Cross Country Update: Sacramento Recap
10/3/2016 10:35:00 AM | Cross Country, Competing With Purpose Blog
Cori Persinger and Katie O'Malley, freshmen on the cross country and/or track teams,check in after Saturday's Capital Cross Challenge in Sacramento with updates on both squads:
This past weekend the Pepperdine men and women's cross country teams headed to Sacramento for the NCAA West Regional Preview meet. We travel by tour bus. Although the going is slow and the bathroom on board is something one would only use in the most dire of situations, we are thankful at least for the air conditioning -- a welcome change from the heat in most of our dorms this past week. On this long bus ride home, in between naps and movies, I had the opportunity to talk with some of Pepperdine's finest athletes about their mindset going into this meet.
It was an interesting race for the women's cross country team. The team is already young, with almost half the team being freshmen, and this weekend -- due to sickness and injury -- every single runner was a true freshman, excluding Megan Percy, our team captain and a red shirt freshman. The team was up against tough competition such as Arizona State and USC. Place-wise, our race was subpar. Last place. However, this sport is not all about place. All seven girls who ran raced their best times. Personal records (or PRs as we runners call them) all around the board. Many beat their 6k time from two weeks ago by over a minute. In light of that, I view this race as very successful.
Izabela Garcia-Arce said, "I feel optimistic about our potential. I feel like we did better packing up in this race, we're getting better and learning how to do it well."
The future focus for the women's team, specifically the freshman, is to push each other, and move up together in meets.Â
Andrea Zumpano added some words of wisdom: "The most important factor for a team is a strong connection, because you don't race for yourself, you race for your teammates."
Coach Radnoti has advised the women's team to focus on running as a pack in the future. Packing is a strategy used by many cross country teams that involves running side by side with your teammates in one group. It enables teammates to feed off of each other's energy and keep up morale, as well as intimidate other teams.
Bri Wilson said: "I feel like it helps me, depending on the race. Sometimes I like to go out faster than everyone else and I have also felt that it slows me down. However, it helps me later on in the race to have confidence and to support my teammates and also to be supported by them."
Moving up the bus to the upperclassmen, I talked with junior Amanda Stark about what she sees in the team this season, and she said: "We have a good team dynamic and I'm excited to see what the future holds for us."
Senior Lindsay Sheaffer added, "I think it's been a really good progression for everyone, and it's been really cool to see everyone grow individually and as a team."
On the men's team, sophomore Nick Heath broke the school record for the 8K with a time of 24:06. Nick Blanchard and Ben Fox also broke the old school record with times of 24:35 and 24:47.
About the race, Heath said, "It's the best race I ever ran and I'm very happy with it. It may have gone out fast,but I think I handled myself well. I think our guys' team is heading in the right direction, we've seen a lot of improvement this year. I think it counts for everybody, this race was a breakthrough for most of us. If we keep up the hard work in training I think we can expect to do very well at WCCs."
Overall, it was a successful and speedy Saturday in Sacramento for the Pepperdine cross country team.
As for the track team, the women's sprinters are just getting started with our preseason training. We are intently focused on getting stronger for the season. The returning athletes have been in the weight room and running for three weeks now, while myself and the other freshmen have only been in the weight room. However, we are eagerly anticipating the start of running practices with the upperclassmen this coming Tuesday! With the whole year ahead of us, all the women are focused on the goal of improvement and getting stronger. Through dedication and teamwork, it is sure to be a great season. It will be interesting to see how the year plays out!
Players Mentioned
