On October 5, 2013, the Aspen High School participated in their only home cross-country meet, the Chris Severy Invitational. At this year’s 15th annual race, the team finished with runners placing in the top 23 for both girls and boys junior varsity and varsity.

The Chris Severy course begins at the Lower Moore Field, and then the racers run up over the Aspen Valley Ski Club hill. From there, they gain further elevation as they run up an inter-loop and, then travel back around to Raoul’s revenge, and down through the zoom flume. The first decline beings when they travel towards the Aspen Valley Hospital. To finish, the course switches back towards the Lower Moore with rolling terrain through a section called Haleakala. The runners then exert whatever they have left as they run down the hill from the Upper Moore to the Lower Moore and through the finish line.

“The Aspen course is one of the hardest in the state and it is not something I look forward to running. You could say the Aspen course is harder than IB Bio,” junior Taggart Solomon said.

Times were unavailable because of computer problems, but Riley Sutton and Megan Woodrow finished top 10 for the AHS varsity cross-country team. Seniors Hudson McNamee (16^th) and Seamus Crowley (21^st) led the boy’s varsity. Freshman Jack Wells finished 12^th and Chris Hopkins placed 16^th for the boys junior varsity. Nina Beidleman, Mackenzie Conner, Maria King, Eliza Wells, and Caroline DeRosa all finished top 15 for the girls J.V.

This is the only race that the team hosts, giving them the home course advantage. The team had practice running the course everyday during the week leading up to the race.

Senior Hannah Dodge says, “I love being at home because not only do we have the home advantage, but I consider the Chris Severy course to be the hardest. Other teams aren’t ready for all the hills and the naturally higher elevation of Aspen.”

Chris Keleher coaches the AHS cross-country team, and he was proud of all his racers this weekend.

“They ran stronger than they did last year as a team. A couple individuals also ran much stronger,” Keleher said. “Overall this is a deeper team than it was last year. We only lost one senior last year – so everyone came back.”

The race began 15 years ago in memory of Chris Severy. Chris Severy was a graduate of Aspen High and an extremely accomplished runner. He was a three-time high school state champion and an NCAA Div. I All-America athlete. Severy died at the age of 22 because of a bicycle accident on his way to class at the University of Colorado Boulder. Now the high school recognizes his passion and holds the Chris Severy Invitational cross-country meet every year during the fall sport’s season.

“Knowing who Chris was, having coached him, I can’t have an easy fast course. There is a story when he was in college, his coach told his team to go out and pick rocks off the course for better footing, and about a half mile into it he got mad and threw rocks back on the course saying that the course was too easy anyways, so he wanted to make it harder. I figured, well, if it’s going to have a Severy name on it, it has to be a hard course, so that’s why we have this one,”

Keleher said. “Plus, kids love it; it’s hard and it’s fun.”