Oxbow High School freshman Aidan Bowles takes in the view and waits for his mother to catch up during the four mile Mud Run held on April 9, 2017 in Bradford, Vt. Fiddlers Eliza Goodell, 16, and Dylan Ricker, 15 played for runners at the lookout during the race. (Valley News - Jennifer Hauck) Copyright Valley News. May not be reprinted or used online without permission. Send requests to permission@vnews.com.
Oxbow High School freshman Aidan Bowles takes in the view and waits for his mother to catch up during the four mile Mud Run held on April 9, 2017 in Bradford, Vt. Fiddlers Eliza Goodell, 16, and Dylan Ricker, 15 played for runners at the lookout during the race. (Valley News - Jennifer Hauck) Copyright Valley News. May not be reprinted or used online without permission. Send requests to permission@vnews.com.

Bradford, Vt. — The last time Oxbow High School’s track team had new high jump equipment it was 1972 and the program had just begun.

But thanks to the team’s Mud Run fundraiser last Sunday, Oxbow’s track athletes will have new “standards” — the vertical uprights that hold the bar that high jumpers attempt to clear — to practice with.

“We just really started taking it into our own hands last year and started to figure out fundraising,” coach Amy Cook said.

The team receives funding from the school, but equipment isn’t cheap and it can be hard to keep up with replacements.

“Track has about 14 different events within the track meet, and they all require different equipment,” said Cook, a veterinarian in Newbury, Vt., who has coached the team for seven years. She coaches alongside Emily Willems, a teacher at the high school.

Both years, the effort raised about $1,100, Cook said. Last year, the team used the money to purchase placards to display records set by students in the school’s cross country and indoor and outdoor track programs.

About 75 people showed up for Sunday’s run, including the high school’s 20-student track team and the 20 middle school students in the JV program.

“A lot of folks from the community turned out,” Cook said. “That really indicates that it’s going to grow.”

The four-mile course began on the school’s outdoor track before going through the woods and up to Sawyers Ledge, where participants were greeted by two fiddlers playing lively tunes and expansive views of the Upper Valley, including the Connecticut River.

“It’s a pretty tough course,” said Cook, and it lived up to its name: It was full of puddles, uneven terrain and, of course, mud.

“What a course,” said Peter Terry, who coached the track team when it first started in 1972. “I had to wash my running shoes when I finished and had to dry them out for three days.”

The crowd was a mix of student-athletes, parents and other community members, said Cook. After the race, participants were served barbecue pulled pork.

Abby Pelletier’s son Owen is a junior at Rivendell, but is on the Oxbow team. Her oldest son, Dylan, was on the team and went on to run track at the University of New Hampshire “thanks to the great coaching he had at Oxbow,” Pelletier, of Orford, said.

She ran in the race both years and said she admires the grassroots effort to give the team additional funding, particularly the effort to involve students.

“(It) gives a lot of buy-in because they’re helping out and succeeding together as a group,” Pelletier said. “You won’t meet nicer coaches or kids than in track and field.”

It also makes the track team more visible in the community. Currently, the team can’t host home meets because of the track’s condition.

“There’s lots of talk and lots of dreaming about putting a track in,” Cook said. “We’d love to do it.”

In the meantime, the team will continue its fundraising efforts, with encouragement from the high school and greater community.

“It makes me very happy that there’s people coming out to support us,” Cook said.

Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com or 603-727-3221.