University of Minnesota Athletics
Hopkins Previews Rocky's Run
11/3/2016 12:00:00 AM | Women's Cross Country
MINNEAPOLIS -- The Golden Gopher women's cross country team hosts its final home meet of the season on Sunday morning. Rocky's Run is set to begin at 10:30 a.m. CT, and the six-kilometer race is open to the public.
Head coach Sarah Hopkins previews the meet and looks ahead to the NCAA postseason, beginning with next Friday's NCAA Midwest Regional.
Gopher Sports: What is Rocky's Run all about?
Sarah Hopkins: Rocky's Run is a community run, so there's people from all over. We obviously have our team and then people from other teams who are done competing, high school kids, members of the USATF Minnesota circuit. They do a cross country circuit, and Rocky's Run is part of that. A lot of post-collegiate but still competitive runners from around that area come and do Rocky's.
It's back to our regular course that we ran Big Tens on and, of course, the course where we run the Griak. It has a different feel than Jack's Run in that way, but obviously it's the same idea: we're racing to get some experience, get a template for next year, and close out the season for our second group [not competing in the NCAA postseason].
We also have a carrot out there that the person with the biggest improvement from the Oz Memorial, which was the last time we ran on this course (minus the Griak), to Rocky's Run -- basically the first 6K and the last 6K -- gets a letter award. That's a little carrot out there for that group to give them something to fight for at the end of the season when they're not necessarily on our Big Ten or Regional team. They still have some goals to accomplish at the end.
GS: Who will be racing this weekend?
SH: There's obviously some of the older girls running, but a lot of our redshirts are running and it's good experience for them. What I've been telling them at our meetings is this is the last time you're going to race until next year at the Oz. What we want is for next year to pick up where we left off, so it's really important to run with a good race plan and then critique it next September, nine months from now when we kind of forgotten what the course is like and the feel for it. You can look back at your training and say, 'Okay, this is what I liked about my run at Rocky's and this is what I didn't,' and go from there. It really is an important springboard from a confidence standpoint going into next fall and going into the track season. They'll get a little bit of down time, and then they'll start racing again in January. We want them to start track season with confidence.
GS: How does the race field affect the Gophers' race plan?
SH: It depends. There's obviously men in the race, so that gets it out fast. They have to be careful not to get sucked into that because there will be some winning times that will be even significantly faster than our top group. It's good because it keeps the race going and keeps energy in there. When it's just an intersquad, the race can get gapped out. With other bodies out there, it's nice to get the momentum going in the race and mix it up. It give them more than just their teammates to run with.
GS: How is the team preparing for the NCAA Midwest Regional?
SH: Obviously we have a week and a half before regionals. We gave them a zero day on Monday and an easy shake out run yesterday. Wednesday was our first work out back. It's a maintenance week with a little bit of sharpening. We're going to try to maintain fitness and rest a little bit, not get them flat but not overdo it either. We're going to keep a little bit of mileage this week and then next week back off again. Hopefully we'll see improvement at regionals.
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