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| Colorado state championships. Two first place finishes at the NXN Southwest Regional. Successive seventh place showings at NXN Finals. Division I recruits. For the past two years, the "Lambkins" of Fort Collins High School CO have embodied success at the highest level. Over the next nine weeks, assistant coach Phil Latter will be tracking the ups and downs, triumphs and challenges of the Fort Collins girls’ cross country team.
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the lambkin way | part 7
11.17.09
by Phil Latter, Special to DyeStat
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A Day of Rest and Recovery…for Some
Monday, November 9th – 3:15 P.M.
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 | Denise Chilson runs an interval on the track.
Photo submitted by Phil Latter
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Two long days have passed. Two days since the pure exhilaration and thrill of winning a State Title overwhelmed the three seniors, three freshmen and junior who make up Fort Collins High School’s varsity squad.
The days have not been spent in quiet isolation. The team has only bonded more and more as the season has passed, and both teams spent the majority of Saturday morning, afternoon and evening together. Sunday was quieter, but the fatigue of truly going to the well cannot be cleaned out in one lazy afternoon.
It strikes them both physically and emotionally, this fatigue. It's what has led the girls to bargain with Coach Chris Suppes.
“Can we please not do a medium run?” senior Kirsten Follett asks. Faster than a recovery run, but not quite requiring the exertion of a tempo run, the medium run serves an aerobic bridge to keep the girls focused and strong as the season progresses. At the same time, it’s designed to foster maximum recovery and keep them sharp leading into the next day’s workout.
“Yeah, I’m dead,” adds her fellow senior, Denise Chilson (right).
Suppes is adamant at first. “I know we ran hard on Saturday, but we’ve only got two weeks to Arizona.” This volley doesn’t stop the barrage.
“If you want me to run a really good tempo tomorrow, then I need to recover, right?” Follett asks.
“Please?” It’s Chilson again. They’re using puppy dog eyes now.
In the end the girls are given a couple options that Suppes hopes will accomplish the same objective. The girls consent to a faster recovery run. All season Suppes has taken pride in reading the girls’ physical and emotional states and adjusting when necessary. No exceptions are made this afternoon.
Today’s bargaining is the direct result of the postponement of the State Meet. Past season’s plans have been necessarily thrown out the window. Where once three or four weeks were slotted in between the Colorado State Meet and the Regional Nike Team National Meet, now only 12 days remain before the girls will lace up their flats and challenge the course in Tempe, Arizona.
Today such a goal is too far away, too intense to focus on. Each girl instead listens to the rhythm of their breathing, devoted solely to the beautifully simple task of putting one foot in front of another at an accelerated pace. It is the perfect day to do so.
Suppes
Tuesday, November 10th – 3:30 P.M.
In the flash of a moment she’s gone. Most runners favor some type of ritual before jumping full bore into their workout, but Rachel Viger eschews that mold. With no true training partner on workout days, and not fearful of challenges she’s accomplished time and time again, Rachel has little reason to hesitate.
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 | Suppes with the State winning team - Photo by Kevin Follett
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Seeing Rachel take off, Kirsten picks up the pace of her drills and strides and grabs Erin. Then they too take off around the red oval.
I am running the first portion of the workout with Marci and Denise. Part of it is practical – a watch has been forgotten. The other side is that with the boys now done for the season, we have a coaching surplus. I decide to coach in the most interactive way I know of – getting out there lap after lap.
The initially planned tempo run has been altered. Suppes spent his entire free period at school going back and forth, and now he believes he has laid out a schedule that will take the Lambkins where they need to be come Saturday, November 21st – the D-Day for all National Meet aspirations. The workout now will progress from longer, slower intervals to shorter, faster ones.
During the long interval, Marci is exceptionally chippy. She banters back and forth with me, playfully arguing over the most mundane things. It is one of Marci’s greatest abilities, this argumentative sarcasm which she could hold onto until the bitter end. It’s also unquestionably funny. After four laps of nonsense, Denise, in no uncertain terms, begs us to shut up. Running while laughing is hard.
As we come by on one random lap, Suppes starts yelling, “Look at Rachel out there! I’ve got a feeling she’s going to pop a real good race down in Arizona.” He would be one to know. Suppes has seen enough workouts in his almost twenty years of coaching to recognize a runner on the verge of a solid performance.
Suppes, however, did not follow the normal route to coaching excellence. That path is blazed by former elite distance runners, kinesiology and exercise science majors, and those who never leave the house without checking the latest posting on Letsrun.com or Dyestat.com. These coaches have been reared on the science of lactate thresholds and anaerobic capacities, know their Lydiards from their Coes, and tape Olympic Trials races in the hope that somehow that moment of greatness might transfer over to themselves or their runners.
Suppes?
“I was told I had to by my athletic director at Thompson Valley High School. They released their cross country coach two weeks before the cross country season began and they didn’t have a chance to open the position. So they told me I had to do it. And I did it.”
Though he ran distance for Colorado State University his last two years, Suppes had always fancied himself a sprinter. Running a 10.6 100m will do that. But given the extreme circumstances, Suppes didn’t see any other option. Already a sprints and jumps coach at Thompson Valley, he suddenly found himself with the additional billing of head cross country coach.
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 | Coach Chris Suppes in full stride - Photo submitted by Phil Latter
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Suppes was not afraid of the challenges that inevitably laid ahead – from 1993 to 1998 he was a smoke jumper, leaping out of planes into National Forest land to put out fires that could not be reached or contained by road. Not only did this time bring him a wealth of experiences – aside from battling blazes, he was also featured on the news magazine Turning Point, photographed in Time Magazine, and shown on an episode of National Geographic Explorer for his firefighting – it was also where he met his wife.
Early on in his distance coaching career, Suppes relied mainly on his limited distance running experience at CSU. Over time that broadened; he found himself enamored by the writings of New Zealand’s Arthur Lydiard, a coach who coached back when “runners were really runners,” Suppes says. “It’s something we got away from for awhile.”
Suppes’s success at Thompson Valley didn’t go unnoticed. Fifteen miles north, Fort Collins Cross Country Coach Craig Luckasen was looking to retire from coaching in the near future. He sought a successor.
“[Fort Collins High School] is the type of program that you don’t just quit,” says Suppes, speaking to the long and proud history of the school. Three track and field titles in the 1920s (“When Lambkins Were Kings” reads one newspaper headline), a three decade legacy formed by John Martin, and a State Title under Luckasen are all testaments to this legacy. “You find an apparent heir to take over the program. You don’t quit. I guess Luckasen assumed I would be the heir and he asked me to come up here. I worked under him for two years, then he stepped down and that’s when I took over. The boys won a State Title that year (2004). They won again the next year, and that’s when Luckasen asked to come back [as my assistant].”
Paired again with one of his mentors, Suppes has continued to find success throughout the decade. Two seventh place finishes at Nike Cross Nationals for the girls (2007, 2008) and now back-to-back State Titles have given him a strong sense of accomplishment. To whom or what does he credit the continued success?
“Trial and error is my biggest thing,” Suppes says. “The last thing you want to do is copy someone else’s style…I did a lot of studying and I did a lot of experimenting. I know it sounds bad to say I experimented on kids, but when you go into the State Meet ranked 1st 8 times, and you only won 4 titles, then the other seasons are learning experiences.
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| Coach Suppes with Kirsten Follett
Photo by Kevin Follett
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“In the month of December I always try to read a distance running book and then I always try and sit back and say, ‘What did I learn?’ ‘What could I do better?’ I always go and reanalyze what I do. And you’ll notice that everything pretty much changes every year, trying to figure out what makes them better. Sometimes it doesn’t work and you say, ‘Opps, I changed it the wrong way.’
Running with the girls today it is clear he is on the right path. Kirsten and Erin blaze the last few 200s, looking smooth and controlled the whole way. Though Suppes is worried that they are “emotionally spent” after Saturday’s race, perhaps any lingering tiredness is more physical. After the workout Suppes and I go talk to Denise, who had a solid workout in her own right but labored more than the others.
“I’m just tired,” she tells us. “I’ve gone sub-7 (minute mile) pace the last two days running with Rachel.”
“I thought we compromised?” Suppes asks. “Didn’t you go easy yesterday?”
“We felt guilty cheating the run,” Kirsten says, walking over to our group. “So we just did it anyway.”
Suppes makes them promise to take the next day easy. How easy, the girls ask.
Very.
Eleven days to Tempe. There will be no compromise on this.
Pineridge
Wednesday, November 11th – 5:10 P.M.
“Oh my God, Latter, I’m hungry,” Taleah and Erin tell me as they finish their long run. “Do you have any food?”
I open the trunk to reveal a king’s ransom of assorted dry goods from the discount grocery store in the area. My goal is to feed my wife for the next 12 days, she being stuck out on the Eastern Plains for almost the entire month of November.
“Yes, Cap’N Crunch. Can I have some?”
I tell them to take the box with us. We need to get going.
Today has been as goofy a practice day as we’ve had all year. Fort Collins’ boys soccer team is in the State Final this evening, and a herd of school sponsored buses will be taking any and all interested parties down to the game. Wanting to get up into the foothills to best simulate the Arizona course and work on their strength, Suppes has sent the girls to Pineridge. Located within the city limits, Pineridge offers 7 miles of single-track trail and connects into the Foothills Trail, which offers far ranging possibilities on the ridges west of town. It is an invaluable local resource.
Transportation, however, is another issue. The three seniors have elected to use their afternoon free period to get to Pineridge earlier. That leaves Suppes and me the enviable chore of transporting Marci and four hyperactive freshmen from the high school. We shuttle using his Toyota pickup and my wife’s Volkswagen Jetta. This chore is made even more enviable by the presence of a pit bull mix in my back seat. The day truly has not gone as planned.
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| View from atop the Foothills Trail, looking out over Horsetooth Reservoir.
Photo submitted by Phil Latter
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While the girls ran their 10 miles, Suppes and I walked with Empress, the pit bull/greyhound mix, all around the ridges of Pineridge. Suppes is a natural at spotting deer, and we marveled at the antler size of a few older mule deer bucks. Despite her love of cats and squirrels, Empress seemed unimpressed. After multiple failed attempts, we eventually get her where she needs to be.
Now I’m transporting the girls back to the school and have made a mistake. I’ve told them my wife would really appreciate the cereal, especially since there’s no way they can eat the whole box in the fifteen minute drive back.
“Is that a dare, Latter?” Erin asks.
“No, it’s me asking you to leave some in the box.”
But the challenge has been thrown down. Erin and her freshmen cohorts, Taleah and Maddie, are hungry and up for the task. Marci, riding shotgun, offers additional support. As we hit the last set of stoplights between our journey and the high school, the only sound is that of frantic crunching. The cereal is living up to its name.
“Ah, whatever,” I say. “There’s more cereal in the trunk anyway.” Clearly the proverbial white flag has been raised.
Given their high metabolisms and the fact that they climbed up to 5800 feet above sea level twice in one run, perhaps such hunger is understandable.
But this destruction of property is simply cruel.
Awards Banquet
Thursday, November 12th
Every year the annual awards banquet showcases the work each Lambkin has put into the (for most) completed season. No surprise to anyone, Rachel takes home the girls’ MVP honor. Being first on your team every time you raced and making All-State will do that for you. Kirsten in turn wins the Coach’s Award for the varsity, an honor that is bestowed to the runner whose dedication, leadership, and tenacity on the course and in practice sets the highest possible standard for all her teammates. Few would question Kirsten’s award in that regard.
The freshmen and Marci also surprise their senior leaders by presenting them with a photo album. Erin is even able to choke up Kirsten by telling her how much she admires and strives to be like her.
The night is far from all serious, however.
Gag gifts are part and parcel with the awards ceremony and the guys and girls let no one down. Coach Suppes receives a framed printout of his Facebook Farmville Farm from the girls; the boys get him a steering wheel cover with hearts on it, the better to accentuate his colossal pickup track. Coach Luckasen receives a “Warren Lake Lifeguard” t-shirt from the boys (in reference to him suspending part of the team for jumping into the lake during an easy run) and several different flavors of Cheerios, purchased as a way to add some “variety” into his daily routine.
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| Chris Suppes speaking at team Awards Ceremony
Photo by Mike Hooker
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The banquet ends with the world premiere of Bo Viger’s State Meet movie. There on the projector screen you can see just how hard the Lambkins got out, how much ground Kirsten made up in the last mile, and how strong Denise looked throughout. The best moment by far is when Suppes strolls into camp and word begins spreading – the Lambkins have won. Seeing everyone hugging, jumping up and down, looking for teammates and parents to embrace…it was truly a special moment, one these young ladies will be glad a dad captured on his camcorder many years down the road. Applause roars once again for the triumphant Lady Lambkins.
Snow Milers
Friday, November 13th
Lucky Friday the 13th is turning out to be just that. On the eve of a set of milers on the track, a white out has struck Fort Collins. Only a day ago temperatures were in the 60s and shorts were in fashion. Now the freshmen girls decide to do their warm-up holding hands, reckoning that in the reduced visibility it’s the best way to stay safe. Doing their activation exercises inside, the blowing snow calms down and the track becomes useable again.
The workout is another solid one. As usual Rachel leads, easily running in the low 5:50s for each repeat. Kirsten and Erin continue their season long allegiance, cutting down the pace from 6:10 to 6-flat over the three intervals. Denise and Marci also work together to run in the low 6:20s, with Maddie and Taleah a little behind them. This workout also marks the halfway point between their success at State and their departure for the even more difficult task of qualifying for Nationals. The girls have had nearly a week to reflect on their races at State and the impressions are mixed to be sure. Some, like Marci, are unhappy with their performances and feel blessed that they had a strong enough team to make up for their less-than-stellar performance. Erin feels like she made too many freshmen mistakes and had to run out of her mind the last half mile to finish as highly (12th) as she did. Even Rachel, though satisfied, had dreamed of more.
What made the day so special then?
“I absolutely love the team aspect of running and everyone’s dedication to each other,” says Denise, the lone runner to have a race she felt almost entirely good about. “Its culmination in something [as] special as a State Title was just the greatest feeling ever.”
“It felt very empowering,” Kirsten adds. “We’ve been working so hard, [and] it finally felt it was paying off into something really special.”
“I felt like our team had worked really hard all season with the State Meet in our thoughts every single day,” Erin says. “I thought we went in with a very focused attitude.”
In addition to the sense of happiness and excitement that accompanied the race, there was also a strong sense of relief.
“Sometimes it feels like we're running for so many people besides ourselves (coaches, school, community, family) that it's hard to focus on just what you want out of the race,” Denise says.
But in the end the Lambkins came together and won. What did it feel like once the results were official?
“Moments like that are kind of unexplainable,” Kirsten tells me. “Everyone is so happy. I loved it!”
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