Humble Harrier Speaks Out On Season

Everyone needs a little bit of encouragement to get things done or, in the case of junior cross country runner Dan Chenoweth, to get things started.

“My older brother used to run, but I was pretty convinced I was going to be a soccer player,” Chenoweth said. “Every time I saw his friends they’d be like, ‘What are you doing next year?’ I’d say that I was playing soccer, and they’d just hit me. So eventually I gave in.”

The three-year member of Harvard’s cross country and track and field teams has come a long way since being bullied into the sport in eighth grade. In his career so far, Chenoweth has racked up four All-Ivy and two All-Regional honors along with several other individual championships and awards.

But don’t expect him to bring up any of his achievements on his own.

“Dan’s humble and not one to boast about his accomplishments,” Crimson coach Jason Saretsky said. “He’s very, very modest—he probably won’t even like the fact that there’s an article about him.”

The attention is well-deserved, especially coming off Chenoweth’s season-ending performance at the NCAA Championships last week. Despite just barely missing USTFCCA All-American honors by 2.2 seconds, he was the first Ivy League runner to complete the course and finished 42nd out of 250 competitors for the second year in a row.

“I wasn’t particularly happy,” Chenoweth said of the outcome. “I’ve had better days, but, hey, at least I know I can’t get worse than last year.”

The ability for up days and down days to affect a runner’s performance is something that Chenoweth says makes the sport distinct.

“With cross country there are just so many things that have to come together,” he pointed out. “You don’t know how your training’s going to turn out, you don’t know if you’re going to get sick, and, who knows, maybe you’re going to trip and fall. “

Chenoweth encountered and overcame one of those unexpected setbacks this season during the Heptagonal Championships in early November.

“Overall he had an outstanding season,” Saretsky said. “But the Ivy League championship was a truly fantastic performance, especially considering he wasn’t feeling 100 percent.”

Chenoweth won the meet’s 8k race in a time of 25:09.0 to become Harvard’s first individual champion in well over a decade and boost the men’s team to a sixth-place finish.

The unique opportunity for both individual and collective success is another part of what the standout runner appreciates about his sport.

“It’s not the same as a lot of sports like football or soccer where you’re playing positions that support each other,” Chenoweth explained. “We can score as individuals, and we can score as a team. You can work on those two goals together because doing the best thing for yourself is also the best thing for the team.”

This team mentality is also something Chenoweth stresses as an important part of the Crimson cross country community. With five of his seven blockmates on the team, it’s clear there is a strong bond between them.

“A big part of it is that from the first moment you come to Harvard, the first people you meet are people from the team,” he said. “I’d been for the first 10 days of my Harvard experience exclusively with the cross country team, stuck in the woods of New Hampshire with nothing to do, so you get to know people pretty well.”

Saretsky also pointed out Chenoweth’s contributions to the team’s improvement and success as a whole.

“He works incredibly hard and sets a fantastic example for the other guys on the team,” Saretsky said. “He’s done an increasingly better job of speaking up when necessary, advocating for his other teammates, letting them know what needs to get done to develop as a program.”

Chenoweth has set the bar high for his teammates and himself and is already looking forward to his senior-year season.

“I definitely just want to do better,” he said in reference to his performance on the national stage. “And I think I’m capable of doing a lot better.”

Looks like Chenoweth won’t be needing any more of that middle-school encouragement.