Cross Country Opens Season in Dayton

Cleveland State's Cross Country team opened their season at the Flyer 5k Challenge on Saturday in Dayton, Ohio. The Vikings finished fifth out of six Division I teams competing in the race. With Division II included, 14 schools participated in the event.

"We were seven points away from Wright State in overall finishing," says Allison Craine, a junior co-captain for the Viking women. "The course was [mostly] flat with two hills. It was perfect running condition."

Finishing in the top five for the Vikings (the top five positions count for team place) were Craine (19:14), junior and co-captain Brittany Elmlinger (20:02), junior Kelly Zaleski (20:06, a personal record), junior Kari Haywood (20:44, a personal record) and Andria Bazilevich (21:15).

For Haywood, this was the first competitive race she has run since her senior year of high school in 2006. Craine was 12 seconds off a personal record and finished 17 overall.

"The weather was awesome," says Craine. "Perfect running condition."

The Vikings are fast improving. This season they have added two new members—Haywood and fresh- man Ashley Berlin—to a squad that returns seven core runners from last season.

Craine, Elmlinger and Zaleski, who led the Vikings to the finish in most races last year, are expected to pace the squad again in 2010.

"We all broke records from last season's pre-sea- son training," says Craine. "We've had some really hard workouts," since the team arrived at Cleveland State in mid-August.

The effort for improvement has been universal and ongoing as the Vikings began their efforts to improve early this summer, despite their separation from each other.

Craine says they focused their workouts on "team peer pressure" and not letting the others down by using a website called runningtowin.com, which allowed the women to update the rest of the team on the progress of their daily runs.

"We thought we all did great [at the Horizon League championship]—all of us improved our times—but on the time sheets, all runners had improved," says Craine. The Vikings missed eighth place by two or three points, providing significant motivation for more hard work this season.

"I think we're more prepared than we ever have been to compete. I think we can compete at that level and I think this year we're going to show we can compete at that level," says Craine, who feels that Cleveland State's top runners can compete with the top runners from other teams.

Craine tells The Cauldron that one of the most important things the Vikings can do is stay in tune mentally on the day of the race. One of the things Head Coach Joe Jaketic tries to do is make hotel reservations 30 – 45 minutes away from the site of the race. This provides the team a chance to decompress and focus on the way to the course.

"That 45 minutes is mental time because everyone can just chill, cool down," says Craine, who adds upon exiting the team van, everything is about the race.

Considering their short-term ability to contend for a championship, Craine points out the serious progress the team has made since Jaketic took over five years ago, when the team had only five runners and little interest from potential recruits.

"Joe has done a tremendous job rebuilding the program—getting recruits here, getting good runners here," says Craine. The team ranked 11 overall in academics for all NCAA Division I Women's Cross Country teams, showing a clear commitment to well- rounded student athletes.

Small teams like Cleveland State will always struggle to compete against squads with larger rosters because, as Craine puts it, Viking runners almost always compete, even if they are less than 100 percent, while teams with more runners can give their athletes more time to recover.

Despite the disadvantages, Craine highlights positive aspects of Cleveland State's program, mentioning the family-like team bond and great support from families and other student athletes. She also believes the team can improve mightily as a whole.

"My goal is to break 19 [minutes]," says Craine. "With the program Joe [Jaketic] has, the entire team can drop that low."