TicketsAug. 31, 2012
CINCINNATI - The University of Cincinnati women's cross country teams open its season Saturday (Sept. 1) when it takes part in the University of Dayton's Flyer 5k Challenge.
The Flyer 5k Challenge will include teams from host Dayton, Ohio State University, Miami University, Wright State University, Cleveland State University, Urbana University, Wittenberg University and Cedarville University. It will be held at Indian Riffle Park, which is about six miles southeast of the University of Dayton campus in Kettering. The women's race will begin at 11:15 a.m., followed by the awards ceremony at noon.
The UC men's team will not compete in the Flyer 5k Challenge and will open its season next week when the Bearcats take their turn as host of the local Queen City Invitational.
The men's and women's teams were in pre-season camp last week at Hocking Hills State Park near Logan, Ohio, about three hours west of Cincinnati. Men's and women's cross country head coaches Bill Schnier and Susan Seaton were each pleased with the progress the teams made in camp.
"Our camp at Hocking Hills was outstanding," said Schnier. "The trails in the park provided a perfect start to the day and the country roads in the afternoon had no stop lights or sidewalks. Our training gave us the boost we needed to start the season."
"Camp was a success, the team-building aspect especially," said Seaton. "We had some great training and came away with a good idea of how we stack up amongst ourselves."
The Bearcats return their top two runners on the women's team this season, but senior Alison Zukowski will not run in the Flyer 5k Challenge. Zukowski, who was UC's top finisher in every race but one last season, has been slowed with an injury and will bypass the first meet.
Sophomore Emily Clay was the top UC finisher in the one where Zukowski wasn't and was the No. 2 UC finisher in every other race. Seaton pointed to her as the Bearcats' top performer in camp. She also picked freshmen Anne Pace and Maggie Bischoff as the emerging top newcomers on the team.
"Emily Clay, (sophomore) Kaitlyn Meyer, Anne Pace, Maggie Bischoff and (freshman) Alex Mahle all looked to be in the front of the pack," Seaton said.
The Flyer 5k Challenge is back on the Bearcats' women's schedule this year after UC missed it for the past three. The UC teams had often run in the meet in the past and captured back-to-back individual women's titles in 2004 and 2005 with Ruth Limo and Karen Berling winning, respectively.
"The Flyer 5k has always been at the end of our camp but this year our camp was a week earlier so we had some time to recover," said Schnier. "In the early years, we ended camp one day and ran in the Flyer 5k the next day, looking very bad as a result. With the break in between this year, it makes more sense."
The 5,000-meter course is run on a park that includes a recreation complex of baseball and softball fields, a soccer field and track, playgrounds, tennis courts, a water park, an arts center and a small lake. The course winds around all of the fields and buildings, goes through a wooded area on the north end of the course for about 500 meters and then back through the fields and buildings before finishing in another wooded area on the south end of the course.
"The course is flat with one man-made hill constructed to make a lake," said Schnier. "A hilly course tends to favor UC because we always run on hills, but usually the races are not determined by the terrain but by the condition of the athletes."