Laura Santoski is a junior on the NYU women's cross country team. She shared her thoughts in this space throughout the 2010 season.
Posted November 22
Well, sports fans, cross country 2010 is a wrap.
Last weekend, we jetted out to balmy Waterloo, IA, for Division III Nationals. Just getting there was rough enough – we had layovers in Atlanta both ways and we ended up missing our connecting flights on our way to Iowa, leaving us stranded in Atlanta overnight.
We did eventually make it to Iowa, perhaps a little worse for the wear but still chipper. I mean, when you’re in Iowa, what’s not to be happy about?! And we made sure to experience the best that Iowa had to offer, especially when Nick insisted on going to an “authentic New Jersey sub shop.” As a Midwestern girl myself, it tasted exactly the same as any other sub to me, but who am I to judge?
In all seriousness, every girl on our team worked incredibly hard to get the chance to run at Nationals this year. It really is unlike any other race – there were hordes of half-naked fans with painted bodies running around in the 30-degree weather, and the roar of the crowd was deafening (thank you to all the family and friends who came out to support us! We love you even though you decided against the body paint.).
As usual, some girls on the team had great days while others (including yours truly) didn’t run as well as usual. Paige Zelinsky, Emily Cousens and Lorraine Brancale all had great races, turning in PRs despite the rolling terrain and long grass – and have I mentioned that it was freezing?
The bottom line is that even though we didn’t finish as well at Nationals as we had hoped, we overcame a lot just to get there. Two of our top scorers from last year were abroad this season, and another has been injured all season. I think I speak for all the older girls when I say that I am very proud of the underclassmen for stepping up to the plate and for making it to Nationals in their first seasons of college competition. We are all very proud of ourselves for performing much better than almost anyone expected of us. We all contributed a lot of blood, sweat and tears on our way to Nationals – and I mean that literally – and I look forward to seeing what we can do next year, since we’ll be returning all but one of our varsity runners.
See you on the track, everyone!
Laura Santoski is a junior on the NYU women's cross country team. She will share her thoughts in this space throughout the 2010 season.
Posted November 2
Well, internet friends, it’s been a while since my last update, and I apologize for that. We at NYU (well, most of us) just finished up our midterms, which is the stressful time of every semester when I realize just how much work I have to do in order to catch up in my classes.
It also has been crunch time for the cross country team, as we are now entering the most critical part of our season: UAA’s, then Regionals, and then (hopefully) Nationals.
On Saturday, we dove into UAA’s at historic Van Cortlandt Park. I realize that some of you, loyal readers, may be unfamiliar with Van Cortlandt, the home course of your beloved NYU Violets. My heart weeps to think that some fans might not be acquainted with our home away from home. For that reason, allow me to describe the women’s 6k course, which we (and the seven other teams in the University Athletic Association) had the pleasure of experiencing last weekend:
The race starts on a flat, grassy field, where we make two loops. This part of the race is less than one mile and is deceptively easy. Those unfamiliar with the course – in this case, almost everyone from the opposing teams – often go out too hard. This, of course, is exactly what happened on Saturday, with the lead pack running just under 5:30 for the first mile.
After the loops, we head onto what is called “the cow path,” a trail into the woods that is peppered with wooden supports embedded in the ground to help prevent erosion. The cow path gives us our first taste of hills in the race, culminating with “freshman hill,” a steep but short incline.
After freshman hill, things really start getting serious as we cross a bridge and head into the back hills. The back hills are a punishing stretch of steep uphills and downhills that seems endless while you are running it. This is where you will really begin to regret taking that first mile so quickly, since your legs are screaming as you climb up the umpteenth hill.
After many a false alarm, we finally emerge from the back hills and cross back over the bridge, where a quick right turn takes us down a hill and to the finish. Even this part of the race is a little tricky – you can see the finish as soon as you are about 600 meters away, but that 600 meters seems to take ages to traverse. One push to out-kick your opponents, though, and you’re crossing the line, exhausted and panting but (hopefully) pleased.
And we, as a team, were definitely pleased on Saturday. We beat Emory University by a narrow margin of three points to finish fourth overall, which is exactly where we hoped to land. This puts us in a good position to win an at-large bid for Nationals: Emory is likely to qualify in their region (which is slightly less competitive), so we can tell whoever decides these things that we have already beaten at least one of the teams that will be at Nationals and, therefore, we deserve to go too!
But, before we can really begin thinking about that, we have one more hurdle to cross: Regionals in two weeks. This is where we will make or break our at-large bid, since we need to place well. You can bet that we’ll be bringing it on in the best Bobcat fashion.
Laura Santoski is a junior on the NYU women's cross country team. She will share her thoughts in this space throughout the 2010 season.
Posted September 30
One of my favorite things about cross country is the strong sense of team unity. In track, everyone runs different races, warms up and cools down at different times, and runs different workouts based on the length of the races. Cross is great because most of the time everyone on the team runs in the same race. This means that we warm up, race and cool down together. Teamwork and running together are emphasized much more in cross country, while in track we tend to focus more on running well in our own races.
The races of the past two weeks, however, have been fairly unusual for us. Two weeks ago, we ran at the Dickinson Long/Short Invitational, which had separate 4k and 6k races for the girls. Last week, we ran at the Stevens College Invitational, which was even more unusual - it featured 4k and 6k races that started at the same time. Everyone ran the first part of the course together, but after the first mile the girls who were running the 6k doubled back to do another loop while the 4k girls continued on to the rest of the course.
One benefit of these invitationals was that they allowed us the rare chance to watch some of our teammates in action in a cross country race. Unless a member of the team is injured or not running for some other reason, she rarely gets to watch her teammates race because she is running with them. Being able to watch and cheer for my teammates was a nice change of pace.
However, the downside of races like these is that it denies us the opportunity to run together and work off each other during races. I know which of my teammates I should be near in a normal race, so I know which of my teammates I should be trying to stay with. When our team is split, I have fewer teammates to run with, and it’s harder for me to judge whether I am running well.
So, although I enjoyed the change of pace at these races, I’m looking forward to our next race, the New York Metropolitan Championship at Van Cortlandt Park (on October 8). Running it with our whole team now will give us a good idea of what it will be like to run the UAA Championship there in a few weeks, and it will let us return to the team dynamic that makes cross so enjoyable.
Laura Santoski is a junior on the NYU women's cross country team. She will share her thoughts in this space throughout the 2010 season.
Posted September 2
As NYU women’s cross-country wraps up our first week of practice, I’m happy to report that everyone survived… barely! The first week is always difficult, as our bodies adjust to longer runs and to city sidewalks. But, the blistering heat this week made our runs even more challenging than usual. I never thought I’d be happy about an impending hurricane, but after Hurricane Earl blows through, the cooler weather will be a relief to everyone.
Since we didn’t have classes this week, Coach McDonough took the opportunity to get us out of Manhattan and onto trails for a couple of our runs. On Thursday we headed up to Rockefeller State Park Preserve to run on the beautiful (but confusing) trails – and we even managed not to get lost while we were there! Today we went to the famous Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, or as we call it, VCP. We’ll be hosting the UAA (University Athletic Association) Championship meet there later this fall, so it’s great that our new team members get to start familiarizing themselves with the course.
Speaking of the new team members, we have a great group of freshmen this year. Training at the college level is quite a bit more intense than the high school level, but all of the freshmen girls have been handling it really well.
Our first race is tomorrow, although we’re approaching it more like a workout, so the freshmen will soon have their first college races under their belts. It’s hard to believe that we’re already racing, but it just goes to show how important it is to train over the summer.
In the final analysis, the girls’ team has definitely gotten off on the right foot this season (pun intended). In the words of junior Maeve Evans, “The first week of practice is always tough, but everyone worked hard and I’m looking forward to seeing what we can do this season.”
