In his Yukon Cross-Country Championships debut, Dawson City teenager Jack Amos showed that he’s a force to be reckoned with.

Sporting a Team Yukon singlet, Amos led a handful of laps at the Mount McIntyre trails to win the male 15-17 category six-kilometre race in 21 minutes, 59 seconds. The next best runner was last year’s winner, Special Olympics runner Darby McIntyre, in 23:33.

“I’m just happy that I had a steady pace,” said Amos after the race. “It was pretty comfortable. I wasn’t in too much pain, so that’s good.”

Rounding out the male 15-17 category was Joe Parker (29:34), who suffered from cramping during the last half of the course.

Just over 30 runners participated in this year’s cross-country champs, on a two-kilometre course. Depending on their age category, they run the loop anywhere from one to five times.

Featured on the loop was Telemark Hill, which course designer Don White said was requested by several of the runners.

“We could have excluded Telemark Hill, but a number of people wanted to run it,” he said.

Perhaps it was an exercise in pain management.

“It’s long and it’s steep,” said women’s open division winner Lindsay Carson “It’s really gravelly and that’s where it gets steeper. It’s tough just trying to get your footing and you’re really trying just not to walk up it.”

She thinks people might find it especially tough on a course like this where you have to run it a few times.

“You have to do it every single lap and you know it’s coming,” she said.

Carson, who raced the Eastside 10K road race last weekend, treated Sunday’s race as a training run leading into her cross-country season.

“It was a good thing to get my head into the cross-country mindset,” she said.

Her season continues with the B.C cross-country championships in late October, followed by the Canadian cross-country champs in Kingston, Ont. at the end of November.

The runners began with a downhill mass start from the cross-country ski team wax room, clearing the stadium and heading out on the trails for their laps.

“The guys took it out pretty conservative, so I just hung on the back end of them and then my goal was each lap to try to pick it up,” said Carson. “I guess my goal was to probably to reel in Brendan (Morphet) by the end of my race, which I did, so I was happy.”

Carson and Morphet have been trading race wins this season on the local circuit.

At the Yukon River Half Marathon, Morphet edged her out for the win and at the Yukon 10K road championships in late summer, Carson took the win.

On Sunday, Morphet completed the lap five times, winning his category in 37:30. He was joined on the podium by visiting runner, Patrice Zutcher (47:53).

For some of Sunday’s field, the race will be a tune-up for the main event, the B.C. Cross Country Championships held in Nanaimo at the end of October.

It’s certainly a race that Amos is preparing for.

He’d like to run three kilometres in under nine minutes, a feat he said he’s pretty close to. He also wants to stand on the podium.

White will be taking a group of young runners down to the Vancouver Island race.