UAF cross country race takes on new course

Story and photos by Lizzy Hahn

Lucca Duke, the collegiate winner of this year’s annual “blue and gold” cross country race against UAA, runs through a puddle on the course as other racers follow.

The University of Alaska Fairbanks held their annual “Blue and Gold” cross country meet this weekend. Although both the women’s and men’s teams fell to the University of Alaska Anchorage’s teams, there were still feats from UAF. The UAA men's team won with 23 points over UAF’s 33 points. The UAA women's team won with 22 points over UAF’s 35 points.

The meet wound through new ski trails that were built in the summer of 2024. Twenty-one women took off from the starting line, ready to tackle the six-kilometer race ahead of them. The new course consisted of three two-kilometer loops for the women.

“The first lap of the course is fun, the second two – less fun,” said UAF senior Teegan Silva.

Lucca Duke, a senior at UAF, led the pack, finishing first in the collegiate division. She finished with a time of 23 minutes and 15 seconds. Former UAF cross country runner Rosie Fordham won the overall race, besting Duke by one minute and 20 seconds. Fordham is no longer on the UAF running team since she has run out of eligibility.

As the snow melted last spring, sinkholes began to appear on the trail. UAF cross country running coach Conrad Haber explained that UAF ski coach Ben Buck was instrumental in maintaining the trails and finding where the holes came from.

Finn Morley, white jersey, and other men’s athletes listen as their coach Conrad Haber speaks to them before their eight-kilometer race on Saturday.

“He's been out there … every day throughout the entire fall, at the end of the spring last year, over the summer, to really make sure that things are maintained,” Haber said.

Haber said the decision to use the new ski trails was made “to see if we could get better attendance, which from looking around it kind of looks like it worked out that way.” 

One obstacle on this course was a very large puddle that runners had to navigate. Some chose to run to the left of it, on some deep mud, or to plow through the water.

UAF runner Teegan Silva was amongst a few who chose to barrel through the water.

“The puddle was fun; that’s real cross country,” Silva said.

University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Ruben Rhodes, left, and Clem Taylor-Roth, right, climb up one of the many hills along the eight-kilometer course on Saturday, September 13, 2025.

Haber continued to explain that this course is a bit more challenging than the previous course because it is “up a hill then down and then up and then down, up, down.”

Leading the field of twenty-four men was UAF freshman, Dexter Delaney. The men’s race was eight kilometers long, or four loops. Delaney secured his lead early on in the race, gapping the rest of the field. He finished with a time of 25 minutes and 48 seconds. 

Nick Iverson was one of the eight freshmen on the men’s team who competed at the “Blue and Gold” race.

This was his second collegiate race, which he described as being “very brutal” because of the gradual climbs on the course.

“It doesn't look too brutal when you first lay eyes on it, but they'll kind of stab you in the back once you trust it,” said Iverson.

“Always fun to race the local friends in Alaska,” said UAA runner Stephen Zukowski.

Since this was both team’s first-time racing on this new course, a lot of lessons were learned. Zukowski and other teammates Tobias Buchanan and Edgar Vera explained how taxing the hills and puddle were.

Two UAF runners Teegan Silva, left, and Riga Grubis, right, run with a group of girls from the University of Alaska Anchorage during the six-kilometer-long race.

“You'd be running on the grass, and you'd have a good return, and then you'd hit the mud and quite literally just stop and slow down,” said Zukowski. “It was true cross country.”

UAF is going into the 2025-2026 season with a lot of freshmen on the men’s team, as well as a lot of women who graduated on the women’s team. Looking forward, Haber said the team is focusing on establishing their own culture.

The cross-country team’s race will be the Bill Roe Classic in Bellingham, Washington on September 27.