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Oct. 11, 2011

Oct. 11, 2011 Weekly Release

COUGARS TO RACE AGAINST NORTHWEST OPPONENTS IN SPOKANE
After their highly competitive race at Notre Dame at the end of September, the Cougar cross country men and women will go to Spokane for the third time this season to compete...the No. 20 Washington State men's cross country team will be racing in addition to the Cougar women's team in the Inland Northwest Classic Friday at Spokane Falls Community College, hosted by the Community Colleges of Spokane...this will be the final race for the Cougar men and women before the Pac-12 Conference Championships in Arizona...results will be available on the official WSU Athletic website, wsucougars.com, when available post-race.

LEADING THE WAY
Cougar cross country head coach Pete Julian is in his third year coaching at WSU...he came to WSU after a highly successful career as the cross country head coach for four seasons, as well as the track and field head coach for three at Metropolitan State College of Denver...Julian is dedicated to recruiting talented young runners and developing training routines that lead each student-athlete to their highest potential...Tim Riley is the progam's volunteer assistant coach for the third year.

RACING THIS FRIDAY
Coach Julian expects every athlete on both the men's and women's teams to race in the Inland Northwest Challenge Friday...several of the freshmen men may race unattached, but everybody else is anticipated to be racing in uniform.

"I expect everyone to run," Julian said. "We have one or two athletes who are coming off some tiny injuries, but I expect both the men's and women's full teams to run. They need to get a full race in."

COACH JULIAN'S EXPECTATIONS FOR THIS FRIDAY
"(This will be a ) tune-up, really. It just gives us another opportunity to race and get a little bit closer to our competitive edge. If we didn't race, it would be a month between Notre Dame (and the Pac-12s). It is just too long to not compete.

"There are a couple pretty solid teams there, but we have two very, very strong teams so if we are going to run at full strength, I wouldn't perceive that we should get beat. But that's the nature of why we race, because it's possible.

"In the past we used to go to a really big meet this weekend. I think just with the travel and the emotional toll, it can make these athletes a little tired going into a conference meet. So we are just going to try to change things a little bit this year - stay home and we will be back in time to get a good night's sleep and get a nice run in the morning and watch a little football on Saturday.

"You need almost a week to recover alone, and then almost another week to prepare for the next competition. That two weeks (between Friday's race and the Pac-12s) will go by quickly."

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