Finshing Touches On The XC Season

For all but one of us, our season ended in the mud of the North Country, at Regionals. The men's team finished in the same spot as last season, which definitely came as a disappointment. That said, I was definitely impressed with some of the races I saw, including one of our freshmen, Zach Williams, who has really settled in well and become one of our premier runners. However, I obviously have to give credit to Johanna Spangler, not only because she was the only one of us to continue her season (by qualifying for Nationals), but also because she's the first freshmen to achieve this in Vassar Cross-Country history.

At Nationals this weekend, she placed 93rd out of over 270 runners, and was the 11th freshman to finish. This season alone has made her one of the best female runners to ever attend Vassar, and next year, I think she's going to start winning races instead of just finishing in the top five consistently. It's also interesting to see how competitive our region is compared to the others around the country; the top 35 finishers in each race receive All-American honors; of these 35 on the men's side, 11were from the Atlantic region. The team that has been ranked #1 for most of the season and won Nationals, SUNY-Cortland, is also from our region. The individual champion was Peter Kosgei of Hamilton, again from our region. Williams College, a team from the New England region, but a team we raced multiple times this season, finished 3rd in both the men's and women's races. Division III competition doesn't get much better than the runners we see on a weekly basis.

Now that cross-country is over, it's time for most of us to start thinking about track. Until March, we won't be doing much in terms of racing, but that doesn't mean we won't be running...

On The Road ... Again (From The Atlantic Regionals)

Continuing the trend of writing from the road, I'm currently in a hotel in Canton, New York, a few miles from St. Lawrence University. Tomorrow is the Atlantic Regional Championship, which will serve as the conclusion of the season for most of the teams in attendance. In order to qualify for the NCAA Division III National Championships, a team must either finish first or second at one of the eight regional championships being run tomorrow, or receive an "at-large" bid based on their performance at Regionals and throughout the season.

Thirty teams in all will run next weekend, and no more than five can come from each region. On both the men's and women's side, the Atlantic Region has a good chance of sending five teams, as the men have five teams ranked in the top 25 nationally (#1 Cortland, #7 NYU, #10 Geneseo, #19 St. Lawrence, and #25 TCNJ) and the women have five in the top 22 (#10 Geneseo, #13 Cortland, #15 St. Lawrence, #19 TCNJ, #22 Ithaca). The Atlantic regional race will also feature last year's national runner-up, Peter Kosgei of Hamilton. In order to qualify for Nationals as an individual, a runner has to be one of the top seven runners on a team that didn't qualify based on their team performance.

I personally think a few of our runners have a shot at qualifying for Nationals, given their performances this season, but obviously, anything can happen on the course. We've been on this course once before this season, for the Liberty League Championship, and it ran fairly fast. The course is a little more wet than it was in early October, and it's supposed to rain tomorrow, but it's supposed to be fairly warm tomorrow, a blessing considering our proximity to the Canadian border.

Both the men and women are coming off strong performances at ECAC's, and I think everyone's confidence is pretty high right now. I think both the men and women will be disappointed if they don't place ahead of last year's finishes of 18th and 12th, respectively.

Canton is a small town, and right now the restaurants and hotels are overrun with runners; I've seen a number of people I recognize from races in our hotel lobby. Excitement is definitely in the air, alums and some of my other teammates are making the long drive north for the race, and all in all, we're going to have a good time.

Reporting From The ECAC Championships

I'm writing from a hotel somewhere in Rhode Island. We have the ECAC Championships tomorrow, a meet that is part of our postseason every year. We have two postseason races per season, and we try to peak for next weekend's Atlantic Regional Championships, a race that decides who qualifies for the NCAA National Championships. ECACs serves as our last tune-up before the big dance, and after a weekend off, it's important for us to remember how to race smart, going into Regionals. We usually travel to races the morning before, but the importance of the meet, combined with its distance from Vassar, made leaving this morning a wise choice. We got a chance to see the course in a low-stress environment, giving us enough time to become more familiar with the course layout, the firmness of the ground, and any potential trouble spots in footing or course design. We've never raced here before, and the more knowledge about the course we can use in tomorrow's race, the better I think we'll perform.

Last season, ECACs were held at Williams, a demanding course with which our team is familiar. The weather also didn't cooperate much, with a very cold morning in the Berkshires making for difficult racing conditions. This year, the weather report looks a little warmer, and the race is only a few minutes away from the coast. I don't think the times are going to be particularly impressive compared to other courses, nor do I know precisely which teams will show up tomorrow, but I do know that historically, a lot of great teams from New England and the Mid-Atlantic have come to this race. I also know that last year, our men finished 9th in the field, and our women came in 10th. Compared to teams of years past, both the men and women have turned in some of the best cumulative times in Vassar history at a number of races this year. I think we're poised to continue that trend, and best our results from last year and beyond.

An Injury Curtails My Season, Team Prepares For ECAC Championships

Today is the first Saturday we haven't had a race since September, and it's been nice to be on campus, especially with Halloween last night. We've got two races left this season, the ECAC Championships and the Atlantic Regional Championships. These meets are different than our other meets in that we can only enter 7 runners into each race as opposed to our entire team. Thus, for about half the team, the off-season began last Saturday. While judging by my times, I should still be running right now, I've been hampered by a stress injury in my shin since late September, and last week, it got to the point where I was experiencing "diminishing returns", as my coach put it; despite the effort I was putting in running, cross-training, and getting treatment, my shin just wasn't responding. So, in order to recover as quickly as possible for the spring, I'm taking some time off from running; I haven't gone more than a few days without running in well over a year, and at the very least, it's going to be different.

I should be able to start cross-training significantly in the next week or two, but until then, all I can do is try to rally my teammates on, like I did yesterday, giving them splits on a track workout of 1K track repeats. We're still not 100% sure how our lineups are going to shake out for the next couple weeks, but no matter who ends up running where, I know we're going to put a strong seven on the line.