October 9, 1999

MIT Men's Cross Country team, ranked 13th nationally in Division III, traveled to Oshkosh, WI this past weekend to race 18 other teams, 5 of them ranked in the top 10. The course will also be the site of the National Championships on Nov. 21. Falling victims to an overly aggressive first mile, the Tech harriers paid dearly in the final miles on the mostly flat course, finishing 8th behind seven other nationally ranked teams.

The plan was to go out in about 40th to 50th position for most of the top 7, and work up to the top 20-30 runners. However, a sprint at the start, combined with the comfort of a flat course put all 9 under 5:00 at the mile and in the top 35. Dan Feldman '02, led the way up in the front pack of 5 at 4:47.

By mile two, North Central, Calvin, UW La Crosse, and UW Whitewater, running more intelligent races, had worked their way up to MIT. Tech had held on pretty well to this point, running the two miles in 9:52 to 10:14, but the leading teams were still passing them.

The third mile was the beginning of the end for Sean Montgomery '01, Sean Nolan '03, Phil Loiselle '01, and Chris Testa '03 as they ran miles of 5:17, 5:23, 5:28, and 5:36 respectively. Fortunately, Feldman, Ed Keehr '01, Chris McGuire '00, Liyan Guo '01, and Frank Johnston '00, were still holding on in spite of the obvious pain.

The fourth mile, the most difficult on the course, had UW Oshkosh steadily pass the Engineers to move into 6th place. Haverford College, which also started out too quickly, seemed to have a greater threshold for pain or at least a greater desire to win, stayed ahead of MIT to lay claim to 7th place. MIT seemed to running backward at this point, as opposing runners continued to pass.

The final mile was a bit of a rally for Tech, which probably indicates a lack of focus during the 3rd and 4th miles. Dan Feldman, ran a great race in his first race of this caliber, finishing 11th in 25:05 in the quality field. Also running well were Keehr 25:40, McGuire 25:43, and Guo 26:02. Liyan seemed to run the smartest race of the Tech 9 with a :29 variance from his fastest to slowest mile.

Next Friday, MIT gets the opportunity to make amends when they race in the all division New England Championship at Franklin Park.