Lake Afton dam proves challenging

I visited Lake Afton for the first time Saturday, when I covered the Class 4A and 5A cross country regional at that location.

The most challenging part of the course is near the end, where runners must climb the dam, race across and make their way back down toward the finish line. I overheard someone refer to it as “the dam(n) hill” Saturday.

Although Bishop Carroll’s first-place finisher in the girls’ 5A race, Kaelyn Balch, didn’t seem to be slowed much by the dam, the freshman described it as “one of the toughest things on the course.”

“I just wanted to finish then,” she said. “I was, like, really tired.”

She agreed that part of the difficulty stems from the dam’s location near the end of the race. However, the Hutchinson boys’ 5A winner – senior Cameron Sprague - wasn’t intimidated by the hill.

“I don’t really think it’s that bad,” he remarked.

Sprague added that it would be worse to climb the dam at the beginning of the race. At the end, runners have to kick and that requires a different energy system, he explained. Plus, he figures athletes who take on the dam benefit from the adrenaline rush that occurs as a race winds down.