Senior Talia Dosh helped the Ankeny girls’ cross country team to a third-place finish in the CIML Iowa Conference meet on Thursday at DMACC. She placed 18th in the 5k race with a time of 20 minutes 27 seconds.
Dosh has been a varsity regular since her freshman season in 2018. She placed 56th in last year’s Class 4A state meet in a time of 20:00, helping the Hawkettes to a 12th-place finish.
Here is some inside info on Dosh:
Were you happy with your race on Thursday?
I would say I was OK with my race, but I do think I started out too fast in the first mile which ended up hurting me a bit in mile two and three. Looking on the bright side though, I’m glad that I’m going to be able to learn from it and use it to help me re-strategize for the state qualifying meet since it’s also at DMACC.
What did you think of your team’s performance?
I think the team did pretty well overall. Reflecting back on our races on Friday we talked about how there was a mix of us who either went out too fast or too slow, so pacing out the first mile well is going to be a pretty good focus for us. I think in general we all want to try to get ourselves moved up a couple of positions at the state qualifying meet.
Do you like the DMACC course?
The DMACC course honestly isn’t my favorite. I usually tend to prefer more scenic and woodsy courses, and I don’t love how the DMACC course tends to loop around and double back quite a bit. However, it’s pretty flat besides the two hills on the back side of the course which is pretty nice, especially because our team has been able to practice running those hills quite a bit in preparation.
It seemed like the running conditions were perfect. Could they have been any better?
I really do think the conditions were pretty close to perfect. There wasn’t much wind and it was a lot cooler than the races earlier in the season, which I think everybody on the team enjoyed. I still wouldn’t mind it being slightly cooler though, so hopefully we’ll get some races in the low 60s for state qualifying or state.
Your teammate, Alli Macke, won the individual conference title, and another freshman–Drew Beason–placed fifth. Did you know how good those two were going to be before the season started?
We definitely knew we had some major talent coming in after seeing how well our freshmen had performed in track and cross country during their eighth grade seasons. I think we were all expecting to potentially see some big things out of them, but it was definitely pretty amazing to see how much success they were able to have right out of the gate, without much prior experience. Both Alli and Drew, as well as a handful of other freshmen, are fierce competitors and have really been a core part of our varsity squad.
You are the only senior in your team’s varsity lineup. Have you tried to be a leader for the squad? If so, how?
Being the only senior, and one of the only two upperclassmen consistently on varsity, trying to lead the younger girls has definitely been important to me. As a senior, I know that I’m going to be leaving the team behind soon, so my main focus has been trying to build a good team mentality and leading by example so that the younger girls will be able to carry it on after I leave. I usually tend to help lead warmups and workouts as seniors have done in the past, but I think the coolest thing to be able to lead is the team prayer we do with varsity before each meet. It really gets us all in a good mindset and everybody appreciates it a lot, so I hope that it’s a tradition that’ll continue to be led on the varsity squad.
Your team will be back at the DMACC course on Wednesday for the state qualifying meet. Do you like your team’s chances to advance to state?
I think that we should have a pretty solid chance to qualify as a team again this year, which is super exciting, especially since last year was the first time in a while that we were able to get the whole team to state. As long as all the varsity girls are able to follow their strategies and place where we need to place, we should be looking pretty good.
It looks like it could be a close battle for the team title between seventh-ranked Ankeny Centennial, No. 8 Ankeny and No. 9 Valley. How big of a boost would that be to win the team crown heading into the state meet?
It would be a great confidence boost for us. (Centennial and Valley) have definitely been some solid competition for us, so if we would be able to come out on top as we were heading into the state meet, I think we would feel like we were in a pretty good position as a team, and look toward placing well at state.
Assuming your team qualifies for state, what will be the goals for the state meet?
Last year we placed 12th at state, so it would be good to be able to place higher than that and at least finish in the top 10. Alli and Drew should also both be able to place well individually. We would all be looking to finish off the season strong, and hopefully see quite a few PRs.
Are you planning to run in college? Have you looked at any schools?
As of right now I’m not planning to run in college. I’ve looked into a couple of smaller schools to potentially run D3, but I’ve decided I would rather go with a bigger college instead, and start running marathons and half marathons for fun.
What are you going to study?
Currently, the plan is to major in animal science at Iowa State on the pre-veterinary medicine track.