Liz Costello, a Princeton Tiger junior, had a disappointing finish to a great cross country campaign last season after getting sick and struggling to a 209^th place finish. This year she and her Lady Tigers look for a strong finish to the 2008 cross country season.

Great job at Pre Nats. What were your thoughts about your race?

Very happy. Just because the season hasn't really been going as I envisioned it during my training over the summer, for various reasons, and the first few meets. But the race at Pre Nats, I don't know, the race felt very rhythmic and composed. I just felt very confident with being able to handle the pace and the course and was able to put out a good time and help my team tie FSU, which was awesome.

Do you mind going into some of those things? What hasn't been going so well for you?

I was a little sick and I had to take antibiotics around the Notre Dame Meet. I had to take some days off, I think it actually started before the Notre Dame Meet, but I was still feeling the repercussions of it during workouts and stuff, so I was having a harder time working out than I had during the preseason and during the season. There was a small period there of poor practicing. I was a little worried and then the races weren't going so well. I managed to turn things around.

Are you 100% right now or are you still on the mend?

I believe I'm 100%...as far as I know.

Last time you were on that course, at the NCAA Championships, I read that you passed out and finished way in the back of the field. Can you walk me through that and what actually happened there?

I got checked out by my doctor after the race and was informed that at some point I had contracted a viral infection and that my body wasn't ready to handle that kind of exertion and so it just crapped out on me.

At what point of the race did you actually pass out?

I didn't pass out. I was just unable to keep my legs under me and actually maintain a running form...as I was getting to the finish line. I did fall, but I never passed out. I'd say I started the race off and at about mile one I was wondering why it felt like such a struggle. I was thinking, “it's just a big race, chaotic, people are nervous. They're going out fast. It's just in your head, calm down.” Then mile two, still not feeling very good, I just went through it and went into the final turn right before you hit the home stretch, thinking “OK, I'll get people back. I'm not far back. I can make up ground.” My body just said “that's it.” That's when I was struggling up the last 600m or whatever it is.

I'm guessing you're going to improve on that this year.

I'm hoping to. (Laughs)

If everything goes to plan. How do you want to race to play out for you?

Oh. I don't know. An improvement on the time at Pre Nats would be great. I guess I don't set too specific goals for myself. Obviously another second or another place better is what you want, so, I'll just keep working hard and make a very different impression than last year's nationals.

What do you think your team is capable of?

Between our strength and our depth...our spread is not that large. We have a lot of talented, strong-willed ladies. I'd say we are hungry to keep ourselves up there in terms of the rankings. Last year, after Pre Nats, we were happy and we knew were working hard, but when we got moved up to fourth I think it was a bit more of a surprise to us. Not that we didn't think we could do it, but just that we hadn't identified with that. And so, I think, at nationals we didn't have very great races across the board. I think you might be able to say that we had trouble registering with our fourth place ranking going into it. It's hard to defend that. Whereas this year, we were up there last year and we couldn't hold onto it when it counted the most. Now we're up there again and it's a comfortable situation. Now it's helping us to stay aggressive. With that tie with FSU, I hope we keep our ranking and we want to stay up there. We're going to keep working hard.

That being said, what are your team goals?

Again, I just want us to stay up there. The past couple of years, we could come in and we won Paul Short, we won our regionals, we won Ivy League Championships. Last year we were undefeated up to nationals. We keep having all these great seasons and at the nationals, we just seem to fall short...when we're actually put on the big stage there. I think our goal is to just come back with a result in the end of the season of something we can say, “we're not fifth in the country at some point...we're fifth in the country period.” I think we just want to hold on to what we've earned and how hard we've worked after nationals.

Do you like cross country better or do you like the 800 and track events?

I love whatever season I'm in at the time. Right now I'm loving cross country and seeing all the courses. I'm looking forward to going back to Terre Haute. Then, at the same time, I can't wait to get up The Armory. There are some facilities that I really look forward to racing at indoors. And getting onto the track. Then springtime. Nothing beats Penn Relays and I love the weather and...I don't know, I like it all.

Now, Princeton puts an emphasis on education. You're also a top DI athlete. Do you have trouble juggling those two things and trying to be a normal college student who has fun once in a while?

Not only do we get along with each other really well, we're all girls who have learned to balance a lot. We're going to be working while we're sitting in the terminals and working in the hotels, but we do balance that all out with a good time here and there. I love the social scene here. I think it's really unique. It's been especially fun this year being an upper classmen. Time is definitely an issue. There are times when you're struggling to keep it all under control, but I think it makes us that much more confident when we go to these meets and we know how much we have on our plates and we can compete with these teams where running is essentially their job. You know? We can't put as many hours of the day into our sports as other people might be able to because of the emphasis on education. But, we chose that. We're not saying that we wish it weren't the case. We're here for a reason and our personalities are such that we enjoy the atmosphere. I would say that we have confidence knowing that we're tough competitors because we're tough in all aspects of our lives.

What kind of mileage do you usually put in?

Definitely lower. I actually don't even keep track. (Laughs) So, maybe around 60...I'll just put that out that out there, but I don't know. Not very high, that's for sure. I learned to value cross training as a very supplementary tool. You don't have to go out there and log another recovery run for the sake of getting up to a certain mileage each week. You can get a good anerobic workout in the pool or on the bike instead of pounding the daylights out of your feet and joints. Every once in a while those days are good too, but that does take away from the mileage at the end of the week. But the numbers...I don't keep track of it.

What's the hardest workout you ever remember doing?

(Laughs) Hardest workout? Umm, I'd say the hardest one is the one I had to condition to my freshman year. We had these runs we called “LHR”. Long-hard-run. The first one I did my freshman year was an 11-mile run with a five-mile pickup in the middle. For me, coming in as a freshman, running for an hour every day was a big deal coming from my high school program. I started cross country my senior year of high school. Stepping up to an hour a day when my normal was 30-40 minutes, was just a big change. This particular day we were now being asked to run 70-75 minutes at a decent clip in the middle of it. I just remember asking, between gasps of breath, “where are we, how do we know when we're finished? What road, what can I look for?” Trying to get some sort of gauge on when this hellish experience was going to come to an end. After that I learned to get used them more and prepare better for them.

What were you doing before your senior year of high school? Were you a soccer player?

Yeah, soccer. I played my freshman, sophomore and junior years. I ran a couple races my junior year in the middle of the soccer season, which my soccer coach was not exactly pleased about. I asked her if I would be able to. I wasn't really training. Occasionally I'd go for a run after practice just to loosen up my legs. I had been doing track, so the idea of racing and training wasn't anything new. The type of racing and the distance was. Then I decided that running was going to be a part of my life in college and soccer was not. I didn't want to leave my first cross country season for the DI level, because that's what I was going to look to run for track in college. I wanted to give cross country a whirl before moving up to the DI level.

I think you made the right decision.

I don't have any regrets. I do miss soccer. I do miss soccer.

Can you give me a crazy running story?

It was the training I had to do on a overseas vacation with my family. It was in high school and we went Italy for Christmas. It was lovely. I loved it and hope to go back some day. We ended the trip in Venice. And, as you know, there's a lot of water there and not a lot of space to run. It's particularly grounded during the holiday season. I was trying to keep myself in shape so when I go back from vacation I'd be ready to start the indoor season with my team. With nowhere to run and I was getting tired of the treadmill. I was staying in a four-floor hotel. You could see the canal. So, picture a rectangular building, four floors, where each floor only has four rooms. Each of the doors to each of these rooms was about three steps to a central staircase. So, basically the hotel wraps around this central staircase. Each of the rooms is very close this staircase. What I decided to do one day—it was at night and I needed to do something because I wasn't able to run on the treadmill—was I had my dad time me going up and down these stairs. I go up and down three times and that was one set. I did maybe six or seven sets. He had me do one more. I thought six was good and he pushed me and said, “no, let's do one more.” The trick of it was I had to be as quiet as a mouse. If I went hammering up and down these steps for 20 minutes, I'm going to wake up everyone in this hotel. There's no way to muffle this noise. I'm trying to sprint and get a good workout in and I've got my dad yelling out times at the bottom of the stairs. My mom is asleep on the third floor, but I heard her saying, “Jim, don't let her do it.” and “just go to bed, you don't need to do that tonight.” So, I'm trying to be quiet that she doesn't come out and yell and other hotel people don't come out and complain. Thankfully during the course of this no one came out of their rooms and complained. I kind of snuck one in there. I'll never forget that.

You are resourceful.

I guess so. Trying to be quiet while I'm huffing and puffing up the stairs. (Laughs) It made for an extra challenge.