took a big chunk of time off his personal best, running 16:15 and taking 40^th place after passing 12 runners in the final mile. Senior Ben Brown broke 17 minutes again, finishing in 16:57 for 87^th place, as did sophomore Emery Wagner who ran 16:59 for 97^th (yep, 10 runners were crossing the line every 2 seconds at this point in the race). Junior Mason Harper ran a big pb, dipping under 18 minutes for the first time with his 17:55 finish for 169^th place. His classmate Jackson Gertge was just a handful of seconds back in 18:01 for 180^th, while fellow junior Micah Gallantz finished in 268^th in 19:55. Freshman Finley Knight made good use of his time in Arizona by dropping a personal best 20:31 for 281^st place. The boys took 11^th of 28 teams.

Senior Jonas Scudamore competed against the best in the Southwest in the Championship Boys race later in the morning. Scudamore ran to a 22^nd place finish in 14:58, becoming just the second Angel in school history to break 15 minutes.

East’s full varsity girls team was the last to take the course, competing in the Championship Girls race. A furious final 800m propelled senior Rosie Mucharsky to a 6^th place finish in 16:54. The place was good enough for her to secure a ticket to nationals – the first girl from East (and probably DPS) to ever qualify. The time improved on her school record by a full 27 seconds. Sophomore Avery Johnson joined the list of athletes earning personal bests, running 18:55 for 120^th, while her classmate Corrine Kennedy equaled her personal best running 18:56 for 124^th – those two moved up 18 and 16 places respectively in the final mile. Juniors Julieta Ochoa and Scout Chomas finished in 19:07 and 19:35 respectively for 136^th place and 172^nd place. Sophomore Lola Carhart managed a 20:13 for 214^th despite injury, and ninth-grader Lila Brown ran 20:18 for 217^th in her NXR debut. The Angels on Colfax Team (aka Denver East High School) finished 13^th of 30 schools in the Championship race, behind the same eight teams from Colorado who had beat them at the state meet and four teams from Utah. The Angels finished ahead of every state championship team from Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada.

The following week Mucharsky and Scudamore made the trip to Kenosha, Wisconsin for the Footlocker Midwest Championship. The Footlocker Championships predate the Nike Championships by about 25 years, and until about a decade ago were the definitive high school championship in cross country with just 10 individuals qualifying from each of four regionals. The Midwest Regional continues to attract the best of the best from most of the states that feed into it. Mucharsky again ran a smart tactical race, moving up to grab one of the qualifying spots, finishing 8^th on what was a very cold and blustery morning on the iconic and challenging course, crossing the line in 17:41. Scudamore got caught back deeper in the pack when the course narrowed at 1200m and ended up settling for 34^th in 15:53.

Links to watch Mucharsky race at NXN on December 7^th at 11:05am (coverage starts at 10am) here. Link to Footlocker Nationals on December 14^th at 10:15 here.