Typically, Big 5 clashes aren’t so friendly.
Regardless, this particular reunion of Philadelphia’s Big 5 schools had a relaxed feel to it both on the course and off it, as the Owls ran a second trial run of sorts in the Temple-hosted Roswell Friend Invitational at Fairmount Park’s Belmont Plateau Friday.
The Friend Invitational marked the second “race” thus far in an August and September period of training-exclusive running for coach James Snyder’s group.
“I think we made progress,” Snyder said. “Guys and girls were making moves when they needed to and stuck to the plan that we planned for each of them. People seemed to be running well and we finished well. We even did some hills on the back side after the race to keep training moving along.”
While a hill workout after a race isn’t typically a cool-down method found in the cross country handbook, it certainly fit with the goal and task at hand on a day where it was all about the work put in as opposed to the time.
“It was definitely meant to be a hard workout,” junior Jenna Dubrow said. “We did the course and then a hill workout after it. We had a game plan. The first two loops of the course were controlled and the last two were supposed to be faster. We did all go a little fast in the beginning, but I think the whole group did well.”
The course consisted solely of a one kilometer loop that was rounded six times by the men and four times by the women.
Redshirt-sophomore Alex Izewski paced the Temple men with a 20 minute, 10 second mark, while senior Will Kellar followed up with a 20:19 finish. Sophomores Will Maltin and Owen Glatts came in next with times of 20:41 and 20:46, respectively.
“I felt way better than the Lehigh meet two weeks ago,” Izewski said. “As a team we’re definitely going in the right direction. We did a lot better. I think everyone’s progressing along at the way that we want to be and getting ready for the shape we want to be in six weeks for [The American Conference championship meet].”
Dubrow led the Temple women with a 24th place finish of 15:06. Sophomore Janie Augustyn finished nearly a minute later at 15:57, while freshmen Rachel Flynn and Gwen Porter crossed the line together at 16:30.
“I was working with Janie for the first part of the race,” Dubrow said. “I was feeling good and went along with the group and tried to pass some people.”
“We’re working hard right now,” Dubrow added. “Our first big race isn’t until October, so everything up until this pint we’re just working hard. We ran today, we did the hill workout after, and right now we’re just working hard to get in shape and go from there.”
Andrew Parent can be reached at andrew.parent@temple.edu or on Twitter @daParent93.
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