Placing seventh at the St. Olaf Invitational was a positive boost for the team. Senior Mark Hartman, who finished 15th out of 244 runners, paced the Gusties with his time of 26:55. The team continued onto to place 19th of 35 teams at the Roy Griak Invitational, in which they competed against some nationally ranked teams.
Junior Nick Ross led the Gusties with a 74th place finish at the Invitational.
“Their running style continues to improve,” Head Coach Dale Bahr said. “It is a huge improvement from last year.” Commenting further on the team’s running style, Bahr added that they are staying “packed up” and maintaining a good “spread.”
This means that the distance between the team members is small. At St. Olaf, the team’s spread between the number two runner and the number six runner was one minute. The spread improved to 40 seconds between the same two runners at the Griak Invitational.
The team has recently run into some problems. Their top runner, Mark Hartman suffered an injury preventing him from running in the Roy Griak Invitational.
However, the effect on the team spirit has been minimal. “We keep going, not letting the injuries affect us as a group,” First-year runner Adam Lund said.
Bahr said, “The team continues to be close.” Lund agreed and said,”Everyone is fun and talkative while on the workouts, and [we] keep each other motivated.” But at the same time, Lund said, “We still know when to get serious for our difficult workouts. The camaraderie is by far the best trait of our team.”
The team next competes at the MSU Invitational this Saturday in Mankato and the following weekend, October 17, in La Crosse, Wisconsin.