Vanguard’s Max Miller’s methodical race leads to 3A individual crown
Max Miller experienced one third place finish in Colorado Springs this season. That’s all the fuel Miller required to remain motivated to never let it happen again.
The Vanguard runner won the 3A Colorado State Cross Country Championships’ individual crown with a time of 15 minutes and 55 seconds Saturday. This came one year after Miller placed 42nd at the 2024 season finale.
“Having the top time in 3A gave me a little confidence, but running at sea level is a little different than running at altitude,” Miller said. “It gave me some confidence, but I knew I was going to have to run a really fast race.”
Miller ran a 15:07.20 at the Desert Twilight in Gilbert, Ariz. on Sept. 26 and no one in 3A reached that time the remainder of the season.
However, Miller followed that personal-best time with a 15:55.54 at the Tri-Peaks/Black Forest League Cross Country Championships. The time was certainly respectable, but Alamosa’s Ethan Merrick and Lamar’s Joel Davis outpaced Miller at the Oct. 10 event.
“I knew in this race I couldn’t start out by going hard,” Miller said. “I couldn’t go out and take the lead in the first mile. Otherwise, especially with a technical course like this. I wouldn’t be able to maintain that pace for the full three miles. I knew I needed to keep steady and once I felt like I had enough to go for a move, I could. I did that around the two-mile mark and I was able to hold it.”
The trio ran shoulder to shoulder in the opening mile of the race, but Miller built a one-second lead entering the two-mile mark. By the 2.5-mile section, Miller separated himself from his rivals.
By race’s end, Miller’s previous lesson helped to carve an 11-second gap between himself and Merrick, who placed second, and 12 seconds between the Coursers runner and Davis, who earned third. “Those guys are really fast and that race a few weeks ago gave me a strategy for how I should run my race here,” Miller said. “I wanted to try to stick with them and run my race and run through the first and second mile with them and see what I had left for the third mile.”