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, Alabama, on Monday, Aug. 14, 2023. From left are MD Moniruddin, Stephen Schneider and Allen Padgham.
The city of Hoover and Shelby County on Monday officially opened a new cross-country course at Veterans Park.
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 they did an amazing job building a new course that adds new challenges and maintains the Veterans Park course 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 eliminated some of the soft, mushy ground that 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, but the new one is designed to more “slowly grind you down,” Zelwak said.
It’s a more technical course that will keep runners on their toes and requires a different approach, he said. It remains to be seen whether the high school runners that frequent the course will like it, but 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, Zelwak said. “It’s going to be a lot more fun from a cross-country perspective.”
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 her Hoover Parks and Recreation Department for making some changes to plans for new pickleball courts to be built at Veterans Park because the original plans would have impacted the cross-country course in a negative way. 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 some time to spare.
The first big group of races for the new course — Spain Park High School’s Cross-Country Twilight races, is scheduled for Aug. 26 from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. and will include middle school, junior varsity and varsity races. Lights will be strung up in the woods for a unique running atmosphere, Zelwak said.
