After finishing 10th at the Big Ten Championships on Oct. 31, the members of the Northwestern cross country team turn their attention to the NCAA Midwest Regional Championships Saturday in Peoria, Ill.
Seven NU women will run in the final meet of the year, including four seniors.
“Hopefully we’ll be more motivated,” senior Lesley Meade said. “It’s our last race of the season. We want to do our best.”
The team beat only Ohio State at the conference meet in Iowa City, Iowa; Michigan won the competition handily.
As usual, NU was led by freshman Marie Grabinski, who placed 35th out of 95 runners. Meade, who finished second for the Wildcats, placed 43rd overall, though she finished only eight seconds after Grabinski.
“Personally, I had a pretty good race,” Meade said. “I’m pretty pleased. I did a lot better than last year by almost two minutes.”
Meade is a resident of Cincinnati, and said it felt good to beat Ohio State. For senior Kyna Forkins, though, beating Ohio State wasn’t enough.
“I don’t think we were disappointed,” Forkins said. “But I don’t think we were surprised. We have some things to work on as a team.”
Forkins sees a lot of potential for the future, and called this year a “building year.”
“We have a lot of talented and ambitious girls coming up,” she said. “The fact that Marie Grabinski and Alison Coren are top eight runners as freshmen is amazing.
“I’m excited to see how we do as a team in the future. As a senior, though, it was a little disappointing to not go out with a bang.”
For Forkins, Meade, Diana Hossfeld and Caroline Speirs, regional meet will be the final cross country meet of their lives, a bittersweet experience.
“I’m happy and sad,” Meade said. “I really love racing, but I have other things in my life to look forward to — like graduating.”
Forkins expressed similar sentiments.
“It’s melancholy, both good and bad,” Forkins said. “It’s going to be weird, I’ve been racing competitively since seventh grade. It’s going to be very weird waking up in the morning knowing I don’t have to go running. But at the same time, I won’t wake up at 5 a.m. and know I have to go running.
“I told my friends I’m going to take a break from running, but you can’t stay away. Once you start you can’t stop.”
