The University at Albany hosted their 39th annual Cross Country Invitational this past Saturday. Out of the 27 schools present, the Rensselaer men’s team captured a 13th place finish on the 8k trail, with 366 points, and the women’s team ended the day in 22nd place, with 641 points on a shorter 5k course. Performances by both teams were very respectable as a number of Division I and regionally ranked Division III schools were present.
Learning to run in a crowd is important for a runner. The reason for this is because of the vast number of people that compete in state and regional races. Albany’s course added another challenge to the 200 runners in the race. Within the first 200 meters of the course, the path bottlenecked through a set of gates, slowing down runners who did not get off to a quick start. In preparation for these circumstances, Coach Andrew Weishaar had his runners complete a series of speed workouts that focused on getting out fast. Also during the week, Weishaar discussed the importance of positioning, which would allow his runners to make moves on people later on in the race.
The strategy of having a strong start to the race worked especially well for freshman Conor Murphy on Saturday. Murphy’s finish led the Red Hawks with a very fast time of 25:55.6 and placed him 37th among 220 opponents. Following in Murphy’s footsteps, Rensselaer’s remaining top five also ran exceptional performances as they all cracked the 27 minute barrier.
On the women’s side, captain Julia Moore, a junior, led the women with her 100th-place finish. Moore’s performance was closely pursued by teammate Hollie Lester, who ran a season-best time and placed second on the team.
This week will be spent rehabilitating a few key members of both the men’s and women’s teams who are battling injury. Although the team will be running without some top performing members, Weishaar pointed out that Rensselaer cross country has depth. This depth consistently pays off in key meets as the Red Hawks are always able to run with seven healthy people. Coming up next Saturday, October 22, the cross country teams will be in action at Saratoga State Park.
