Teams always want to peak around the conference tournament and when sophomore Caitlin Beeler crossed the finish line at the Paul Short Invitational she started a trend that puts the cross country team closer to that goal.

She set a new school record in the 6-kilometer race with a time of 21:55. But she also set a new personal best, eclipsing her previous mark by more than 30 seconds.

And when teammate senior Katelyn Ealer crossed the finish line she set a personal record. After that senior Kelly Chencharik and juniors Jessica Doan, Alissa Wilke and Colleen McCarthy all did the same.

“When you start a season you might think that you are going to PR [personal record] a couple times during the season but you want to peak at conference,” Beeler said. “It’s not very usual but I think that everyone is just encouraging each other. It’s paying off and hopefully it will continue into the conference meet when it really counts.”

For the men it was the same story. Junior Eric Lewandowski improved his time and senior Eric Garren also lowered his best time. The list continues as sophomore Andrew Hawkey, freshman Matthew Richardson and junior Jason McCullom all finished with new personal records.

“We had some of the best teams in the nation, nationally ranked teams,” Garren said. “Just running with that caliber of runners forced everyone to step it up a notch. All of us chose to hang on.”

The trend continued at the Disney Classic last weekend.

With three races during the last three weeks, both teams have had the opportunity to improve drastically and continue to get better against strong competition. The teams raced against some of the best competition in the Northeast at Paul Short and at the Disney Classic the men finished fourth and the women finished fifth.

Emily Fournier added her name to the list of runners who set personal bests in the last two weeks.

Beeler finished fifth overall out of nearly 400 runners with a time of 18:11 in the 5k race. The time adds Beeler’s name to the list of top-10 all time finishes in Elon’s history.

“Just the caliber of runners we’ve had in our race lately pushes us up there,” Garren said. “You really don’t have a choice to fall back.”

The results are evident.

On both sides personal records weren’t just been lowered, but they were obliterated.

Wilke set a personal best by more than a minute and Lewandowski and Beeler both reduced their times by more than 30 seconds.

“It’s hard to trim off two to five seconds, but to get that knocked off is pretty significant,” Garren said.

But Garren thinks that it’s only going to get easier as the Phoenix close in on the conference meet.

“The hardest part is breaking your personal best,” Garren said. “It’s easier to hold on to it after you’ve done it once. It builds up that confidence and you can do it again.”

Managing Editor: Justin Hite - 10/10/07