On Friday morning, the St. Edward's cross country men's and women's teams will open the season at the Southwestern-Concordia Opener in Georgetown, Texas. 
 
The race was moved from the evening to early morning to try and escape the worst of the summer's record temperatures. However, in long-distance running, there's no escaping the extremes placed on the body of even the most well-conditioned student-athletes. 
 
"We're not a sport where you have halftime or timeouts to stop in the middle of a race and tell everyone to get some water," St. Edward's Head Cross Country Coach Steven Cary says. "A sustained effort of 15 to 30 minutes is a long time to be out there pushing yourself to your limits."
 
There are fitness prerequisites that come standard for anyone competing in cross country at the collegiate level. What separates competition often comes down to non-physical factors. 
 
"Our focus for both [men's and women's] teams is on developing a mindset for sustained success," Cary says. "A certain level of intrinsic motivation has to be there, but willpower is finite. Some have more than others, but there's always a limit. When you're in a tough place, it's about finding something bigger than running for yourself." 
 
For Cary, that something is family. St. Edward's head coach likes to build culture through team bonding events like positivity circles and team meals. However, the culture goes beyond holding fun events. 
 
"Anyone who knows me knows family is important to me. The way we talk about the program is this is like a brotherhood or sisterhood," Cary explains. "There's a difference between buddies and families. Both can be fun to be around, but family will hold you accountable and challenge you to improve."
 
Whether hitting the runner's wall or experiencing stress that the demands of being a student-athlete can place on the body, there inevitably comes a time in every season when resolve is tested. St. Edward's cross country aims to transform a largely individual-based activity into a team sport so its runners can tap into something beyond their individual reserves. 
 
"It helps to remember all the miles your teammates have put in beside you," Cary says. "You start thinking about how much you care about them and don't want to disappoint them." 
 
The foundation starts with pack running, a tactic Cary has implemented at each coaching stop. He'll have the team run together for the first mile of a practice at the same speed to get the team communicating, feeding off each other, and pushing each other to improve. 
 
FAITH BROTHERS has been the leading runner of the women's team for years, owning the school records and most of its top 10 times. 
 
Early in this year's training camp, Cary and Brothers reminisced on last year's Chile Pepper Festival in which the Hilltoppers placed second as a team, with Brothers third individually, setting a school 5K record of 18:19.4. 
 
"We talked about what it would be like to have four or five other women right there with her in the top 10 and how different that race would be," Cary says. "It was fun watching the time trials this fall because I believe we have the potential to do that."
 
MIA RIVERA emerged as one of those runners in a stellar first season last year, putting together an all-conference performance, finishing just fractions of a second off Brothers' 6K school record. 
 
"Mia surprised us in a good way. We knew she would be talented, but she surpassed expectations on how quickly she put it together," Cary exclaims. "It's interesting because she and Faith come at things from a different background, where Faith is strength-oriented and loves the longer runs, and Mia is from a speed background." 
 
Cary believes he has the other four or five women he and Brothers talked about on the roster, with a group of returners who were sidelined last fall and several returning sophomores who had mini-breakouts in the spring looking to carry the momentum forward. 
 
ELLIE HOVRE, the 2020 LSC Freshman of the Year, was limited to a few races in the spring last year but is set to return. Sophomore JULIANA MERLO joins cross country after setting multiple school records in her first track and field season the previous spring. 
 
JORDAN SANDERS improved her best 5K time by a minute in the spring. JENNA SAUNDERS and DELANEY LONG had great springs and have put together a strong preseason, while SYDNEY SMITH and MAGGIE RITTMEYER are reliable contributors. 
 
"We have a lot of weapons in our arsenal. We finished fourth last year, and the preseason rankings were a copy and paste from last year's results, where we were separated from the next team by only a few points," Cary says. "Add all the returners and newcomers on top of what we had last year, and we have the potential to be very competitive."
 
On the men's side, junior DYLAN SEQUEIRA returns with back-to-back all-conference performances on his resume and renewed purpose after a rough winter bled into a solid but disappointing spring. That motivated him to stay in Austin to train all summer. As the lone all-conference returner, he steps into a more prominent role for the team. 
 
"Dylan can be vocal, but he's more lead by example. I remind him the younger guys are looking at everything he does, and what he does is important," Cary says. "He came back in a different kind of shape. There's a confidence and eagerness to get the season started. He's a guy we'll be keying on this year, and I think he's ready to make another leap." 
 
Brothers Omar and IVAN GUZMAN are on the rise and looking forward to breakthrough seasons. Omar is recovering from nagging injuries and will use the season to ramp up into peak form, while Ivan is coming off a strong spring season and pushing Sequeria in preseason workouts. 
 
"We talk about being competitive, but we want healthy competition," Cary says. "Are you trying to push each other to be the top dog on the team, or are you trying to challenge them to rise and take them with you? We don't want to suppress the competitiveness of this group because it's a huge asset." 
 
Beyond those three, the men's team returns solid mainstays like SAM FLUSCHE and NICHOLAS GONZALEZ, the latter of which is the epitome of a student-athlete, making every conference All-Academic team and helping the cross country team towards another goal. 
 
"One of our goals is to be the highest Team GPA on campus. Having guys like Nick who embody that commitment certainly helps," Cary says. "Nick is interesting when it comes to leadership. He's not someone who's going to step in and rally the troops, but he builds relationships with people, develops trust, and that's how he leads."
 
The team also returns CARLOS BARRERA, CHASE BENNETT, IAN CLENNAN, SEBASTIAN KORAN, WILLIE ODEM, AJ PENA, KEATON STRAIT, ANGEL TORRES, and KIERNAN WORK for the men, and MYLA CASTILLO, VICTORIA HINOJOSA, TAYLOR LATZA, FAITH LOFTUS, BRYN PETERS, and HAILEY RODRIGUEZ for the women. 
 
St. Edward's also returns volunteer assistant Dan O'Dwyer to a coaching staff that includes new assistant coach Antwain Morgan. Cary's first recruiting class of BRADEN COX, JOSIAH GUAJARDO, Hogan Heikkinin, Melicio Ortiz, WILLIAM SULENTICH, MEGAN FERRELL, LILY GRANT, TORI PONCE, NATALIE RIVERA, and Sammy Salazer are a talented group who Cary describes as culture people. 
 
"It's a very talented group, and I can't wait to see them integrate with the team and progress throughout the year," Cary says. "The team has lofty goals, and I don't want to downplay that. We're all competitive people. But we can't skip steps; the focus is very much process-oriented." 
 
The team opens at Southwestern in a meet St. Edward's will use to get a good look at some of its developing prospects. Then, it heads to Lubbock to compete at the Texas Tech Opener on Sept. 15, followed by a big meet at the Chile Pepper Cross Country Festival on Sept. 29. 
 
St. Edward's will split its teams on Oct. 7, sending some to the University of Alabama Huntsville Chargers Invitational and some to the DBU Old Glory Gallop. The schedule offers glimpses of national competition in a championship-style setting to prepare for the Oct. 21 Lone Star Conference Championships in Portales, New Mexico, and the NCAA South Central Regional in Lubbock, Texas. 
 
"Everything is about resilience. We're trying to challenge ourselves by putting ourselves in tough situations to see how we respond and how we can do things differently," Cary explains. "Those are decisions we need to make now. You can't wait for real adversity to hit you and then decide what you'll do because it won't work. I just want us to be the best we can every day, and that will make us a team worthy of standing on the podium at conference." 
 
The brilliance of making a team effort out of individual activity is when runners do hit that wall, they'll have more than themselves to push through it.