East Track and Field begins its Winter Camp this week! Registration information/form is here: East Track and Field Winter Camp. The basics: we are meeting Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday at 4pm. Reach out to Head Track and Field Coach Carhart with questions.
All future communications regarding the Track and Field season will be through the Spond App. Please use this link to sign up for the App – don’t miss anything about the season to come. We encourage all our cross country athletes to join us on the track; cross country runnesr who run track have the most year over year improvement. Also track is fun!
Coach Jay Johnson, who will be leading the distance events this year with Coaches Scudamore and Atchley assisting, is hosting a meeting for middle distance and distance runners on Monday, December 1, after school (location will be posted on Spond tomorrow).
If you are competing in a winter sport, we look forward to you joining the team in the spring. Stay in touch with everything going on using the Spond App.
I’m writing to share that I will not be coaching the team going forward. I recently accepted a new job based in the Bay Area and will be moving to California at the beginning of January. I’m both very excited about this new opportunity and very sad to be leaving Denver and this team!
I started coaching at East just a couple of months after moving to Denver three and a half years ago, when I was looking for community in a city where I hardly knew anyone. As I have throughout my life, I found it through running—and I couldn’t have asked for a more special community to be part of.
Coaching at East has been an incredible privilege! I’ve loved getting to know you all, joining on easy runs, and watching you give your all in workouts and races. Practice has always been a highlight of my day, and I will miss it very much!
I’m excited to follow the team’s results from afar, and I would love to stay in touch. You can reach me anytime at juliahess634@gmail.com.
Wednesday practice with teammates (on own, no organized practice. ) immediately after school: 30-50 minutes at maintenance + 5 x 20 second strides. See you at banquet!
Thursday practice: 4pm. If unable to attend practice due to travel, 25- 40 minutes + 4 x 20 second strides.
Friday: running the course as team; dinner at La Quinta Superstition (Olive Garden takeout pasta bar) $20/person. Parent welcome. Bibs will be disbursed at dinner.
Expecting rain this week AZ, so be prepared. We will have race assignments/times on Wednesday.
We’re just over a week away from the East Cross Country Banquet. If you haven’t registered yet, don’t miss out! We’ll have a season recap, coaches’ speeches, athletes’ speeches, good food, and good company! It’s a truly wonderful evening to celebrate our athletes. We will also have a silent auction with
2 Colorado Avalanche club-level tickets (playing against the Vancouver Canucks on Dec. 2)
Massage and acupuncture gift cards to Bodies on Point
Memberships/passes to local gyms
2 passes to Red Rock Sauna
And much more!
2025 Cross Country Banquet, Wednesday, November 19, 5:30-8 p.m., at the Montview Presbyterian Church, 1980 Dahlia St., Denver, CO 80220. Register here by Wednesday, November 12. If cost is a barrier, please see Coach Kohuth. You may also contribute to the coaches’ gift via this link.
We are still collecting silent auction items. If you are interested in contributing items, please contact Jacob Smiles by Wednesday, November 12.
We also need one more volunteer to run the slide show. For more information, contact Steph.
We’ll also be doing a final uniform collection. If your athlete has not turned in their uniform yet, please bring it (washed and labeled) to the banquet.
We need more photos for the website and the slideshow at the banquet. Please upload your photos from the season to our Memento site using this link.
There was a bit of a mishap early in the season and many photos were deleted from the site, so if you uploaded photos early in the season, it would be great if you could upload them again. Thanks!
The 5A races of the Colorado State meet were run under nearly perfect conditions – temperatures in the high 30’s for the Boys 5A race and low 40’s for the Girls 5A race with sunny skies and little wind. Times for the day reflected the conditions. Up front, the races went largely as expected, with Niwot taking both team times, Mountain Vista’s Ben Adams taking the individual title for the boys and Niwot’s Addison Ritzenhein setting a ruthless tone for the girls. Denver East Boys couldn’t quite repeat the magic of the week before, but there were definitely some races for which to be proud. The Denver East Girls showed what a complete team they have – grabbing another top-10 finish in the most competitive state in the nation.
Senior Henry Bennett again led the Angels for Denver East. He hit the mile in 5:08 (55th) in what was a more conservatively paced opening mile up front than expected. He was still in control through the hilly second milein 10:47 (51st). From there he picked off late-fading runners to finish 45th in 16:18, in a field where 15:27 was needed to be in the top 10. In Bennet’s third appearance at the State Meet, he had his highest finish and his fastest time on the Norris-Penrose course. Senior Kyle Kojima ran the same blueprint but from a few seconds farther back passing 26 competitors from the mile mark to the finish on his way to arguably the best race of his career: 5:19 at 1 mile (112th), 11:07 at 2 miles (98th), and closed at 16:51 for 103rd. Senior Isaiah Springer had a hard time getting to his usual pace on race day, but gutted out a 5:20 / 11:15 / 17:10 (128th). Senior Jackson Gertge (5:21 / 11:22 / 17:18, 135th) and junior Emery Wagner (5:27 / 11:33 / 17:27, 140th) rounded out the scoring look, while sophomore Tre Even (5:26 / 11:38 / 17:50, 149th) and freshman Liam Gerber (5:27 / 11:51 / 18:14, 156th) had solid debuts in their first State Meet. The Angels finished 20th of 20 teams on the day. Cross Country is the hardest sport in Colorado to qualify for State, both by percentage of schools qualifying schools and number of nationally ranked programs. While the Angels had hoped for a little more on Saturday, Denver East toed the line with the best and showed they deserved to be there.
In the Girls 5A races, seniors Scout Chomas and Julieta Ochoa rode their three previous years of experience at the State Meet to spectacular final races in Denver East red. Both got out well but left themselves something in the tank after the opening mile to continue moving up. Chomas got out in 6:02 (66th), came through 2 miles in 12:39 (54th),and finished 48th in 19:10 – nearly a minute better than last year. Ochoa was right with her, 6:02 at 1 mile (64th), 12:39 at 2 miles (52nd), and51st in 19:12. That’s exactly the kind of controlled, non-panic race you want from your captains. Meanwhile, senior Mary Clare Nussbaum was doing what she has done all season, starting seemingly too far back and then showing amazing grit in the second half of the race to move up more than seems likely. Nussbaum, hit the mile at6:14 (98th), 12:54 at 2 miles (80th), and raced all the way up to 59th in 19:20. Then came the young guns. Ninth-grader Tessa Fe Morris and sophomore Fiona Jeong had a total of 3 races at the varsity level experience between the two of them, but they ran like veterans. Morris worked her way up from 6:14 at 1 mile (100th), to13:02 at 2 miles (91st) and all the way up to 72nd in 19:33 at the finish.Jeong ran a similar rhythm, going 6:19, 13:02, and finishing 74th in 19:35, giving East five runners in before 20:00. Sophomore Lila Brown (6:22 / 13:34 / 20:38, 124th) and junior Lola Carhart (6:27 / 13:49 / 21:06, 134th) closed out the Denver East presence. The Angels finished 10th with 272 points becoming only the fourth girls team in school history to finish in the top-10 at State Meet – an accomplishment all the more remarkable when you consider that two of the top-5 fastest cross country runners in school history – Avery Johnson #4 and Corrine Kennedy #5 – were out with injury and illness respectively.
We look forward to seeing everyone at the banquet to celebrate everything the Angels accomplished in 2025.
For those continuing to prepare for NXR, a great way to stay race ready is to run the 2 Mile 4 REAL held at Niwot High School next Tuesday, November 11th. The schedule will officially be posted once seeding is done, but last year the first heat of the girls’ 2 mile started around 6:20 p.m. and the boys started around 7:00 p.m. Athletes are expected to sign up on their own.
Simulates what sea level 5k paces will feel like on a flat, fast course in Arizona. This gets your legs ready to run that pace.
Optimal time to get one last VO2 effort in before NXR.
Keeps you race ready
It’s a chance to PR in the 2 mile!
Team BOSS helps put on this event, so you will see professional runners and could get to meet them!
It’ll be so fun!
Entry Suggestions: If you have not raced a 2 mile before or are not sure what time to enter for your seed time because you’ve improved so much, you can use the VDOT calculator to give you an estimate. Just enter your best 5k from this year, and then look at the equivalent time below for a 2 mile estimate.
You can sign up to run for the Denver East team as you register!
Reach out to Coach Andrew or any of the coaches if you have questions!
Don’t forget to register for the 2025 Cross Country Banquet on Wednesday, November 19, 5:30-8 p.m., at the Montview Presbyterian Church, 1980 Dahlia St., Denver, CO 80220. Everyone is welcome to attend (parents and siblings), but everyone including athletes must purchase a ticket ($25). Register here by November 12. If cost is a barrier, please see Coach Kohuth. You may also contribute to the coaches’ gift via this link.
We will be hosting a silent auction to benefit the Angels Run Club (ARC provides athlete support, allows the team to travel to Kansas, etc.). If you’re interested in contributing items, please contact Jacob Smiles by Wednesday, November 12.
If you have not returned your uniform, please return it to Coach Kohuth’s office (washed and labeled with your name). We will be doing a final uniform collection at the banquet.
Hey Runners!!! A huge congratulations to the Angels who competed at the State Championship and CRUSHED IT!!!!
We are so excited to continue training with those runners competing at NXR–today is a day off (yay!!) and tomorrow will be a long run, meeting at our usual spot at our usual time (4:00 in City Park)
Please do not forget to sign up for the banquet on November 19! If the cost is an issue, please talk to Coach Kohuth–we do not want anyone to miss it because of financial issues.
Denver East High XC 