Sophomore runner Karl Winter of the men's cross country team tells us about the beginning of the 2019 season and the excitement they've been building to move up in rank this year:
 
Q: What did your summer training program look like?
 
A: This summer was very different from anything I've ever done before. Coach Mosqueda has a different philosophy. We went with a little bit lower mileage than I did last summer, but we had a lot of hard workouts starting in early June and I think we built very good fitness during the summer. It's unfortunate to have to run alone during the summer, so we look forward to being back with our teammates even though we hold each other accountable, from afar via social media or other forms of communication. But overall, summer training went well; it's just different than anything I've ever done before.
 
Q: How was your first meet of the season?
 
A: The first meet was solid. I didn't hit the time that I was hoping to hit, but I was close and I finished well, fifth of about 200 runners. So, it went pretty well, I think. I was a little bit tired going into it because we're in the middle of a hard training block because it's early in the season, but I think it was a very good place to start and I'll look forward to building off of it going forward.
 
Q: What went well and what do you think you can improve on?
 
A: I think I just need to be a little better recovered going into a race. I need to make sure I take better care of myself throughout the weeks leading up with sleep, nutrition, taking ice baths and stretching, just to make sure that I'm ready to go come race day. Strategically there was nothing I could have done better. I just tried to hold on and about halfway through the race I started fading a little bit, but I held my position, as well as I could. I think the next race will have stronger competition and won't be as strung out. So, I will be looking to stick with the leaders, and hopefully challenge for the win in that race.
 
Q: How will you build off of this meet throughout the rest of the season?
 
A: I think time-wise some courses are faster than others, cross country is different in that way, so you might not have a specific time goal. I think strategically, you can improve in a race. So, I'll be looking at setting personal bests but more importantly, to place higher and then just score as as few points as possible for the team.
 
Q: What has it been like having a new head coach?
 
A: It's been very different training wise and just philosophy wise. It's been different, but I think it's been a very good change. Coach Mosqueda has a lot of energy and she's very enthusiastic about our success. She believes in us. The training itself has been a little bit different but I think we've responded well, she has very high goals for us and we have very high expectations for ourselves. I think that, so far, it's gone well and I think it will continue to go well and we'll see if the results reflect that.
 
Q: What did it mean to your team to be ranked in the NCAA West Regional for preseason?
 
A: It was encouraging to see that the nation has taken notice of how far our program has come. Last season we were ranked for the first time in school history and then we upheld that. We finished in the top 15 at the West Regional. At the beginning of this season the poll basically told us that they expected us to be there again and to improve on that. I think that's good, it shows that the program is trending in the right direction, even though we lost some runners from last year's team, they still expect us to compete and that's what we expect of ourselves. Frankly, to be ranked 14th, we still consider ourselves somewhat of an underdog and we believe that we can finish in the top 10 in the West Region, and I think that there are a lot of teams above us that we can go and get. I expect us to improve on that ranking as the season goes on and at the end of the season hopefully match and exceed what we did last season.
 
Q: What do you hope to achieve the rest of the season?
 
A: Personally, I would like to break the school record for the 8000 meters, and to try and lead our team race by race. As a team, we have pretty high expectations, we hope to challenge to win each of our regular invitational meets. Then conference and regionals are what really counts, and where we really test to see our progress. We hope to peak for those races come West Coast Conference time. We hope to be in the top four in the conference, which would be a lot better than we did last season. We hope to be in the top 10 in NCAA West Regionals as well, which would be the best finish in school history.
 
Q: What are you most excited about this season?
 
A: I would say I'm just excited for those two races at the end of the year, conferences and regionals where we really put it all out there and see how far we've come as a program. This is a very exciting team, we have some good experienced guys coming back like Jalen (Frantal), who's in his senior season. We want to perform as well as we can for him and his last year as a Wave. We also have several talented freshmen and we've already come together as a team, but we want to build that chemistry and see how far we can go and see if we can't yet again make it the best season in Pepperdine history.