Mary Kate Anselmini (Ward Melville High; Stanford University) — "The biggest difference between high school and college is the time commitment. Last year, there would be days where practice would be over in an hour and a half. If that's the case at Stanford, it's because I did my run earlier in the day, and we're just meeting to shakeout and I probably still need to go to the trainer to foam roll, stretch, and ice. That, and just the struggle of being at the bottom again. This isn't high school where your hand is being held and every run is catered to you because you're the superstar on the team. It's humbling, it teaches you to rely on your teammates, and it really makes you think about how you're going about your training."

Eddie Owens (Packer Collegiate; Princeton University) — "The volume of work I'm doing. I have made a pretty significant jump from my high school mileage to where I'm at now. In high school, my summer mileage before my senior year average about 65 miles per week, but then in season it would drop to 40 or lower because I could never double and school just took it out of me. Here at Princeton, I trained with the team in Park City over the sumer and ran 80-90 consistently, even hitting 100+ once. Right now my mileage is more like 70-80, which is obviously still pretty high. Beyond just running more miles, I do a lot more of the little things, like drills, stretching, core, massage, etc."

Otis Ubriaco (Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake High; Iona College) — "The lack of junk miles has been a very big adjustment. I hit 70 miles a fair amount of times in high school but that was with three miles warm up and two or three miles cool down everyday. Now that I'm trying to get up to 80 there is no such thing as warm up or cool down for distance days. So instead of an 11-mile day with five miles of warm up/cooldown I have just an 11-mile run. I can already feel my base improving by the week considering the runs are getting easier now."

Owen Skeete (Westbury High; Indiana University) — "My biggest adjustment is the mileage. I am only doing 65-70 miles a week now and I am still considered to be of low mileage. I also never had to count my mileage until this year."

Tim Luthin (Warwick Valley High; Stanford University) — "Consistent mileage. In high school you had many more races so it was harder to keep you mileage up when you want to run fast every other week."

Ubriaco — "Truthfully there has been no big surprises about college racing. Racing is racing no matter what the distance. I knew going into college I'd be far from the best so the depth was no surprise. I've increased my mileage to handle a longer race so nothing too major there."

Skeete — "Cross country is much more competitive than in high school. The packs do not break apart as much and straight from the gun most of the dominant runners are in the lead pack."

Luthin — "The depth on this team. There are many more guys than seven who could make varsity."

Anselmini — "I've only had one race, so no huge surprises quite yet. I think I like the additional K, though."

Owens — "The physicality of the races. My first 'real' college race was at the Notre Dame Invitational (I'm not counting the Fordham Fiasco, where we opened our season). It was run on a golf course, which meant it was narrow and had a lot of turns. I ran the whole race completely out of rhythm, getting jostled in the pack. It was definitely a wake-up experience. I hate running in packs, but luckily I was good enough in high school to never really have to do that. In college, though, there are few cross country races where I can run in the front pack and dictate the pace and avoid pushing and shoving."

Anselmini — "Last week we did my favorite workout from high school — 1k repeats. Whether you're on the east or west coast, they're still hard."

Owens — "Marathon pace runs. We have different versions of this run. One version is worked into a long run, where we start with 8-10 miles at usual long-run pace, then briefly stop for water, and continue on for up to another eight miles at marathon pace, which is generally under 5:20 and progresses throughout the eight miles. Another version of the marathon pace run is from 10-12 miles and is run progressively, which means we start above six-minute mile pace and slowly crank it down to marathon pace and even faster. I really enjoy the marathon pace runs because I'm much more of a distance runner, and my comfort zone is definitely above five-minute miles, where I feel like I can go forever. On these marathon pace runs, we self-select our groups, unlike in workouts where coach usually assigns us a small group. I always run with Donn Cabral and Brian Leung, our All-Americans. I just try and hang with them for as long as possible. Sam Pons, another freshman is also always there for the ride, and it's always just us four cruising along."

Ubriaco — "We don't do anything too creative — just like to keep it simple but with quality. I've never been a particular fan of workouts because they pretty much always hurt and take a lot of concentration that is hard to conjure after a long day. But nothing beats out a good tempo run. I've never run as long or as fast before on tempo runs before so that is pretty exciting to feel accomplished after practice."

Luthin — "20 x 500 with 30 seconds rest."

Skeete — "1k repeats. One minute rest in between."