High school cross country: Mentor’s Lane hopes cross country season improves track fortune

This article was originally posted on the News Herald’s website on 9.17.16. Written by Nate Barnes.

Mentor’s Emma Lane capped her ascent into the upper echelon of the state’s runners with a second-place finish in the 400-meter dash in the state track and field meet at Jesse Owens Stadium three months ago.

Instead of heading straight out to SPIRE Institute and beginning her offseason training as she normally would, Lane was presented with another avenue on which to prepare for her senior season.

After talking with boys track and field coach Bill Dennison, who also coaches the Cardinals cross country teams, Lane decided to take her talents from the track to the cross country course.

While Lane and the Mentor coaches hope for her success during the cross country season, the end game is to improve her endurance to make her as much of a weapon in the 800 as she is in the 400 when the spring season begins.

“It’s definitely really difficult,” Lane said. “I give people a lot of credit that do it. I don’t know if it’s truly for me but I’m going to stick it out because I know the outcome of it will be pretty great.”

Lane had never run cross country before this summer, so she faces a different set of challenges than the rest of the Cardinals as Mentor assistant coach Craig Nieset says.

“She’s got some speed and she’s got the endurance there,” Nieset said. “She just doesn’t have the background and the history to help push her up faster than what she’s doing now.”

While Lane doesn’t have the same level of experience as her teammates who have ran on cross country teams for years, the coaching staff has been able to ensure she and other runners are able to put in the same training intensity as runners capable of higher mileages.

“Say we do four one-mile repeats,” Nieset said. “We’ll drop some of those shorter distance girls back to two of them, or every other. Or if we do 800s, we’ll do maybe four out of six of three out of five so we cut back on what they’re doing even though they’re doing the same intensity during that workout. We still give them the times to hit but we bring back the overall mileage and what they’re doing during the workout.”

Lane participated in Mentor’s summer running program, as well as running with Dennison and a group of girls who wanted to put in extra miles during the offseason. When the season ends, she’ll resume her training at SPIRE and also run on the indoor track team — which includes running in the snow.

Lane’s personal record after four weeks is a 22:22 in the Division I open race at the Tiffin Cross Country Carnival Sept. 10, which landed her in a 22nd-place finish. A week earlier, she was 14th in the Mentor Cardinal Classic junior varsity/open race with a 22:34.

On a humid, overcast afternoon at the McDonough Invitational held at Cleveland Heights’ Forest Hills Park on Sept. 17, Lane placed 18th in 22:59.5 as times were slowed by a course dampened by heavy morning rains.

Now in the thick of the season, Lane hopes to post a time in the 20s by the end of the year and to push her way into the Cardinals’ top seven runners to run with the varsity team. In turn, the added endurance will help her drop time in both the 400 and 800 by track season.

“That’s my goal and to be able to run with the varsity girls,” Lane said. “I know they would definitely push me, but I’m just really focused on getting myself and better and getting my time down every race, hopefully.”