Runners Tune Up For Postseason

Two races, two different environments, one last opportunity for the Harvard cross country squads to prove themselves to their teammates and to the rest of the nation before the championship season begins.

The squads will be split over the weekend as seven runners from both the men’s and women’s teams will travel to Terre Haute, Ind., tomorrow to compete in the prestigious Pre-Nationals Invitational against some of the top teams in the nation.

Another group of runners will race closer to home this morning in Warwick, R.I., at the first annual Brown Invitational.

With the fanfare of Pre-Nationals comes some stiff-competition. Over 1,600 runners, including 18 of the top 30 men’s and 18 of the top 30 women’s cross country teams, will be vying for victory within their respective divisions. The field of competition will be split into a blue, white, and open division for both the women’s 6,000-meter and the men’s 8,000-meter races. The meet will be held for the seventh straight year at the LaVern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course, where the Division I national championships will be hosted in late November.

Coming off of an impressive sixth-place finish at the Wisconsin Adidas Invitational, the women’s team has earned a quick boost in its reputation, ranking 31st in the nation in the most recent USTFCCCA poll and lacking just seven votes to break into the top 30. Pre-Nationals will allow the Crimson runners to test themselves against some of the top-tier teams and raise the squad’s national stock.

“We’ve got a women’s team that is very, very strong,” Harvard coach Jason Saretsky said. “They are deep, they are talented, and they are hungry. They really want to be running at a high level, so this will just be another step on the journey that we started back in the summer.”

The Harvard women will look to build off of its 12th-place finish in last year’s meet as it competes against 39 other opponents in the “white” division, eight of which are within the nation’s top 30 teams. Although Columbia, Dartmouth, and Princeton, the three other Ivy League contenders in the competition, are all designated to run in the “blue” division, they will be in the Crimson’s thoughts as it uses this weekend to prepare for the end of its season.

“I think it will be a really good litmus test for us before we go to the Ivy League Championships,” Saretsky said. “We want to see how we stack up against some of the best teams in the nation.”

The men’s team will also try to make a name for itself as it attempts to top last year’s 23rd place finish. It will compete against 35 other teams in the “white” division, including 10 teams in the top 30 of the nation as well as Columbia, a fellow Ivy League competitor.

Although the men’s team is coming in with less experience, it still hopes to make a strong showing.

“We have a pretty young team, and it’s been interesting to see how they’ve developed,” captain Dan Chenoweth said. “I’d really like to see the guys have a good, solid race, especially some of the guys who haven’t raced a lot of 8K’s.”

Chenoweth will lead his squad as he tries to top his 8th-place finish in last year’s event. But the senior is approaching the race focusing more on how his entire team will benefit from the experience.

“I’d love to get back into that top 10 and to do a little better than I did last year, but it’s more about just getting experience before we go into the Ivy Championships…and getting a good, fast race in,” Chenoweth said.

A large remainder of the squads will enter the Brown Invitational with a similar mindset, as the results will play an important role in determining who will compete in the Ivy League Championships.

“Brown is more of a low-key environment and doesn’t have the fanfare of Nationals, but what I tell all of our athletes is that the key is putting one foot in front of the other and blocking out all of these other things no matter where they are running,” Saretsky said. “I know that training has been going very well, so I’m looking forward to seeing improvements since the last time that everyone competed from the runners at both of the events.”

—Staff writer Stephanie E. Herwatt can be reached at sherwatt@college.harvard.edu.