There’s something to be said for the natural beauty in the upper reaches of New England this time of year.
The leaves are just starting to change over, still a month or so away from shedding and shriveling up before winter comes barreling through, enveloping the area’s forests with cascading waves of gold and brown.
The air is thinning out and ridding itself of the summer’s humidity. The mornings are serene and quiet — the periodic sniffles of others are the only audible noises between the sweeping gusts of wind that rustle the branches above.
It’s also perfect weather for running. The UConn women’s cross country team knows that, too. The Huskies, who rolled through last weekend’s Hartford Invite to open the season, head north to Hanover, N.H., this weekend for the Dartmouth Invitational on Sept. 19.
The UConn women, who are competing at the Dartmouth Invite for the first time since 2013, will run the 6,000-meter race at 11:45 a.m. on Saturday, just after the conclusion of the men’s 8,000-meter, which is slated to begin at 11 a.m.
The six-kilometer women’s race will take place along a two-kilometer loop at the Dartmouth Cross Country Course and, while the list of teams competing is not available as of publishing, will likely pit some of New England’s best teams against each other.
Only six runners competed for Connecticut in last weekend’s romping at Hartford. All six finished inside the top 10 of the field, including sophomore Anique Poulin, who set a new personal best and new course record of 10:39.20 in the three-kilometer run.
Poulin was named the Big East Female Athlete of the Week on Tuesday after narrowly beating fellow sophomore and teammate Samantha Moore, who finished half a stride behind Poulin at 10:39.50.
Poulin will likely be running again at Dartmouth and will be joined by the rest of the UConn team that didn’t make the trip to Hartford last weekend.
The Huskies finished fourth the last time they competed at Dartmouth. The Invite, named in honor of heralded coach and former Dartmouth runner Maribel Sanchez Souther, who died in 2016 after a long battle with cancer, has run every year since 2017.