Central Michigan University Athletics
Cross Country Gets Serious With Pre-Nationals
10/14/2016 12:00:00 AM | Men's Cross Country
Nate Perry, CMUChippewas.com
MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. - Cross country is different from other sports in that the "regular season" events are used almost like training sessions for the big meets at the end of the year.
The first of those such meets, the Pre-National Invitational, is this weekend at the Indiana State's LaVern Gibson Cross Country Championship Course in Terre Haute, Indiana.
The Chippewas will join fellow Mid-American Conference members Miami (Ohio), Ohio, Toledo, Bowling Green, Western Michigan and Northern Illinois in the event.
So, along with the chance to preview the championship course for a possible national championship berth, the Chippewas get an opportunity to see how they will stack up against some of the competition they will encounter at the conference meet on Oct. 29 at Kent State.
"We want to mix it up with those (MAC) teams," CMU coach Matt Kaczor said. "A lot of them are ranked higher than us right now, so if we can mix it up with them with the talent we know we have, we'll get that 'snowball of confidence' going down the hill and have something to build on going toward the conference meet."
While the Central Michigan men's team has raced all of its available runners all season long, this will be the first time Chippewa women will showcase a full squad since the Minnesota Griak Invitational three weeks ago.
Kirsten Olling, one of the top runners on the women's side, continues to make strides toward performing at full strength.
"She's getting better and better," Kaczor said. "At Griak, it was her first race and she still wasn't totally comfortable so she was probably at about 75 (percent). But right now it's just kind of waiting for that fitness level to continue to improve and get to where it needs to be."
The men's team has taken the "all hands on deck" approach to each one of its races, however Kaczor does not believe fatigue will be an issue.
"We've tried to spread their races out, and the varying distance helps too," he said. "We really try to tailor the races of the freshmen and the young guys and control what they're doing so that they're not petered out by the end of the year."
The recurring theme of the season has been building confidence for the Chippewa men, and they have another opportunity to do so in a high-stakes meet against a deep field of upper-level competition.
"It's like I keep reminding them, every time you get out on the course, you're going to learn something new, and you're going to be able to adapt that into your next, race," Kaczor said. "In our sport we look only at what we do on meet day as being the picture of what we are and sometimes we forget about what we've done in these six other days as far as the progress we're making."
Players Mentioned
