The Texas A&M cross country team ventures to Madison, Wisconsin to compete in the sixth-annual Wisconsin Adidas Invitational Friday morning. In the past five years, the competition has established itself as one of the nation’s premier collegiate meets. The men will race 8,000 meters, and the women will run 6,000 meters on the Thomas Zimmer Championship Cross Country Course.
Head coach Wendel McRaven said he expects Friday’s meet will come with some very high-caliber competition.
“Well, this is pretty much the best regular season meet in the country,” said McRaven. “The last two years have been arguably the best cross country meets in the history of the sport. I think last year there was 20 and 21 nationally ranked teams respectively in each gender. It’s a heck of a meet.”
The Thomas Zimmer Championship Cross Country Course was opened in 2009. The Aggies are regular competitors in the meet and several of the runners have raced the course in previous years. However, McRaven does not anticipate any kind of advantage over the competition.
“Probably seven out of ten on the men’s side traveled to race here last year,” McRaven said. “On the women’s side probably about five of the nine traveling with us ran on the course last year. We might have a little bit of advantage mentally, but everybody still has to get out there and race. Every team is in the same boat. There are other teams that have been on the course before. It’s a really fair course so I don’t think it’ll make much of a difference.”
Last week the Aggies led the Houston Baptist Invitational, claiming a men’s team title and the women coming in second. Coming off a big win, McRaven said the Aggies can’t relax and there’s still room for improvement.
“On the men’s side I want to see the guys do a better job of running together and finding each other early in the race so they can work together and help each other out a little bit,” McRaven said. “On the women’s side, our first three women do a really good job of that. What I really want to see happening is our three, four, five and six place runners really working together, racing intelligently, and building up the race. This is a meet where that’s going to be a challenge. It’s something that they’re going to have to work on.”
McRaven looks towards the veterans to lead the running core against Friday’s elite competition.
“They continue to show great leadership,” McRaven said. “On the men’s side Isaac Spencer, Colin Slattery, and Ryan Miller are all great leaders by example. They aren’t afraid to talk to the team and make sure people are doing things the right way. On the women’s side Hillary Montgomery and Grace Fletcher lead in slightly different ways but both are really good leaders. Hillary is not afraid to talk. Grace is more of a leader by example.”