Cross Country Course - Dunlap, Illinois

TSG began this project by designing a cross country course that would be suitable for the high school and middle school programs. The coaches wanted to utilize some land that was recently purchased by the school district near the newest middle school but remained unused. They also wanted to have the 2-mile and 3-mile courses to start and finish near the same location.

The design of this course is complicated in that we had to calculate drainage, grading and grassing for nearly 300,000 square feet of working area consisting of over 10,000 linear feet of trail systems. The trail system goes through lows, highs, over creeks, around ponds, and through wooded areas.

Once design and engineering was completed, TSG started with the installation of over 12 culverts of various sizes to control drainage.

Culverts were installed at 20’ lengths mainly in the valley section of the course to the south. Working around the storm water detention ponds was a challenge with drainage control, but the view from the course is neat for the runners.

The entire course was graded and prepped. Trees were removed. Areas were cleared and grubbed. The entire course was plowed and pulverized at about 5” in depth in preparation for grassing.

A special TSG seed blend was used on the course to combat a hot summer grow-in period with no irrigation on the course.