At the 2012 Big East men’s cross country championship, Martin Hehir was thinking about nothing but a team victory. Regardless, he crossed the finish line before any other runner.

“In the last mile, it came down to me, my teammate Joe Whelan, and a runner from Providence,” Hehir said. “I was able to come out on top and the personal victory was just icing on the cake.”

But Hehir’s achievement of becoming the 2012 individual Big East Champion was just a subplot to Syracuse’s conference championship, its third since 2009.

Since many of the same runners that comprised the championship cross country team also run distance track, Syracuse hopes to attain similar success in the coming spring season. Winning a conference championship in track and field requires a combined effort from the sprinters, pole vaulters, and shot putters alike, so the men’s distance runners have set their sights on a more practical goal – to be the best at their craft in the final year of the Big East.

“How we are approaching it is that we want to score the most points of any distance program in the Big East,” said Chris Fox, the head coach of both the cross country and track and field teams. “It will justify all that we do and help us carry over what we did in cross country.”

In his running days, Fox competed in cross country and distance track, and is familiar with having success in both sports. He was a two-time All-American in cross country, a four-time All-American in distance track and was equally fond of both forms of racing.

Along with Hehir, sophomore runner Ryan Urie looks to his coach’s past success to lead two teams to their own success this calendar year. Urie finished ninth in the Big East championship in the fall, and the feeling of the team’s victory is something he wants to capture again.

“In the morning of the Big East championship, we were just focused on running, and it was just a normal race,” Urie said. “But afterwards it was euphoria, I mean we were just so excited and I’ll never forget it.”

As the team looks to build on its fall accomplishments, it won’t need to change much when it comes to their training. Distance track and cross country are very similar, with the pace of the races being the biggest difference.

“Cross country is all about strength because the races are five or six miles,” Hehir said. “When we get to track we’ll be doing a lot more faster stuff to make sure we are ready to really kick it at the end of a race.”

Running cross country takes both strength and resilience, as the tempo of the race and conditions of the course are constantly changing. On the track, successful runners find a rhythm that allows them to push to the limit in the final stretch of the race.

As the distance runners make the transition to the spring season, they will certainly be targeted by the rest of the pack. Georgetown, a program that has had much success in distance in recent years, finished second behind Syracuse at the Big East cross country championships. Fox sees the Hoyas as the Orange’s toughest hurdle in reaching its goals this spring season.

“With Georgetown it could be tough to reach our goal, but I’m still confident,” Fox said. “This is the last year in the Big East so we want to go out on our terms. We did what we wanted to do in the fall, and now the distance races in track are most important to us.”

Published on February 6, 2013 at 1:04 am

Contact Jesse: jcdoug01@syr.edu | @dougherty_jesse