Blue women's cross country not resting on No. 5 ranking

The talented Michigan women's cross country team is careful to put the season thus far in perspective and look ahead to tougher competition.

WARREN ZINN/Daily

Ryan C. Moloney

For the Daily

Touting an undefeated record, an impressive performance in last weekend's Sundodger Invitational and a No. 5 ranking in the FinishLynx women's cross country poll, it would seem easy for the dominant Wolverines to sit back and coast towards the Big Ten championship on Nov. 1.

The talented and experienced team, however, understands the importance of the next few weeks in preparation for the important year-end meets.

"We're using each meet as a building block," Michigan senior co-captain Michelle Slater said. "We're really focusing on the Oct. 18 (Michigan Interregional) meet, so the next two weeks we'll do our hard training."

Many cross country coaches rely on the method of building a distance base in the summer and early weeks of a season through high mileage workouts, then tapering down with shorter - and faster - distances as the season progresses.

Coach Mike McGuire's training program practices this philosophy.

"We're starting to do faster stuff," McGuire said, adding that right now they are doing what he calls "sustained-hard effort" workouts. "The biggest thing is we have everybody healthy."

On Oct. 9, the Wolverines will travel to the Michigan Intercollegiate in Kalamazoo, Michigan in a meet that will determine the Michigan state champion for this season.

Though the Wolverines practically own the meet every year, the team is careful to the competition in perspective.

"We get up for any chance to compete against people," Slater said.

"It's not the level of competition we've come to expect so far," McGuire said.

Although McGuire could have taken the team to a more competitive meet out east, he said he considers "Michigan to be the flagship school in this state," and it is therefore important to be there.

"Michigan State and Eastern Michigan have a couple of good kids so we'll have goals relative to their people," McGuire said.

In describing the meet's distinctly local atmosphere, Slater called the Intercollegiate "almost like a family reunion" and said "it's fun to compete" with old high school rivals and in front of family.

Overall, the season is progressing as well as the team had anticipated.

"We have a lot of fun with this group," Slater said. "But we all work hard.

"We're good about pushing each other."

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