Women's cross-country takes on Nat'l Competition in Indiana

The competition at the Indiana State Invitational this weekend was the toughest the Quakers have faced and likely will face their entire season.

The Quakers' team of five -- Abbi Gleeson, Lainie Lord, Kristen Koch, Christine Myers and Claire Duncan -- was put to the test amongst a field of 260 runners from 91 different teams -- including three other Ivy League squads.

At race's end, Penn stood in 29th place, four places behind Harvard (25th), 12 behind Princeton (17th) and 13 behind Yale (16th).

Though the Quakers trailed its Ivy foes, they still took pride in their top-30 finish in a highly competitive field.

"We weren't expecting to place well," Myers said. "However, we finished surprisingly well for a team score, considering this was the perhaps the biggest race in the country."

Top finishers for Penn were Gleeson, who finished 60th, and Lord, who took 89th.

Koch finished in 143rd, with Myers, taking 186th and Claire, 248th.

Somewhat misleading was the disparity in Gleeson and Lord's final placing. Though the runners finished 29 spots apart, the two runners were actually only separated by slightly over three seconds.

Different from the majority of cross country courses, Terra Haute, Ind., was an open, relatively flat field.

The entire race could be viewed from one central location, making this more similar to a track rather than cross country competition.

"The course was very open and I could see my teammate in front of me for most of the race," Lord said, "[This] was motivation for me to keep up my pace."

Another aspect of this race that made it stand out from many others was the placement of magnetic chips in the shoes of all the racers. These allowed the runners to see their mile-split times as they crossed mile checkpoints along the course.

"This was somewhat distracting," Lord said. "But it did help me to push myself through the last mile of the race."

The Quakers hope they will get another at the Terra Haute course, the site of the National Championships, which will be held following the NCAA District II Championships on Nov. 9.

Before NCAA hopes come into play, however, the Quakers are looking forward to their most crucial meet of the season -- the Ivy League Championships next weekend.

"We've been training for this meet all year and we're just trying to beat a few of the other Ivy teams," Lord said. "We haven't beaten them yet and we want to."

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