NCAA's

Finally, the national meet. This was my first time at an NCAA meet of any sort so I was nervous, but having some experienced veterans on the team was reassuring. We knew from regionals that we had a good team and could place highly if we ran a smart race. We wanted to run as a loose pack and key off of some OSU guys, since they tend to run very smart races and do well. Unfortunately we had some bad luck in the race, with Pat losing his shoe at the start, and most of us slipped off the line and got buried in the field. Position is everything in cross country, especially at this meet, and it was an added challenge to get back up to where we were supposed to be from the beginning. We ended up not being able to pack up as successfully as regionals and could never get to that level of running. We finished 8^th as a team, which was obviously disappointing for us. Not the best way to end the season, especially since regionals went so well, but personally I was happy to be there. It was my first NCAA’s after all, and it was an incredible experience.

Midwest Regionals

At the regional meet, all we wanted was to get top 2 and qualify automatically to NCAA’s. This was not a task that we took lightly; including us, we had three top-10 teams in OSU, us, and Tulsa. We all had good races and we all stepped up to tie OSU for the win. This ended up being a lucky break, since Tulsa really rose to the challenge was only two points behind us in third. 

Keeping the pack together

The scores for top 3 were 45-45-47 and it was a real nailbiter when the results were being tallied. Of course, Tulsa ended up going to NCAA’s anyway as an at-large qualifier, but it was great to have the momentum of winning regionals going into the national meet. Our top 6 all scored in the top 20 and this ended up being our most satisfying meet. We executed the race plan perfectly and left knowing that all we had to do at nationals was replicate our tactics and we would run to our potential as a team. 

Happy with the win

Big 12's

We entered the post-season with our next race, the Big 12 meet in Austin. Our team goal in this race was to get a solid 2^nd behind OSU and ahead of Texas. Challenging OSU is always a nice goal, but in hindsight they were dominant this year. Again, we didn’t run the way we wanted to and it ended up biting us as we got 3^rd, losing to Texas. Partly because Texas really stepped up and we just had a regular day, they beat us by 6 points and moved ahead of us in the rankings. This was our most disappointing meet because we should have been able to get 2^nd overall. This race was a learning experience to improve on, but still a tough loss.

Just after the start

Wisconsin

Three weeks later, we raced at the Wisconsin Invitational. Over the past couple of years this has been the biggest meet in the regular season, and probably the hardest field besides NCAA’s. This year was crazy with something like 45 teams in the field (Mick Byrne said after the race that he’ll limit entry to 30 or so because the field was just too big). We were optimistic about this race and thought that if we executed the pack running concept as well as we did at UVA, then we should be able to win. Well, the race went about as weirdly as anyone had ever seen a big cross country race go. Instead of going out fast and then settling in, everyone went out slow for the first two miles and then hammered the last half. 

I'm back there somewhere, I promise

The big move at 3k split us up and we ended up not running our plan, and so we didn’t run as well as we wanted to. We got 3^rd in the meet behind Stanford and Iona and were disappointed as a team, although some guys had great races. It was a good learning experience and we did our best to objectively look at our mistakes and fix them for the post-season. Even though Wisconsin was such a big meet, it was still regular season so it didn’t count for much besides a rehearsal for NCAA’s.

Panorama Farms

Our first test came at the UVA Panorama Farms Invitational on September 22. Despite the early season and relatively low-key meet, there were some good teams there including us, Michigan, Arkansas and the host school Virginia. All four made it to NCAA’s so it was actually a solid field. Our goal was to run as a five-man pack for the whole race and win it, which we did comfortably. The course was challenging and we succeeded because we dictated the race instead of letting the race dictate us. The other teams didn’t run as smart and so they didn’t run to their potential like we did. Overall we were happy with this race since we accomplished our plan and it was a good fitness checkpoint for us.

Some strides before the start

Cross Country 2012 Recap

My last cross country season is in the books and I’m at home for Thanksgiving, so I have time to reflect on the last few months, and what better place to do that than here? Now that the season is over I’ll talk about the five major races we competed in and analyze them in the context of what we were trying to achieve as a team. The team has finished 6^th and 5^th at NCAA’s the past two years, so the next logical step for the program this year was to finish 4^th or better. Everything was done with this goal in mind.