Sept. 29, 2011
The Vanderbilt men’s and women’s cross country teams head to the 10th Annual Greater Louisville Classic this weekend, where they will compete against 30 other schools in the 8K and 5K races.
Coming off a strong weekend in Minnesota, where the top runners paced the Dores to a 7th place finish and broke into the USTFCCCA Top-30 poll for the first time in school history, the women’s team will be running fresh legs in the 5K event.
Sophomore Liz Anderson, a Louisville native, will open her first race of the season. Anderson holds five all-time records at Vanderbilt, including being no. 4 in school history in the 3,000M indoor and outdoor, and 5,000M outdoor events. Kristabel Doebel-Hickok, who raced last weekend, will also compete in this weekend’s race as the lone runner to double up races.
“We’ll have about seven or eight women running,” said head coach Steve Keith. “The younger ones are going to get a great big-meet experience because there are over 30 teams in this meet and 300 runners. It’s flat and fast and nothing to slow you down, so you can get out and go.”
All of the men will be running in their 8K race. “We have set goals to try to run as well as the best team I’ve had, which was the 2006 team, and I think we can,” said Keith.
The meet will be at E.P. ‘Tom’ Sawyer State Park in Louisville, Ky., with races starting at 9:30 a.m., 10:45 a.m., and noon for the men, and 10:15 a.m., 11:30 a.m., and 12:30 p.m. for the women.
