Men's Cross Country builds for future at annual team getaway

There were beach volleyball games. There were whiffle ball home run derby contests. There were card games.

And, oh yeah, there was running.

The Penn men's cross country team had its annual camp at Briarwood in Bucks County, Pa., last week. And like it always is, the six-day excursion to a couple of secluded cabins in a rural area of the state was more about bonding than training.

Sure, the Quakers ran in the morning and afternoon, but the rest of day was devoted to relaxing in the pool, playing games or just talking.

"As far as I'm concerned, the biggest part is the camaraderie -- it brings people together," coach Charlie Powell said. "You have to be unsociable to be with someone for six or seven days like this and not know the person's name and where they're from and what they do."

And those kind of introductions were especially necessary this year, as 13 of Penn's 23 runners are freshmen.

"We have more freshmen than returners," Engineering junior Anthony Sager said. "So this kind of changes things."

But it didn't change things dramatically, not at the camp. Penn's routine for most days was pretty similar to those in the past:

Get up at 7 a.m. Run an easy three to four miles. Breakfast. Shower. Jump in the pool. Play a little beach volleyball. Lunch. Talk with Powell about stretching, setting up a schedule or goal-setting. Run seven to 10 miles around 3 p.m. Shower. Dinner.

And then there were the nights, when the Penn harriers would rent a movie, talk or play games.

"There's not much else we can do there," Sager said.

But the Quakers enjoyed what they did do, whether it was going to a thrift shop in nearby New Hope, Pa., or just sitting around the cabin.

"One night, we went to Rita's Water Ice and played some cards," Powell said. "If you get 20 guys around the room playing cards, it's pretty hilarious."

Penn used to have its annual camp in New York's Catskill Mountains, but new NCAA regulations forced the Quakers to move their training in-state.

So Powell picked another middle-of-nowhere place.

"It's very rural," College senior Matt Caporaletti said. "There are a lot of highways around there where people go pretty fast on."

Briarwood, however, is close to several parks and a tow path along the New Jersey side of the Delaware River that stretches from Trenton to New Brunswick. The Quakers did a few workouts on that tow path, including a four-mile "steady state" run at a 5:15 mile pace.

"That's a good race pace for most of us guys," Sager said.

And it'll be the kind of pace some of Penn's runners will attempt to maintain for the first three or four miles in Saturday's race, the season-opening Fordham Invitational. Saving the all-out racing for another couple of weeks, the Quakers will try to run in packs in New York this weekend.

Maybe by then, after the freshmen get race No. 1 under their belts, Penn will have a better idea of its expectations for the fall.

"This year is kind of wide open," Sager said. "We have no idea what we're going to do. It'll all depend on the freshmen."

After a week in Briarwood, the Quakers know who those 13 freshmen are. Now they'll get a better idea of what they can do.

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