The cross country season is barely a month old, but personnel changes have altered the team’s training preparations heading into this weekend’s meet in College Station.First off, there is a new head coach, Shawn Winget, the third coach to take the reigns in as many years for the cross country program.

However, Winget is not the only rookie on this year’s squad. Five freshmen joined the men’s team, making the group barely recognizable from last year’s junior and senior heavy lineup.

The Horned Frogs are coming off back to back seasons near the bottom of the pack in the Mountain West Conference, but a new coach and some new runners may be the solution to climbing out of the cellar.

The key difference between this season and the Horned Frogs of last fall is the style of training Winget emphasizes compared to the training style from the short-lived Eric Heins era.

As an Olympic hopeful in the marathon, Heins was a distance junkie, while Winget leads a looser regiment, and the runners have been responding well.

Tuesday morning’s practice leading to the A&M invitational centered on letting the runners set their own pace while cantering down the hillside on Stadium Drive.

“They will run for about 40 to 45 minutes up and down this hill,” Winget said. “The monotonous scenery helps with the focus factor.”

The focus factor to runners is something necessary in races that drain athletes both mentally and physically, and his workout was used as a bit of a relaxed recovery from Saturday’s North Texas Opener, Winget said.

Though the mileage has not been nearly what Heins would have logged in with his runners, Winget said he is working to the point of 70 to 80 miles per week.

With the conference schedule a little more than a month away, Winget’s background as a mile and steeple chase runner may be the difference in the workouts needed in the upcoming weeks.