Stewart plans to lead while building on strong 2023 season

By Lethbridge Herald on September 11, 2024.

Herald File Photo by Justin Seward Herald File photo by Justin Seward Owen Stewart wants both the women’s and men’s teams to realize it may be the biggest meet for most of them and not let the nationals stage get to their heads.

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

Local cross country runner/ indoor track athlete  Owen Stewart is thriving as he enters what his last season at Lethbridge Polytechnic with the Kodiaks.

Stewart is coming into the new cross country/ indoor track season building off of a string of honours  last season that he  received at the  Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) and Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) levels, attending nationals for cross country, placing third at provincials with the men’s cross country  team and helping indoor men’s  track team repeat as provincial champions.  

Stewart also was sixth overall on aggregate for the ACAC cross country grand prixs  last season and broke records in indoor track as in the 600 and 1,000 metre races, his times were new ACAC, ACAC championship and college records .

Stewart took home gold in the 1,500 metre event  at  the indoor track championships.

“I think as we have more experience, we become more mature in our running and also in our training,” said Stewart.

“So this season I’ve been really just  trying to take care of my mental health (and) throughout the summer I did a lot of just  easy runs and try to enjoy the sport as much as possible.”

Stewart said as you do well over the course of seasons at a time, you want to keep it up and improve on it.

“In the ACAC right now, there’s a lot of great runners and it’s fun to compete against them,” he said.

“So right now, I want to improve (in) each and every race.”

Stewart spoke about how he plans to lead the men’s cross-country team  as the grand prix circuit continues this fall

“This year we have a pretty new group of guys, a lot of good athletes, but not a whole lot of experience with cross-country racing at the ACAC level,” said Stewart.

“I hope to kind of lead them as we do work outs, try to set a good example of being early to practice, and being consistent in the gym (and) doing as much as possible while following the coach’s advice and his program.”

Stewart thinks it will be exciting to lead a younger group.

“They bring a special sort of excitement to the sport which I really do love,” he said.

“It means a lot to me to have this opportunity to kind of lead them through it, give them some advice from a little more of (an) (experienced) background and ultimately I think we just build off each other’s energy and it’s just fun to see how they improve.”

Kodiaks cross country coach Simon Schaerz expects big things from Stewart.

“I want to make it to nationals as an individual and as a team especially for cross country,” said Stewart.

“We have the goal of doing better than we did last year and that’s all he’s expecting.”

Stewart finished the first grand prix of this season in third place over the weekend.

The Kodiaks cross country teams gear up for the second grand prix of the season on Saturday at Northwestern Polytechnic before hosting the third grand prix on Sept. 21.