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On your marks. While they won't necessarily be at full-strength, the Seattle Pacific University cross country runners have to start somewhere, and that place is Lower Woodland Park. Next Saturday (Sept. 8) the Falcons begin the 2001 season at the Emerald City Invitational, the first of seven regular season meets. The SPU women, conference champion in six of he past eight years, are aiming to claim the inaugural Great Northwest Athletic Conference crown and qualify for the NCAA Division II Championships­two goals which barely escaped their grasp last season.

It's where you finish that counts. Coach Doris Heritage is downplaying the significance of her teams' first two meets. Both the women's and men's squads will likely be without key harriers until the Sept. 22 Sundodger Invitational. Rachel Ross (Sr., Kennewick, Wa.), a two-time conference champion and past All-America, is questionable while coming back from a foot injury over the summer. Jamie Witt (So., Folsom, Ca.), who missed much of the track season with a sore back, may avoid the hilly Emerald City course as a starter. For the men, key recruit Tim LeCount (Fr., Battle Ground, Wa.) may also miss the first race, however Nathanael Castle (Jr., Gooding, Id.) is expected back after missing all but one meet in 2000.

More on the meet. Expected in the field Saturday will be Washington, and fellow GNAC schools Central Washington, Saint Martin's, Seattle University and Western Washington. Ross finished second to the Huskies' Kate Bradshaw a year ago and the SPU women were runners-up to the UW, 28-44. The Emerald City course and each of the first three meets will be run on shorter trails, with the women racing 5000 meters and the men 8000. The Sept. 29 Western Washington Invitational, a preview of the NCAA West Regional, will be the first 6 and 10k distances.

Frontrunners. The Falcons bring back four of their top six women, including Ross­a winner in four races­plus Witt, Ruth Hawkinson (Jr., Roy, Wa./Yelm) and Kirsten Bjork (So., Olympia, Wa./Black Hills). They will be buoyed by the return of 1999 conference newcomer of the year, Nicole Seana (So., Carnation, Wa./Kamiakin), and prized recruit Josie Lavin (Fr., Bremerton, Wa.). Seana missed the entire 2000 campaign after taking second in the conference and 12th in the region as a freshman. Castle won the opening meet of 2000 but then suffered a knee injury. He successfully petitioned to have his eligibility restored and came back in the spring, finishing second in the conference 1500.

Picks of the pack. The SPU women have been picked to finish second and the men eighth at the Oct. 13 GNAC Championships. Central Washington, which won its first PacWest title last October and placed seventh at nationals, received seven first-place votes and out-pointed Seattle Pacific, 95-85, for the top spot in the women's poll. The Falcons received two first-place votes. Humboldt State is the men's favorite. The Lumberjacks, who won the last three PacWest titles and finished 14th at last year's Division II national meet, received eight of a possible nine first-place votes.

Trail mix. Ross and Seana helped push SPU to seventh in the NCAA Championships and a fourth straight Pacific West Conference title in 1999. Last year Central won the PacWest and helped deny the Falcons a seventh straight trip to nationals...Ross has won a total of six conference titles in cross country and track. She won the 1998 fall crown and has doubled as 800 and 1500 spring champ the past two years...The GNAC Championships will be held in Anchorage, with the meet moved forward by two weeks from previous years to compensate for the expected harsh weather.

Coaching staff. Coach Doris Heritage (24th year) has guided the SPU women to 10 top-10 national finishes and conference titles in six of the last eight years. In 1996 the Falcons won the West Region and her teams finished as high as second in the AIAW (1979, Œ80) and third in the NCAA (1983, Œ86) championships. Nineteen harriers have been All-America, including two national champions. The world's premier distance runner of the Sixties, she won five consecutive world cross country titles from 1967-71, and was a member of the 1968 and Œ72 U.S. Olympic teams. Heritage has coached the U.S. world cross country championship team, served as an assistant at many international meets, including the 1988 Olympics, and is a six-time women's conference coach of the year at SPU.