Racing a reputation: Teams fear Barstow's home course

BARSTOW — Read off the directions to the Barstow High School cross country team’s home course, and it might begin to sound more like an extreme miniature golf course.

Up the giant hill. Into the desert. Around the home-made golf course. Beside the giant white cross. Past the freeway. Finish at the playground.

For added effect, just add 100-degree heat.

The course, which is located between Henderson Elementary School and the Interstate15, is unlike most cross country courses. If cross country is a sport of speed, strength and endurance, speed is taken out of the equation for Barstow’s home meets. Only one runner, Sam Melton, has ever broken the 17-minute mark.

Of course they do

“Barstow knows their course, and they know exactly where to take advantage of you,” said Sultana cross country coach John Mahr following the Sultans 22-34 loss to Barstow in 2006.

The cross country team has yet to run its home course this season. The team will begin running it at 3:15 p.m. today when they face Burroughs High School. Many of the freshmen have only seen a map of the course until the team began preparing the course for the meet this week.

That hasn’t stopped other teams from making assumptions about a relationship between Barstow’s success and its course.

“We don’t really work out on it,” said Jim Duarte, Barstow cross country coach. “I’ve overheard opposing teams say, ‘If we had a course like this to train on we would be as good as Barstow.’ We’ve never told them. Even our own kids have gotten lost on the course. We just go to other areas to work out.”

In a mountainous region in the desert, the Aztecs have little trouble finding hills. The team takes full advantage of its locale and doesn’t need to run its home course for practice, Barstow assistant coach Keith Shipman said.

Perhaps these rumors began as a combination of the Aztecs recent success, winning four CIF Division III titles in the last six years, and the wild layout of their home course — suitable perhaps for only a championship team. Either way it has only helped to build up a mythology behind the team and create a mental advantage for the Aztecs.

“Aztecs should love it,” said Vernon Morris, Barstow assistant coach and former runner. “Other teams fear it. If they fear the course and running against us, it’s a double benefit.

“Home course advantage is huge. A football field is a football field. A gym is a gym in basketball. The difference is the crowd. In cross country, the difference is bigger. The route is different; the hills are different. When teams come to Barstow, it gets to them mentally.”

Ranked

The course is ranked as the third toughest in California, Shipman said. Others have doubted that such a list exists, but few question the toughness of Barstow’s home course.

“You’re going to interview a lot of people before they tell you that you are going to find a tougher course,” Shipman said.

DyeStatCal.com, the Internet home of California track, field and cross country, editors Rich Gonzalez and Doug Speck said they’ve never seen a real list and putting one together for all of California would probably be impractical. Duarte said he doesn’t know where the ranking originated from, but it probably was a topic of discussion on cross country message boards.

Barnes said he’s seen only one course, outside of Oakland, that even compares to Barstow’s.

“In my top 10 list, (Barstow’s course is) the toughest course I’ve had my athletes or myself run on,” Barnes said.

When Barstow joined the Mojave River League in 2003 because of a lack of Desert Sky League teams, the coaches made one stipulation: You’re welcome to enter the league, so long as you don’t have any home meets.

Desert Playground

When Duarte ran cross country for Barstow High School, the course started at the track around the high school football field. When Duarte took over the program in 1994, the Aztecs ran a course slightly East of where it currently resides. The course, however, was not regulation. Several pathways were not big enough to fit multiple runners, and the area just past the finish line was hazardous, Duarte said. Barstow lost only two times before 1999 on its current home course, both times were to Sultana.

The current course runs like an old wooden roller coaster. Tension building up-hill climbs, eventually give way to furious downward free falls and wild turns only to leave you coasting into a flat finish line.

“The only thing flat about it is the beginning and the end,” said Anthony Barnes, Burroughs High School cross country coach.

The current course begins with an even stretch as runners head out of the playground area at Henderson. As runners head into the desert, the terrain stays relatively flat before shooting upward.

A giant hill juts out at a more than 45-degree angle. Those not used to running hills begin to fade. The hill plateaus momentarily, but the climb upward continues. Dips, twists and turns highlight the middle portion of the course, until another gradual incline takes runners past a giant white cross belonging to the Calvary Chapel of Barstow. Runners then pass the freeway before retracing their steps toward the finish line back to the playground area.

The ride’s over

The wild ride can leave opponents and even Barstow runners intimated. Duarte calls it the course his team “loves to hate,” mostly because the other teams tend to hate it more.

“It’s the toughest course I’ve ever ran,” Granite Hills runner Nick Kelley said. “It’s just up and up. It seems like you never go down.”

Barstow runner Heather Earl remembers her first trip through the course as being “pretty brutal.” Subsequent runs haven’t made it any easier.

“I was so tired,” Earl said of her first run. “I just stayed tired. (The rest of the course) doesn’t make it any better.”

In preparation for the trip to Barstow, Barnes is showing his runners video of Burroughs last meet at Barstow in 2005. It’s not something he’ll do for many other meets, but not many other meets feature such a tough course.

“There’s nothing easy about it,” Barnes said. “It just beats you up. Most of the time you are going up, or you are going down, and even when you are going down — when you have that pounding and pressure on your body — it just beats you up.”

As Barstow’s captain and lone senior, Anthony Solis has the most experience with the course, but even he remembers having a rough time with his first time.

“I thought it was like the hardest course ever,” Solis said. “I was dying on it.”

— Staff writer David Heldreth contributed to this report

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