By Adam Hensley
Following a weekend free of competition, Hawkeye cross-country will travel to Minneapolis on Saturday for the Roy Griak Invitational.
The men will kick off their 8,000-meter run at 12:20 p.m., and the women start their 6,000 meters at 1:35 p.m.
Griak presents a challenge unlike what Iowa has seen this season.
“It’s a huge competition for our program,” cross-country coach Randy Hasenbank said. “There are a lot of Big Ten schools there. Plus, [Griak] always attracts top teams from around the country, so it’s a deep field.”
Iowa’s last competition resulted in a victory for the men’s team and a second-place finish for the women at the Illinois State Invitational.
In that meet, Ben Anderson led the way on the men’s side. He placed second (25:12.32) and was one of five Hawkeyes to finish better than 15th.
One of the other Iowa runners to crack the top 15 was Ian Eklin, a Minnesota native. The sophomore grew up in Plymouth, and he looks forward to the opportunity of competing in his home state against some of his former teammates.
However, the course for this race differs from Iowa City and Normal, Illinois — the start of the course quickly shrinks in size, and the runners are forced to get elbow-to-elbow. Eklin noted that the Hawkeyes can’t get caught up in sprinting ahead at the beginning.
“When you condense [hundreds of runners] that quickly, guys are going to go out and sprint at the beginning,” he said. “They’re just going to go guns blazing. We’re trying to stay away from that — we don’t want to burn our energy that soon. You’ve got to make sure you pace yourself in the beginning and crank out the last few 1,000.”
On the women’s side at the Illinois State Invitational, Tess Wilberding (second place) and Madison Waymire (third place) finished in the top three for the second time in two meets this season.
Sophomore Andrea Shine crossed the finish line eighth.
“I just tried to pack it up with Madison and Tess for the first 3K,” she said. “Having a pack up at the front is great. It pushes you to stick with them, and you know that you train with these girls in practice, so you can do it in a race, too.”
Hasenbank said that in preparation for a crowded meet, the Hawkeyes need to focus on one thing in particular: running their race.
“There will be some teams picked to win and expected to show out — we’re not in a position to be one of those teams, so we have to execute,” he said. “We’re trying to improve our lot in the Midwest rankings.”