University of Minnesota Athletics
Hopkins Previews Pair of Wisconsin Meets
10/15/2015 12:00:00 AM | Women's Cross Country
MINNEAPOLIS - The No. 23 Minnesota women's cross country team heads to the Wisconsin adidas Invitational on Friday and the UW-La Crosse Tori Neubauer Invitational on Saturday.
GopherSports.com caught up with head coach Sarah Hopkins as the team prepares for two meets in Wisconsin this weekend.
Gopher Sports: What are the team's goals for this weekend?
Sarah Hopkins: Obviously we've seen some good fields at Griak and then Louisville, but this weekend at the Wisconsin adidas meet will definitely be the best field we've seen all year. I was telling the team, it's really nice because there are a lot of Big Ten teams there as well. I think coming out of this weekend, we will have seen almost everyone from the Big Ten, so we will have a really solid idea of a race plan for Big Tens, just knowing the head to head results and where we've been against everybody.
GS: How can you capitalize on a fast, flat course like Wisconsin's?
SH: Learning what we learned from Louisville with another flat, fast course, we need to execute a race plan based on that. If we are going to make a mistake, make a different one than what we made at Louisville so we're going into Big Tens with as much information as we can in terms of how each individual runs best and how we run best as a group. If it means that we go out a little too hard at Wisconsin and pay the piper a little bit, I'm okay with that. We'll learn from that. I'd rather have us learn that than the same lesson we learned at Louisville.
Getting out hard is more important at Wisconsin because the depth of the field is just that much better. I think the field includes about 70 really quality individual runners, so obviously you really have to get out because the course is only so wide. If you get stuck 150th, you're still running against talented people there, but you literally can't move.
You really have to trust yourself and get out, and be comfortable being uncomfortable from the start because it goes by really quick. It's a fast course physically, but it's also emotionally a fast course, if that makes sense. It's over pretty quick, so you just have to get uncomfortable early and stay in that zone for longer because of the course. You can't race like that at our course because you will not make it.
I think the team was really pleased that we went to Louisville, and I think they feel really confident because of it. They feel like they have a few more tools going into this weekend than they would in another year where we didn't really have that experience.
GS: What's it like having a veteran group who has raced at Wisconsin in the past?
SH: Every year we run the course there, we are learning more about what getting out fast really means. There's getting out fast, then there's getting out where you need to be. I think people who have run it before are more comfortable with that and trust themselves; they know how the course rolls and if they need to save just a little bit. They know there's a hill at four-K and after that there's usually nothing that's going to get in your way. I think people that have run it enough times have a little more of an internal gauge of where they need to be when, because obviously every course is different with that; how much you need to have left in the tank is different with every course.
Having upperclassmen who have done it before is helpful. They're also able to have a little bit cooler head and don't get quite as worked up about it after they've done in multiple times. These guys know that the most important part of their season is still another couple of weeks away, so being able to go into it obviously excited, but also keeping it in perspective of what it is, which is just another big meet. It really doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things. Obviously, we want to get some points, but the upperclassmen can have a little cooler emotional perspective on it than maybe years past when they would have gotten worked up for it.
GS: Who do you expect to have the strongest race on a course like Wisconsin's?
SH: It can be a good course for a lot of people. It'll be a good course for Haley Johnson. I think you have to have some speed; it's a hard course for grinders. For the people who run really really well on our course, it's a little more challenging. On our course you can grind it out and start a little slower and progress through. With Louisville and this course, you have to trust yourself and go. For Kaila Urick who is a good miler, it'll play to her strengths, like with Madeline Strandemo and Haley Johnson. Those three are more speed-sided on the track, so I think it does play to that group. Getting out hard for them won't feel as hard as it will to a 10k kid, who is more of a long, grind it out kind of person.
I do think it plays well to our strengths as a group, but it'll come down to who does the right things execution-wise, not necessarily who is the fittest or who's the most prepared or most rested. It'll be who executes the race plan.
GS: What do you hope to see out of the group racing at UW-La Crosse?
SH: Being on a different course will be great for them again. I think there were 10 lifetime PRs and 19 season PRs at Eau Claire, so hopefully we can keep building off that and have another drop for those guys. They were looking really good; there was definitely a group that we were deciding whether to bring them to Wisconsin or to keep them at La Crosse. Confidence-wise, it's a good place to be at the La Crosse meet where they can get up toward the front of the field. Violet Weibel, Caitlin Dillon, Megan Flanagan, Delaney Sinnen, and Molly Eastman made a good step at Eau Claire. Hopefully we see another step like that at this weekend and keep building their confidence.
For that group, what they're doing this last month will transfer into track season. We focus now, not necessarily on running great at Jack's Run or Rocky's Run, but running to give themselves a boost, so when they start their training for track, they can start with a lot of confidence. We also want them to go in to La Crosse and try to win it as a team. We have enough parts there to try and mix it up and be competitive. A lot of the times, that group doesn't count in the team scoring when we're competing as an entire group, so this is a chance for them to have that same mentality that every point counts, every person counts, and see how high can we finish as a team.
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