After a strong, yet rainy home meet Saturday, the Miami University men's and women's cross country teams will be racing in the Spartan Invitational in Lansing, Mich. Sept. 17.
The women's team is returning to Michigan for their third consecutive year of racing, while the men's team is running in the invitational for the first time in RedHawk history.
While there was no team scoring at the Spartan Invitational last season, the women's cross country team placed three runners in the top 15, including senior Amanda Mirochna, who placed 10th overall at the meet.
"We want to stay together as a pack," senior Rachel Patterson said. "It is intimidating to see a big pack of red, so our team goal is to get into that pack during the race."
The team has been taking it easy this week, only having one hard workout on Tuesday. While the team runs every day of the week, the main focus the week of a meet is to recuperate from the last race and take care of their bodies.
The Spartan Invitational is a very significant race for the women's team, as it will show if the team is ready to compete for another Mid-American Conference Championship (MAC) and qualify later in regionals.
"Michigan and Michigan State usually count us out because we are only part of the MAC and they are part of the Big Ten conference, so that gets us fired up," Patterson said.
The women's cross country team kicks off their 6K race at 1 p.m Sept. 17 at Forest Akers East Golf Course.
Last season, while the women's team was at the Spartan Invitational, the men's team traveled to the Bronx, N.Y. to run in the Iona Meet of Champions, where they had placed fifth out of 23 teams.
"This will be our biggest meet so far," senior Michael Perry said. "It'll be good preparation for the MAC."
Similar to the women's team, the men's team only had one hard running day this week and used the Miami Invitational as Saturday's workout. Both Perry and fellow senior Robbie Fisher agreed the biggest focus for this week has been backing down the mileage of their workouts to be ready for the 8K race at Michigan State University.
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Both seniors also agreed the team wants to stick to their strength this race and run as a pack.
"It will be a little bit harder this meet because there will be more teams there and more people," Perry said. "It's easier to get separated."
Fisher sees it as something that can help throughout the whole season.
"It'll definitely help running as a pack," Fisher said. "With the way we ran Saturday, if we can do that in the rest of our meets, we're going to have a great season. It really helps working off of each other and makes us a lot more comfortable."
The RedHawks will run in the men's 8K race at 3:00 p.m. Sept. 17.
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