By Megan Brown
On Saturday, Nov. 12, Houghton University’s Cross Country team competed at the NCAA Regional Championships, with the women placing 13th and the men 17th. This marked their last cross country meet of 2022, but not all of the athletes are done competing for Houghton this academic year.
Senior Amanda Burrichter is one of many students moving directly from cross country to competing with the indoor track and field team, which has its first meet at 4:00 p.m. Friday, Dec 2 at Houghton University’s Kerr-Pegula Athletic Complex.
“It’s really exciting to get to go into indoor track, and we know we’re fit,” said Burrichter, who won an individual title at the Empire 8 Cross Country Championships this fall. “We’ve been training all through the fall, and we get to start indoor track on a high note.”
For long distance runners moving indoors, it also marks shorter distances at which they will compete. Female runners, like Burrichter, run for 6,000 meters for cross country, whereas the longest race for indoor track is 5,000 meters.
While Burrichter participates in cross country and excels, her favorite races are the 1,500 meter and the 3,000 meter.
“I’m just looking forward to running those again,” she said.
Cross country runners who are participating in indoor track and field have a week or two of rest before practicing again. This is one of the aspects Head Cross Country and Track & Field Coach Patrick Hager insists upon. Since some of his runners participate in all three seasons, the third being outdoor track and field, Hager helps his athletes have sustainable practices.
For the beginning of the indoor track season, participants only have three mandatory practices a week to ease them into it. Hager also insists that athletes go home for breaks, instead of staying on campus to train.
“We send them home because, especially for cross country and indoor and outdoor track, if you want to sustain it the whole year, you need to be able to get away mentally,” Hager said. “And we understand that. We’re a collegiate sport, but there’s a tact and an art to coaching that reads the room, for lack of a better term.”
Part of Hager’s care for his team’s athletes is logging data about performance to know which exercises and practices increase people’s performance.
“The workouts are basically the same, but the volumes are different,” he said. “So that’s, again, reading the room and understanding who you have as athletes.”
And the athletes are dedicated, especially athletes like senior Collin Nasso, who runs track and field while also majoring in biochemistry.
“I’m going into this season a lot more focused and mentally prepared,” Nasso said. “It’s my last season, and I don’t wanna have to look back at a season and have any regrets.”
Last year posed as one of Nasso’s most academically challenging yet, and while he looks forward to competing with a lighter schedule this year, he recognizes the crucial part track played for him during his junior year.
“Track, honestly is my release. It’s my refresh…” he said. “Last semester, I would have gone insane if I didn’t have track because that was my kind of release for the day, where I could just forget about school and everything that was going on and just focus on something else.”
Junior Caleb Kasper also uses running competitively as a break from school, and does so from the fall with cross country to the spring with outdoor track and field. While it is not always easy, his teammates and his desire for improvement continue to drive him forward.
“It’s a long haul, but we’re here for it, and the grind is one of the most revealing parts,” Kasper said. “If you put in the work, you’ll reap the benefits.”★
