Cheyenne Mountain: most underrated team ever?

Results show….the answer to your question is still yes. 6 new varsity guys. Let this sink in

co.milesplit.com

Carter Bayer - Stats

Link:co.milesplit.com/athletes/9420799-cart...

But no, no CO boys team is going to NXN this year.

just wanted to mention this before anyone gets too excited.

Mountain View, Herriman and American Fork are the 3 contenders

Better results link

co.milesplit.com

4A Colorado State Cross Country Championships 2022 - Boys

MileSplits official Boys formatted results for the 2022 4A Colorado State Cross Country Championships, hosted by Cheyenne Mountain High School in Colorado Springs CO.

Link:co.milesplit.com/meets/498852-4a-color...

I thought their coach is a REAL Training coach. Are you sure about this?

How did the school Cheyenne Mountain get its name?

Cheyenne is in Wyoming, not Colorado

Brokeback Mountain was already taken.

There is a Cheyenne Mountain in COS.

It is where NORAD is located. Also home to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.

Yep, O'Day is part of the REAL Training Colorado machine.

The Rainsberger experience is now a Coronado feeder. This is probably why this will be the last year Air Academy does well, as the the kids usually follow the coach to the school that they are associated with.

Another reason why this is the last year Air Academy does well is that this is Michalak’s senior year. When she graduates, it’s gonna leave a hole in the team

I grew up in Denver and love the Colorado HS running environment. My kids are getting to the age where I want to move them out of the south and back to the high country.

My wife and I like Colorado Springs and specifically the west side. Which high school district should we move into. CM and Air Academy have higher ratings than Coronado and all 3 seems to have quality teams. Coronado School district is a little cheaper.

My wife and I were both pretty accomplished runner so the kids have a decent probability of being fast.

I'd say it's very close. 2018 Loudoun Valley had a very tight spread and a great #5 (one of the best ever in fact). Their 5th runner was only 63rd at NXN (Cheyenne's #5 finished 112th at RunningLane). 2017 Valley I think was a little weaker, they had a great top 4 but their 5th runner (the same guy actually) was farther back that year, in 95th.

2016 and 2019 they definitely could've won NXN, 2014 FM and 2015 Great Oak were better teams but didn't have their best day at NXN so it's hard to say. Before 2014 I think they could've won just about any year except 2004 (that York team was phenomenal).

their 7th guy at runninglane seemed to have had a bad race. two weeks before runninglane, he ran 15:21 at the southwest regional (i heard that course was long?) and was their 3rd runner there. the next spring he ran 9:15 at their state track meet, which i believe is just under 9:00 at sea level.

this team is tricky to judge. they competed out of state a bunch in cross, but none of them ran sea level track races at all which seems strange? but 4 of them ran sub 9:00 equivalents at altitude and their #2 from runninglane didnt even run track that spring.

would have been interesting to see them run a 4 by mile.

how many teams have ever had 5 sub-9:00 guys?

If you are from Denver, why would you not consider Cherry Creek, Mead, Longmont, Erie or everybody's favorite team to hate here, Niwot?

What are you really looking for: academics or athletics? Be honest.

Air Academy is a hike, even if you live on base. Academics are decent. They have a girls distance squad. the boys do not have as much going on running-wise. The track team is an embarrassing afterthought. The girls distance, as noted elsewhere here, will be tapering off as the Kokopelli Kids Klub members, their current top 4, graduate. I believe that the current coach, Schwartz, is also a REAL Training coach. So this may change for the better.

CM is Westside proximate, and fairly monied. Lacrosse is the big sport on campus. Being Colorado is a school choice State, you do not have to live in the transportation boundary of a school or district to "Choice" you kid into a specific school. So live somewhere less expensive, but have a kid commute for a decade plus. Academics are good, and so are the drugs (relax, I did not make it up, it gets into the News). The running is good as well. They got a new coach a couple years ago, O'Day, and the program seems to have been using the largess of the Rainsberger club team to great effect. They all appear to be running under REAL Training in the off season. This is a boys favored club. The girls have quite a bit of catching up to do.

Coronado academics are good as well, though since half their student body is lower income, it skews the schools testing lower. The other half are the typical UMC types from well off backgrounds. Running-wise it is hard to say as Rainsberger got there two seasons ago as the XC and distance coach. She has raised the bar on the distance training going on there. The team currently skews to the boys, but one would expect that to change as her club kids come aboard. Track is not do much. but Rainsberger is not the head track coach, the football coach is, and he seems to be coaching as his actual children are on the track team, and they are the ones who seem to do well result-wise.

I am very familiar with all three of these schools, and I would argue that CM outshines Coronado and AA in academics. The location of AA is subpar, unless you live on base; the commute is certainly unfortunate. As for the training, it's difficult to not favor Rainsberger as the overall best coach, but I think it is telling when Coronado's JV team suffers a much greater dropoff than AA or CM. CM girls are much better than they were before Coach O'Day took over the program, so just looking at the results it seems to me that CM could very well be a girls favored program in the near future. AA has fallen off since Rainsberger stepped into the position at Coronado, choosing to feed her club kids into her program rather than AA. (She certainly will not recommend an athlete of hers in the COS area to attend CM...) In general we must remember that this is high school, and athletics should not be the first priority of a student. Coronado has the worst academic reputation of these three schools, and is thus a less well rounded option. AA has solid academics but a fading running program. CM has solid academics and a deep program. Completely up to you but I think you know who I would favor.

I thought more kids would follow Rainsberger for free coach time, but I see that Cooper, a Freshman, is at AA. They are making the hiking from the east side of town. Yikes. She could be better than Michalak or Walter.

My understanding is that Rainsberger and the previous CM coach, Lambros, is who had problems. why would this continue after he is gone?

I assume the following:

• Rainsberger would firstly push her kokopelli athletes to attend Coronado as opposed to any other school, such as CM, in order to grow her high school program, which at this point in time lacks real depth.
  

• Rainsberger, if she did encourage athletes to attend CM, she would likely lose an athlete to REAL for summer and winter training. While it's not unheard of for CM athletes to run for Kokopelli during the off season, it has become virtually unheard of in the new generation of CM athletes after the class of 2021 (Exton,Knapp,Le Roux, etc.)
  
• Regardless of the fact that Lambros is gone, Rainsberger I can only imagine still holds a level of bitterness towards the program. However, I'll assume the best of her and say that this is not a reason for the lack of encouragement for an athlete to attend CM
  

In response to my comment about Air Academy falling off on the guys side:

At this point in the Colorado season, Air Academy actually has the fastest freshman class of any school with: Aidan Teran,16:20.10, Jack Silver, 17:00.60, Lucca Tumbush, 17:24.10, David Kent, 17:24.70, Nicolas East, 17:28.30. While the top end of COR looks tough, their 4,5 freshman are way back there. AA has certainly stepped up their game.