The Harvard men's and women's cross-country teams take on runners from around the region today at Franklin Park in the New England Championships for the men and the IC4As for the women.

Both teams are looking forward to this end of the season race as a chance to showcase the improvement they have made during the season. Today's race--the first of three championship races--is an important test for the teams as they head into the Heptagonal Championships next Friday and the NCAA Regionals on November 13.

Harvard Men

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Today's race will consist of 280 men from colleges throughout New England. With a talented field, the race should be competitive, with Dartmouth expected to have some especially strong runners.

With the race being held on the Crimson's home course, Harvard will look forward to the advantage it will have over other teams from knowing the trail well. In addition to competing in home meets at Franklin Park, the Crimson practices and works on race strategies on the course every week. Despite having this advantage, however, Harvard knows that it will still have to run hard to do well.

"Familiarity with the course with help," sophomore runner John Friedman said. "But we will still need good performances from everyone to finish well."

"The race will go out at 4:30 at the mile mark," senior Dave Martin said. "And if you are more than ten seconds back of that you'll be running the gauntlet the rest of the way."

Though the Crimson has not been practicing differently for this race than it has for other ones, the runners believe their hard work throughout the season will show in their performance today.