Penn cross country has Princeton in its eyes and Heps on its mind

Don’t look now, but the Heptagonal Championships are only a little over two weeks away for Penn cross country.

And with another preparatory meet — the Princeton Invitational — coming up this Saturday, the de facto Ivy championships are on the minds of the Red and Blue.

“We definitely talk about it,” coach Steve Dolan said. “That’s when the championship meets start.”

It’s tough to blame the Quakers for looking ahead a little bit. Even Dolan is quick to admit that the significance of regular season cross country meets pales in comparison to that of postseason meets.

Adding to the team’s forward-looking tendencies is the fact that Heps will be held on the very course on which they will run this weekend. The Quakers will be sure to take the opportunity to prepare for their biggest meet of the year.

“We want to get to know the course really well,” junior captain Amy Darlington said.

However, with several races under their belt , the Red and Blue also have plenty to look back on.

Two weekends ago, most of the top runners in the program made the trek out to Indiana to compete in the highly competitive Notre Dame Invitational. However, the men’s and women’s squads were both less than thrilled with their most recent performances.

“We weren’t too happy with how we did,” sophomore Nick Tuck said.

Dolan took a more optimistic view of his program’s performance at South Bend, but he also recognized that his athletes still have a lot to learn.

“We had a number of good races but some that weren’t dream runs,” Dolan said of the men’s team, also noting Thomas Awad’s outstanding fourth-place finish. “On the women’s side, honestly, our inexperience showed a little bit.”

It would appear that over the past couple weeks, the Quakers have taken these lessons to heart.

“As a team, we took away that we need to get out faster in such a big group of people,” Darlington said. “Personally, I just need to be more confident ... and run my own race.”

The Quakers have used the relatively long layoff leading up to this weekend’s meet to get back to basics and perfect the strategy that worked for them earlier in the season.

“Going into Princeton, we’re going to focus on working as a team and having a lot of good pack running,” Tuck said.

However, Dolan also believes that the Quakers have used the past two weeks to fine tune their abilities.

“We definitely got some quality [workouts] done over the past two weeks,” he said.

While this meet may not feature the volume and quality of competition at the Notre Dame Invitational, the Quakers will have their hands full with one team in particular on Saturday — Princeton.

This weekend should be a solid test to see if the Red and Blue can hang with the Tigers, a more experienced group that figures to be a top Ivy contender this year.

Also of note is that, according to Dolan, sophomore Cleo Whiting — who has not competed yet this year due to injury — is progressing. It is a possibility that she will race this weekend.

Ultimately though, the results of this weekend are of secondary interest for the Quakers. Their primary focus rests on the future.

“I want to feel 100 percent,” Tuck said. “Heps is definitely the biggest thing on our minds.”

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