If you ask Coach Bill Thornton about his plans and expectations for this year's crop of men's runners, he'll stress the importance of packing together.

With last year's fastest runners, including a few All-Americans, having moved on, this year's team plans to win meets by keeping their runners close together for most of the race. This technique proved quite effective last weekend at the Les Duke Invitational. There, the first five Ole runners finished within 36 seconds of each other. Also, the top seven runners from St. Olaf finished in the 85th percentile of the competing runners.

Coach Thornton was pleased with the condition his runners were in at the beginning of the season. He said, "These guys came back as fit as I've ever seen a team after the summer."

Of course, this level of athleticism was only achieved after much hard work in the off-season by the dedicated runners. Leading this group of returning athletes are this year's two captains, seniors Mark Bresnan and Chris Grorud.

The St. Olaf Men's Cross Country season started out with a traditional Alumni 5K race here on campus to warm the team up for competition. The following Saturday, September 9th, the Ole runners competed in the St. John's Invitational, where they finished fourth of 11 teams. Last week's race was in Grinnel, Iowa where the team competed in the Les Duke Invitational.

Everyone on the men's team came away feeling positive about the Les Duke Invitational meet. Although Coach Thornton wasn't overly pleased with a fourth place finish of 12 teams, his team did display exactly what he was looking for this year by sticking together during the race. All in all, the meet was another big step in the right direction for this promising team.

This group of 23 men gets along well with one another, adding to their success. They have plenty of opportunities for bonding, many of which don't involve running. The freshmen fit right in, adding a great deal of cohesiveness to this already cooperative team.

Some of the runners to watch this season include first-year Peder Arneson and sophomores Chris Coffey and Rob Hillard. However, each member of the team is constantly improving. Both captains cite their team's incredible depth as one of their strengths out on the course. It will definitely be exciting to watch these runners speed up and improve as the year goes by.

The Ole runners don't bother looking into the future. The entire team, along with Coach Thornton, has adopted the "one meet at a time" policy. They focus all their energy and concentration on winning their next meet, which is all they are concerned about. So far, it's worked out well for the team.

Although the team doesn't like to look ahead, Ole fans can look forward to two home meets for the team. Today the Oles host a JV Invite, and on September 30 the St. Olaf Invite takes place right here on The Hill. Although the invite is small, it should prove to be very competitive for the Oles. Both meets are a good chance for fans to see how competitive this team is.