On Oct. 13, CWU Cross Country will hit the road looking to improve on their already impressive season, with the women and the men both currently sitting at fifth in the conference standings. As the season progresses, CWU has their sights set on improving their standings going into the GNAC Championships in Monmouth, Oregon on Nov. 3.

CWU’s Cross Country team has earned many distinguishing honors this year, with the women’s top runner Alexa Shindruk earning GNAC Athlete of the Week following her performance at CWU’s previous meet in Salem, Oregon at the Willamette Invitational. There, she ran 17:21 for 5 kilometers (5K) which landed her a fourth place finish in the women’s division.

“I think a big goal for us is to move all of our packs forward and to close the gap between our number one and five runners,” Shindruk said.

CWU is trying to focus more on their pace of running for this meet. Tempo and threshold are key aspects of practice this week in order to get ready for the type of course they will be competing on this Saturday at the Lewis-Clark State College (LCSC) Invitational, which has been known to be flat and fast.

CWU has not just performed well individually, but as a whole team, which has assistant coach Bryan Contreras hopeful for this upcoming race.

“Now we are looking to advance from that point forward and continue to reconfirm in our own minds what we can do,” Contreras said.

One of the standout stars for CWU this year has been men’s runner Corbin Carlton, who recently finished 25th overall at the Willamette Invitational with a time of 25:22 for eight kilometers (8K).

“We’ve improved from every meet and we have a bye week in between every meet, so we’re trying to push ourselves harder and harder,” Carlton said.

Cross country scoring works in a point format, where first place receives one point and second place receives two points and so on. The lowest scores combined between the top five runners wins the meet. CWU is hopeful that their efforts at LCSC will pay off for them.

According to Contreras, CWU’s goal is to beat teams that have finished well this year which, in turn, will help their ranking. This week will only be the second 8K of the year, and the last until the GNAC championship. CWU will head to Western Washington University’s home meet after this meet to finish off the regular season, hopefully adding to their ranking.