Going into the 2022-23 season, the boys’ and girls’ cross country teams have a whole new look with the addition of new head coach Christopher Martinez.

Martinez has been running professionally since middle school and was previously the assistant coach at Viewpoint, which placed very highly in the Gold Coast League during his time there. However, Martinez wants to make a bigger impact as the head of his own program.

“It’s always been my ambition to be a head coach one day and start my own program,” said Martinez. “I’m just trying to create a different team culture and vibe with the program. Track [at CHS] has been very successful, but cross country has had three different coaches in the past few years. I want to stay here so I can build that culture.” 

One of Martinez’s main goals is making sure that team members are more than just fellow athletes; he wants to encourage friendships and an atmosphere of camaraderie so that members can count on one another.

“We’ve had a ton of bonding events outside of practice and outside of school that I did at Viewpoint, and that really brought us all together and made people want to run for each other and run for themselves,” said Martinez. 

The team has already improved drastically since the beginning of the year. 

“This past weekend, some of the athletes on the team were telling me how crazy it is, how fast they’re running,” said Martinez. “If you would’ve told them last year or two years ago how fast they’re running, they wouldn’t have believed it. We have two boys who run three miles in under 16 minutes, and I think the fastest time in years past was about 17 minutes.”

Very recently, CHS won at the College of the Canyons race for the first time ever, beating out 16 other competitive teams. 

With only a few senior boys graduating this year, Martinez has high hopes for the continued growth of the program.

NOTE: This story has been updated as of 10/19 to correct an error in Christopher Martinez’s name.