Berg wraps up first college XC season

Doug Berg’s first collegiate cross country season started off earlier this fall with a bang and he’s hoping to take the successes of this season onto the track next spring.

The cross country season was short but successful for Berg, a Nodaway Valley alum now at Simpson College.

“I started off at the first meet as, I think, the first freshman on our team. I think I was 19th at that race. It was a small meet,” Berg said. “The second meet I ran about the same that I did the first meet.”

Berg didn’t perform as well as he would’ve liked through the middle portions of the season. He was only able to run in five meets this season because of the team’s structure.

His last race of the season was Oct. 28 in the American Rivers Conference Meet at Pella, where he placed 135th in a time of 28:51.50. The races are 8 kilometers in length. The Storm were fourth in the team standings of that meet. Wartburg College came out on top.

“I was about where I wanted to be. I’m training consistently to keep my fitness up until track season and I can hopefully do well there,” Berg said.

Berg explained he’s definitely noticed a step up in the preparation it takes to be successful in college, though he’s thankful for a rigorous high school training program he went through.

“Our easiest days are probably about 6 miles and most of the guys do that too times a day,” he said. “You have to take a lot better care of your body than you did before and pay attention more to what you eat, make sure you’re sleeping right.”

Simpson has eight indoor meets scheduled through December, January and February. The outdoor track season kicks off at the end of March.