DES MOINES, Iowa – The Drake University cross country teams will line up to open the 2013 season on Friday evening for the annual Bulldog Classic at Ewing Park in Des Moines, Iowa.
Both the men's and women's races will cover four kilometers through Ewing Park with the gun going off for the women's race at 6:15 p.m., followed by the men's race at 6:45 p.m. Drake will be joined on the course by fellow in-state Division I programs Iowa State and UNI.
The early season meet serves primarily as a barometer for the coaching staff to evaluate the fitness levels of both teams heading into fall workouts.
“The heat will certainly impact the times, but it's the same course we've been running this meet on the last 13 years,” said head men's and women's cross country coach Dan Hostager. “So you can build some comparisons from past seasons and hope to see improvement from year to year.”
The men's squad returns 10 experienced runners this season, including former MVC Champion Brogan Austin. However, some of those competitors are nursing early season injuries and may be either held out of the competition or compete unattached, according to Hostager.
The women's team welcome's 13 veterans back to the course, including six sophomores, a group that the coaching staff is extremely eager to see compete.
“In this race, one area that I'm mainly I'm looking at last year's freshmen to see how they've progressed heading into their sophomore year,” Hostager said.
The meet will also be his first chance to evaluate the men's team's five newcomers and the nine on the women's roster.
“For those that we haven't seen run, it'll be good to know where we're at and help us set up their workouts for the next two months,” Hostager said.
Those workouts will begin in earnest next week as the squad ramps up its training to prepare for the remainder of the fall schedule. That schedule continues next weekend at Minnesota's Oz Memorial on Oct. 6 and is followed by four more races leading up to the Missouri Valley Conference Championships, hosted by Drake, on Nov. 2.
