It’s not that Greene County Cross-Country Head Coach Jeff Lamoureux won’t welcome more girls out for the sport next year; he certainly will. The coach is more concerned about the lack of boys out for the sport and instead of barely having enough for a team, he’d like to have more than enough for a varsity, junior varsity, and then some. The coach said he’s heard some boys shied away from high school cross-country after running in middle school because the distance increases from two miles to five kilometers (3.1 miles).

“We do lose kids going from middle school to high school. Last year, Greene County actually won the middle school boys’ race in the conference (Heart of Iowa Activities Conference). There were four eighth graders on that team, so freshmen this year. I got one to come out. It’s been the experience of our current runners that the increase in distance really isn’t that big of a deal.”

High school girls in Iowa also run five kilometers, so the boys and girls run equal distance races.