While most students were enjoying their last few weeks of freedom before school began, Loyola’s cross-country team was pounding the pavement — literally.
Through out the summer, cross-country runners followed a training regiment in preparation for team practices, which began earlier this month. Summer training served as a key element in the team’s success this year according to Andy Canegetti, head cross country coach.
“Our main foundation is the summer time,” Canegetti said. “Therefore I’m hoping that most of them completed majority of the workouts so I can move on to the interval and speed workouts in the fall.”
With the academic term nearing, the team is adding a significant amount of miles to prepare for the upcoming season. Each day consists of two-a-days at the fly in Audubon Park, and alternates between “a hard workout” followed by a recovery day with about 6 miles. Weekly the total number of miles the men run is 58 while the women run 53.
“Practice has been very intense but overall really good, it has picked up a lot since summer and right now the pre-season workouts are pretty ridiculous,” Christopher, “C.J.”, Kelliher, psychology sophomore said.
Most days focus heavily on conditioning the team for distance instead of speed, which according to Canegetti, will play a more forward role as the year progresses. “Basically before you work on increasing your speed, you have to get down your distance which is called your base,” Kelliher said. “After working on securing the base, the time comes to focus on speed. That’s when the team typically runs a bunch of 200 and 400 meter sprints which improves your speed for the five mile.”
Aside from running, Canegetti has placed heavy emphasis on pool workouts this season hoping to reduce significant amounts of pressure on the knees. In addition to traditional laps, the team does exercises in the water similar in comparison to running on cement.  “The pool exercises are the type of work runners typically do on a track, but doing these exercises in the pool decreases the chances of getting hurt… If [they’re] pounding on the ground all the time, runners have the risk of injuring themselves,” says Canegetti.
Pool workouts not only help reduce the chance of injury, they provide the runners with a different approach other than simply running everyday. “You tend to hit a slump in cross country where running gets old because you run at practice and then run again in the race so getting in the pool changes it up and keeps things interesting,” says Joillyn Hollies, sociology sophomore.
With  about 12 weeks  until their first conference meet, only time can tell how effective summer workouts and pre-season practices have been. But the team is optimistic about what the future holds for them. “By the time the first meet rolls around, we will be more than ready to compete. And with the way training has been going so far, we are definitely thinking that we will probably win conference this year,” he said.

Melanie Ziems can be reached at [email protected]