Line 'em up

The table has been set for tomorrow's assault on the Colorado boys' 1600-meter record (4:10.98), set in the days when floppy disks were not only high tech, but actually floppy -- 1981.

There are four main players in this, distributed across two races.

At 11:20 a.m., sophs Cruz Culpepper (4:12.01) of Niwot and Cole Sprout (4:12.75) of Valor Christian go at it in 4A.

At 2:55, seniors Michael Mooney (4:11.99) of Broomfield and Carter Dillon (4:12.91) of Mountain Vista battle. By this time, the record might not be 4:10.98 anymore. By the way, almost every spot in Colorado is a mountain vista. Naming a high school that in this state is like naming one Pacific View Academy in Hawaii.

Interestingly, Culpepper and Mooney have faced off in this event this season, as have Sprout and Dillon; that's where these seed times all come from. But tomorrow's match-ups will be new.

This being high school, where even fast kids can make big leaps all at once, it would be foolish to discount the chances of Landon Rast in 5A, who is seeded at 4:15.34 and won the 800 today in 1:53.01 over Dillon (1:54.71). Dillon also ran on the winning 4 x 800 team yesterday.

Ditto James Lee in 4A, who won the 800 today in 1:54.25 and also has a 4:15 seed. Culpepper, it should be noted, finished last in this race in 2:08 off a 57.0 opener. I don't know if he packed it in on purpose after it didn't look good, but this is not a confidence-builder.

Mooney won the 5A 3200 yesterday in a close race in 9:12.91 (4:43/4:29) while Sprout won the 4A 3200 this morning by 11 seconds in 9:22 after going out in 65.

The biggest problem with the record attempts is not the doubling or tripling by all four major players, but the near-certainty of bad weather (rainy, high 40s) all day tomorrow.

My prediction, based on information anyone can gather, is that Sprout has the best chance of getting the record. This doesn't mean that I think he'll necessarily run the fastest time tomorrow or even win his race for sure. I do think he will go for it no matter what others in the race do, and I think it annoys him that he can't race the graduating 5A twosome tomorrow. Just a hunch, based on the stuff my pitchfork-bearing people in the underworld are always whispering my way.

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