Even after a marathon trip back from South Carolina, which took approximately 21 hours — including a three-hour delay in Greenville, S.C., three hours at Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C., and two hours in San Francisco — junior Jason Hartmann is ready to get back on the course.
“We just want to get back to work,” the All-American said.
Hartmann and his fellow runners were pleased with the outcome of Saturday’s pre-NCAA Invitational, but they know that the much of the season is yet to come.
“I think we did well, and hopefully we can build on it every two weeks from here to the end of the season,” Hartmann said. “We probably have enough points if it were to come down to an at-large bid, but we can’t let the committee decide our fate. We need to decide our own fate and run well at districts.”
The Ducks next race in the Pacific-10 Conference Championships in Gilbert, Ariz., on Oct. 27. They will then travel to Tucson, Ariz., on Nov. 10 for the NCAA Western Regionals.

Women focusing on Pac-10s
With a 26th place finish Saturday in the purple race of the pre-nationals, the women’s cross country squad all but eliminated itself from a chance at going to the national competition. Despite the disappointment, the Ducks are not losing motivation and will continue to run hard in preparation for the remaining two meets.
“The Pac-10’s and Regionals are where we really want to make a big impression,” redshirt junior Carrie
Zografos said.
Sophomore Magdalena Sandoval: “We outlined our expectations for those meets, and they are tangible goals.”
Sandoval is also optimistic that she and her teammates have yet to reach their potential.
“We’re all just kind of waiting for the meet where we all just pull it together,” she said.

It’s in the cards:

Stanford undefeated
By winning their respective meets at the pre-nationals, the Stanford men’s and women’s cross country teams remained undefeated this season. The No. 2 men’s team finished Saturday’s race with 56 points in the men’s black race, well ahead of second place team North Carolina State (94 points).
The Cardinal women’s team, also ranked No. 2 in the nation, beat out Brigham Young in the women’s silver race. They were paced by Alicia Craig, who finished third overall with a time of 20:48.
The men’s top runner was second place finisher Grant Robison, who ran the 8-kilometer course in 24:31.

Austin and Torres

running away with honors
For the second week in a row, Colorado runners Molly Austin and Jorge Torres swept the Big 12 Conference Runners-of-the-Week Award.
Austin won her second race in as many weekends at the pre-NCAA’s on Saturday. Her winning time of 20:48, held the course record at the 6-K Furman University cross country course for about 45 minutes until a pair of runners, including Washington’s Sabrina Munro bettered Austin’s mark in the next race (the Pre-NCAA silver race).
Torres, the leader of the Colorado men’s team, finished at 23:49, which was 18 seconds behind the winner, Boaz Cheboiywo, but both men managed to beat the previous record for the 8-K course.