Hoosiers to compete at Iowa

The IU men's and women's cross country teams travel to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Saturday to compete in the Pre-NCAA meet. \nCompeting in Cedar Rapids are seven of the top 10 ranked women's teams from the FinishLynx/Women's Cross Country Coaches Association poll.\nLast Friday, the women finished second in the Auburn Invitational in Auburn, Ala. Senior Audrey Giesler led the way for the Hoosiers finishing fifth with a time of 17:50.6.\nGiesler said some of the team's goals Saturday are to beat ranked teams and to build confidence for the most important parts of the season: the Big Ten Championship, the NCAA regional meet and the NCAA National Championship. \nGiesler, who is competing in her fourth Pre-NCAA meet in four years, said the previous experience she has from the Pre-NCAA meet is no different that the experience gained from a large collegiate invitational.\n"The course is different every time; the experience comes more from the larger and highly competitive field," Giesler said.\nGiesler said entering the race Saturday that one of her personal goals is to be more aggressive toward the second half of her race.\n"I think if I focus on that, I'll finish with the people I should be competing against, and helping out the team in terms of scoring," Giesler said.\nThe men's team will be running against some of the top competition in the nation. Teams such as No. 1 ranked Stanford and No. 3 Northern Arizona will make the trip to Cedar Rapids. No. 26 Butler to whom the Hoosiers lost earlier this year at the Murray Keating Invitational, will also be competing. \nThe race will be split into two races, the purple and the gold. IU will compete in the gold division, along with in-state rival, Ball State. The highest ranked schools in the Hoosiers' division are No.1 Stanford, No. 4 BYU, and No. 6 Central Michigan.\nSophomore Eric Redman said he knows that it is going to be a tough meet, but that he thinks his team is ready.\n"A lot of the top teams in the nation will be there except for Wisconsin and Arkansas," Redman said. "It is going to be a tough meet but we have been training all year for these big meets coming up and I know we are ready."\nThe team has never run at the course in Cedar Rapids, causing coach Robert Chapman not to know what to expect. \n"We've never run there before, so the course is going to be new to all of us. It is a golf course, and I hear the footing is very good," Chapman said in a statement. "So it runs faster than our course from a footing standpoint, and it has some roll to it, but not as much as IU's course."\nThe men's 8,000 meter race will start at 11:40 a.m. Saturday.