Runners compete in Eula meet

By Sam Waller

Albany’s cross country runners made their second outing of the season on Sept. 7 at the Eula Cross Country Meet.

In the varsity girls division, Briley Tabor finished 37th in a field of 158 runners, covering the two-mile course in 14 minutes, 8 seconds. Avery Kleiner placed 96th with a time of 15:15.

In the varsity boys division, Jonathan Coody covered three miles in 21:21 to finish 52nd out of 112 runners.

“This was a more competitive meet with larger schools,” Albany coach Tate Thompson said. “It forced our kids to compete harder and really challenge themselves.”

The runners are now taking a two-week break before returning to competition Sept. 22 at Hamlin.

“We’re going to get back to the basics a little bit and work on endurance,” Thompson said.  “We’ll do some different kinds of workouts instead of just running miles and miles.”

Thompson said the workouts will incorporate the lessons learned from the first two meets.

“I think actual competition opened the kids’ eyes as to what they need to improve on, like how not working can adversely affect them and how working hard can help,” he said, “They got to see some good competition and see some good runners.”

Thompson said the runners have all shown improvement since the start of workouts.

“Our high school runners get better from week to week,” he said. “They got a taste of improving and what it’s going to take to get to the next level.”