With their first meet, the University Handicap, next Friday, Coach Jaakko Mikkola's cross country runners will start their formal season next Monday with a meeting at 4:45 o'clock in Dillon. Although the squad practiced regularly during the second session of Summer School, this meeting, at which Jim Reid, 1928 cross country captain and Harvard record holder the for the two-mile, will speak, will serve to organize the team and explain fall plans to new Freshmen and those who have not been in Summer School.

Cross country's plans, as those of all other sports, have been cut down by war time economics and shortages. The training table at the Varsity Club will be limited to 15 men. The squad will practice in speakers rather than spikes since no more spikes are being manufactured. The Freshman team will continue to exist, but it will have no trips and its meets will be limited to neigh-bouring colleges.

Top-Notch Varsity

These limitations are not expected to interfere with the formation of a top-notch Varsity team, however. A strong nucleus of runners will be back, headed by Captain Fred Phinney, Bill Palson, number one man last year, Tim Coggeshall and Bob Kent, two steady distance runners from last year's team, Russ Farrington, best Freshman distance runner last year, and a promising runner from this year's Freshman class, Joe McAndrews.

Jaakko is looking to the incoming Freshmen for depth to back up this nucleus, as well as to last year's reserves and Freshmen. Besides depth, he is looking for runners who can match the best that the opposing teams will throw at him. For this year's schedule includes the strongest teams that Harvard cross country squads have met in years.

Tough Teams

On the list are Rhode Island, last year's IC4A and NCAA champions; Dartmouth, last year's Heptagonal winners. Cornell, winner of the Heptagonals twice and second last year, and Yale and Princeton teams practically at full strength from last year in addition to the material they can find in last year's and this year's Freshmen.

Jaakko urges that all new Freshmen interested in running, track or cross country, come out immediately. "Even if you do not make Varsity," he said, "you will run many seconds faster and be in better shape next spring. There are many fellows, too, who have never run before they came to Harvard, and then they make very good runners."