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Landon XC Invitational History | |
The Landon XC Invitational has come a long way from its humble beginnings in 2004. The meet started with just a handful of teams after Addison Hunt took over at the Landon School as the head cross country coach of both the middle and high school programs.
Coach Hunt explained: "I was at the Field school where I had no track and I had no cross country course, so to come to a place like this and find out that they did not run an invitational on their course, I thought it was almost tragic. With the cooperation of the school, we've tried to always block off the last weekend in September as the Landon Invitational."
The meet's deceptively challenging course and low key atmosphere kept many teams coming back year after year while attracting more schools of similar makeup.
The course itself is a horseshoe shape that starts athletes running on a practice field towards the front entrance of the school. As runners veer away from the school's main entrance, they run a u-shape around the school's perimeter until they hit the front entrance again from the opposite direction. The course reverses direction and ends on the track in front of the stadium bleachers. Runners encounter a variety of terrain and multiple hills that most spectators never see.
"The concept of the course has basically been the same since the beginning," said Hunt. "People can kind of get a historical feel for their performances."
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