Shoes clip-clop along the pavement. Buildings slowly go by and cars rush past. A group of young men run along the side of a road. Their sweat is dripping from their brows. Their eyes are focused. Their mouths are dry. Their minds are determined. They move as one.

The transition from high school to college for any incoming freshman can be a daunting one, but for the freshmen on the men’s cross country team, their team unity has helped make the transition to collegiate running smoother.

“We have been adjusting pretty well,” freshman Billy Savage said. “After the first week we were so tired, asking, ‘What are we getting ourselves into?’ We’ve just gotten used to it. Every single week is exactly the same, so you kind of get into the flow, and it’s not so bad anymore.”

Every day the Bombers meet at the Hill Center. They lie in the grass, sitting in a circle, doing abdominal work and flexibility drills to loosen up. The team then ventures off for a run through the back trails and countryside of Ithaca, varying distances and intensities over the course of the season. Finally, the team reconvenes and finishes off with some lower body drills, such as knee raises.

“As far as the layout of practices are, it’s kind of funny because [the team] does the opposite [from high school],” freshman David Geary said. “Before [the team] does the workouts, we do all of our upper body stuff — afterwards we do our drills.”

 Savage said the workouts done at the college level aren’t too different from those done in high school, but there is a key difference that makes the transition easier.

“The main difference is the warm-up and cooldown time,” Savage said. “It’s generally between 25 and 30 minutes each, and in high school it’d be about 10 to 15 minutes. It adds a lot of miles, and it’s what wears you out at the end of the day.”

Head Coach Jim Nichols said the training and meets are both geared toward having the South Hill squad at its peak at the end of the season.

“We train early at a higher level of volume with a lower intensity,” Nichols said. “We build up the pace to have the highest intensity at the end of the season.”

Geary said Nichols’ style of coaching is different than that of his high school coaches.

“Coach Nichols has the plan, and I feel like he knows what he’s doing to our bodies,” Geary said.

The biggest adjustment for the young runners is the change in the distance of the meets. Typically, meets at the high school level are five kilometers, the distance of the alumni run held a few weeks ago. However, most meets at the collegiate level are eight kilometers long, more than one and a half times that of a high school meet. Yet, Geary said there’s a sense of comfort with this adjustment.

“We’re going into it pretty strong,” Geary said. “We have a really strong freshman class. We’ve got a lot of fast runners that could factor into the varsity team definitely in years to come — things are going well.”

Though it is still early in the season, Nichols said the freshman class is doing well with the adjustment of being away from home.

“They’re doing a great job and holding in very well with the upperclassmen,” Nichols said. “Over their four years, they will have a positive impact — I’m looking for very positive things.”