Photo courtesy of Spain Park High School.
Spain Park High School cross-country runners practice on the new cross-country course at Veterans Park in Hoover. From left are MD Moniruddin, Stephen Schneider and Allen Padgham.
The city of Hoover and Shelby County officially opened a new cross-country course at Veterans Park in August.
The part of the course that goes through the woods on the west side of Jaguar Drive was redesigned to combine old and new trails for a new experience for runners.
The trail work was handled by a crew from Shelby County, and the course they built adds new challenges and maintains Veterans Park as a tough place to run, said Michael Zelwak, the head cross country and track coach at Spain Park High School, which is immediately next to the park.
“This course was never fast,” Zelwak said. “The goal was to keep it that way, keep it true cross-country.”
However, the old course had developed numerous drainage problems over the years due to erosion, and this new design is a vast improvement, Zelwak said. The city of Hoover has constantly taken care of the course, but in recent years, runners could be knee deep in water when it rained, he said.
The new course also eliminates some of the soft, mushy ground that had made running difficult and provides more stable, safer footing for runners, Zelwak said.
That said, there are some new, sharper turns and elevation changes that could throw runners for a loop, he said. “If you’re not careful, it will really break your stride,” he said.
The old course was known for a monster hill right before runners came out of the woods, he said, but the new one is designed to more “slowly grind you down.”
It’s a more technical course that will keep runners on their toes and requires a different approach, Zelwak said. Some of his former Spain Park runners have tested it and love it, he said.
There are faster cross-country courses with a lot of relatively flat, open running spaces in the state, but this one is designed to be tough, he said. “It’s going to be a lot more fun from a cross-country perspective.”
It’s going to be a lot more fun from a cross-country perspective.
Michael Zelwak
Also, the direction of the course has been reversed, and the woods portion of the 3.1-mile course is now in the first 1.5 miles, Zelwak said.
Zelwak thanked Erin Colbaugh and the Hoover Parks and Recreation Department for making some changes to plans for new pickleball courts to be built at Veterans Park, since the original plans would have negatively affected the cross-country course. The location of the courts was adjusted as much as possible to have less of an impact on the runners’ course, he said.
Shelby County crews didn’t start on the new course until July 5, and Zelwak said he was concerned they might not finish in time for this cross-country season, but they got the job done with time to spare.
The first big group of races for the new course, Spain Park High School’s Cross-Country Twilight races, were held at the end of August, with lights strung up in the woods for a unique atmosphere.
