Cross Country Running Story

Home field advantage for the Trojans

Curtis Taylor

Polytechnic Press

The SAIT Trojans cross country team hopes home field advantage will translate into success in the upcoming provincial finals.

On October 29, SAIT will be hosting the ACAC cross-country provincial finals for the first time ever at Canmore Park.

Both the men’s and women’s team have been training hard in preparation for the race, and have high expectations for themselves running on their home course.

The men’s team has faced stiff competition all year, and if they can improve on the season’s final standings they will be satisfied.

“If we can get within the top ten that would be ideal, because we have been sitting around tenth all year,” said Trevor Hofbauer.

Hofbauer is currently injured, but expects to be back just in time to run in the final race of the season.

Growing up in Calgary, Hofbauer is very familiar with Canmore Park and feels that it will give the Trojans an advantage.

“Throughout highschool Charlie (Gretton) and I ran together and all we did was run at Canmore park.  To know the course will give us a strong advantage throughout our run,” he said.

The women’s team is looking to cap off a strong season, and Lisa Curle thinks the team is in their best shape of the year heading into the biggest race of the season.

“I think that we are pretty much in top shape, I’m feeling pretty confident.  The team overall is looking really strong,” said Curle.

For the women’s cross country team, finishing third has become a trend throughout the season.  Grant McEwan has a very strong team, and have won the majority of the races this season.  Red Deer College is also very strong, and sit in second place heading into the ACAC finals.

“I’m hoping to maintain our results as a team, we have performed well throughout the year.  It’s been pretty much the same (result) at every meet so far this season,” said Curle.

Curle and the rest of the team will be training hard at Canmore Park leading up to the finals, and have developed a strategy to running the course.

“We’ve been familiarizing ourselves with the track ever since we started training, and we know the course very well we run on it at least once a week,” said Curle. “By doing that we have really prepared ourselves, we know where the tough parts are and we know where we can put in some attack so we should be in good shape.”