Dexter runners building a 'base' through stifling heat, rigorous training

The Dexter High School varsity cross country team trains on school grounds on Tuesday in Dexter.

Tom Davis ~ Tdavis@semoball.com

DEXTER – On Tuesday afternoon, as the heat index climbed comfortably past the century mark, the Dexter High School varsity cross country squad gathered to do what few people would contemplate, which is run four miles through the undulating hills of Crowley’s Ridge.

“We’ve run every mile together, really,” Bearcat senior Ben Dowdy said of his teammates.

What made the experience even more … impressive or astonishing? (take your pick) … was the fact that the training session was the second for the athletes of the day.

“This summer,” Dowdy continued, “we’ve hit it hard.”

The Bearcats gather six days each week, sometimes twice a day, with the task of running 50 miles per week.

Dowdy is joined by all his teammates, but he and fellow senior Cameron Bell, who made mincemeat of the Bearcat record book last fall as a junior, have “run miles together since we were in the seventh grade,” Dowdy explained.

The Bearcats traverse a variety of paths throughout their hometown, and on Tuesday, they were discussing a new venture at varying points.

“When you run 10 miles in a town like Dexter,” Dowdy said, “you kind of have to go everywhere.”

Following spring track season, in which Bell and Dowdy joined teammates Anniston Kyle, and Chase Farmer team for an MSHSAA Class 3 state championship in the 3200-meter relay, the Bearcat distance runners take 14 days off to allow their bodies to heal before embarking on the summer training, which isn’t easy – the 14 days off, not the summer training.

“On that 14-day period,” Dowdy explained, “that is when you know you really love the sport because you are itching to run.”

The team not only trained throughout the streets of Dexter but also ventured to the infamous Joe Bill Dixon Running Camp for a week of training throughout the 900-acre ranch in the Mark Twain National Forest near West Plains.

“You run,” Bell said succinctly of what he and his teammates did at the camp.

“We were there with all of these really great (cross country) programs,” Bell said, “and that is where you see all of those programs being built, and we are trying to be that great program.”

The Bearcat athletes ran twice a day for five consecutive days, and on the final day, they awoke in their tents (after a day of hard training, one can sleep well anywhere) at 4 a.m. and ran a 14-mile course.

“You have completed a 14-mile run before 7 a.m.,” Bell said. “Mentally, it is so amazing. You are like ‘I didn’t know that I could do this.’”

The Dexter runners have run seven miles each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday this summer, regardless of the temperatures, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays, they break 10 miles into a six-mile jaunt in the morning and four miles in the evening.

Dowdy explained that those weekday runs are done as a group while a Saturday morning 10-mile run is more at race speed.

“We like to keep our runs slower,” Dowdy said of the weekdays. “We are not getting out there and racing every day. But, on that 10-mile run, we like to go a little bit faster.”

All of this work is “to build a base,” according to Dowdy. The athletes can’t show up on August 12 and start a cross-country season from scratch physically or mentally.

“It’s like building a house,” Bell said. “We’re building this house brick by brick. You need every mile before the season starts because when you have these miles, you get to the start of your season and you are doing the workouts, you have a really solid base.”