OCTOBER 10, 1998

This past Saturday, MIT Men's Cross Country Team travelled to Carlisle, Pennsylvania to race in the National Preview Invitational hosted by Dickinson College, and to see the site of the National Championships.

Going into the meet seeded 4th behind nationally ranked teams from Williams (5th), SUNY Cortland (10th), and Haverford (13th), the undefeated harriers from MIT had something to prove. With strong front running from Mark Strauss '01 (2nd), Mike Parkins '99 (4th), and Dan Feldman '02 (13th), the Engineers ran past Cortland and Haverford, but lost to a very good team from Williams College.

The Meet was broken up into two races, a white race and a red race. The better teams were supposed to be in the "white race", but Cortland elected to put their runners in the race with little competition. The "white race" was first. The pace for the 200+ runners at the start was very fast, particularly for a wet course with constantly rolling hills, and many, many turns. At the mile mark Williams had already established themselves as the team to beat as they had 6 runners in the lead pack at 5:02 along with 3 MIT runners and a few runners from the other 28 teams in the race.

The second mile had a lot of turns and some mud which worked to slow the pace down to 10:16 at the second mile. Williams had begun to string out and fall back some, but there were no other teams there to take advantage of it. Strauss and Parkins were with a group of 6, including 2 Williams' runners, with Feldman 5 seconds back with the other Williams runners. The second tier of Tech runners had gotten out too far back at the start (around 80th) and had to work really hard to move through the pack. This worked to string out the group and cause many to begin to suffer early in the race.

By mile three, the lead group was down to four, Strauss, Parkins, McCue from Williams, and one runner from Plattsburgh as they came through in 15:39. Feldman fell back another 5 seconds, but so did the other runners. By this time Haverford College had a core of runners in about 20th position. Phil Loiselle '01, and Sean Montgomery '01 had begun to make progress working their way through the pack and had moved up to about 35th in 16:20.

The 4th mile had a very long hill at the end of the mile that took it's toll on many of the runners, particularly the Haverford runners. Loiselle had moved up to about 25th and Montgomery moved past a couple of runners. Strauss and McCue had pulled away from Parkins and the Plattsburgh runner and began their own private battle.

The last mile was predominantly downhill and the sub 5:00 pace showed it. McCue pulled away from Strauss in the last 200 meters as he won in 25:49 to Strauss's 25:50. Parkins, who had stomach problems the entire race, held on for 4th in 26:06. Feldman came through in 11th with a 26:39, but he was behind 6 runners from Williams. Haverford had two runners immediately behind Feldman and a third runner 16 seconds back. Loiselle made a strong move in the last mile to pass the 4th Haverford runner as he finished his best race to date in 27:05. Montgomery finished immediately behind the 5th Haverford runner in 27:18.

In the "Red Race", Cortland ran all alone for the first two miles until the sub-varsity Williams runners began to reel them in by mile three. The leadCortland runners, who had come through the 2 mile in the same pace as the other race, fell way off the pace in the third mile. At the finish the top Cortland runner finished 7th overall with a 26:27. Their 2nd runner was 12th, one place ahead of the displaced Feldman. The third Cortland runner finished with a time just ahead of Loiselle. Their 4th and 5th runners were right behind Phil, but with little up front, they could not catch MIT.

The Tech runner with perhaps the best race of the day was Reid Andersen '01, who followed his plan to perfection. Reid finished 10th overall for MIT , which is quite an improvement from his 15th place average. Reid also was the only Tech runner with a personal best time of 28:42, coming on a less than ideal course.