Cross country strives for peak performance

By Joe Doss-Antoun

Second place is good enough for men's cross country at this weekend's West Coast Conference cross country championships, as the Portland men have dominated the conference for several years.

While the women have an outside shot at winning the title, the Portland women's team is also heavily favored.

Both teams placed first at the Holy Names Invitational in Oakland earlier in the season, but the only results that matter will be determined this weekend.

"Cross country is different from a lot of team sports because we don't have those one-on-one match-ups with other teams in our conference," said head coach Tom Service. "You can basically throw everything we've achieved up to now right out the window."

Essentially, the seven prior meets this season were means of training for the WCC Championships and the NCAA West Regionals, should the teams qualify.

In cross country, success is due largely in part to the idea of "peaking." Peaking is the idea of cutting down your time consistently leading up to a particular race. In this case, the runners have been trying to cut down their times at previous meets, all leading up to the WCC Championships.

Sophomore Mike Hannon certainly understands the importance of peaking. At the Santa Clara Invitational on Oct. 14, Hannon not only finished the 8K race under 26 minutes but also beat his previous 8K time by nearly two full minutes.

"It's definitely a confidence booster, knowing that I can run that fast. I peaked right around the time of WCC's last year and I feel as though I'm doing that again this year," said Hannon.

Anna Wheatley, a sophomore on the women's team, also made a significant improvement at the Santa Clara Invitational as she lowered her time in the 5K by thirty seconds.

"I definitely have been going on an upward slope, but lowering my times as the season goes on is really the ultimate goal," said Wheatley.

Service agrees that his team is doing all that they can in order to peak at the right time.

"We came off our own Invitation which is a flat, fast course, and we ran our best times of the year which is exactly what you want to be doing this late in the season."

In Service's first three years as head coach of the women's cross country team from 2001-2003, he led the team to it's first ever WCC championship and two second place finishes.

Since then, however, the women have not finished higher than fourth.

In 2004, Service stepped in as head coach of the men's team, guiding them to two consecutive third place finishes in the WCC.

"Coach Felipe and I were a little disappointed with both teams' performances at last year's WCC's," Service said. "I think both teams could have stepped it up a little bit more. So this season, we've been talking a lot more about the importance of conference and the idea that it's not just another meet."

If the teams want to be successful they will have to defeat a group of formidable competitors.

On the men's side, the team will need peak performances by every single runner to knock off the Portland Pilots, the defending champions who have won the WCC 27 consecutive years.

"Portland is kind of in a league of their own," said Service. "We hope to keep chipping away and getting closer to them, but with their funding and their reputation, there's a huge gap there right now."

"I'd say us, San Francisco, Gonzaga and Loyola Marymount are in a dogfight for second place in the conference and I think it's going to be very evenly matched," he continued.

On the women's side, things appear to be more evenly balanced.

"Although Portland has dominated in the past few years, I think they, USF, LMU, and ourselves will decide first through fourth place," said Service. "But I feel really good about our chances this year."

Similar to Hannon, Anna Wheatley plans to use her experience from last year to help improve her time this year.

"I know I didn't run too well last year so I'm just going to make sure I stay positive and work on certain mental aspects to keep me focused before the race," said Wheatley.

Both the men's and women's teams will continue to keep focus and continue peaking before the WCC Championships this weekend.

Contact Joe Doss-Antoun at (408) 551-1918 or jdossantoun@scu.edu.