Though he didn’t quite meet the goal he set for himself, cross country’s Josh Babiak brought a strong effort to the 36th Annual Stanford Invitational on Sept. 27.

“Stanford’s a tough race,” Babiak said. “It’s predominantly a [Division I] race. I figured top 50 was the goal going in and it didn’t quite pan out the way I wanted it to.”

Despite not meeting the goal Babiak and his coaches had set, he still finished 79th out of a field of 234 runners with a time of 26 minutes, 20 seconds.

“He ran well, I think,” assistant coach Pete Cushman said. “He did a good job moving up in the field. He had a little bit of a crowd issue during the beginning of the race and that may have slowed him down a bit.”

“It’s a really competitive meet,” said SF State head coach Tom Lyons a few days before the race. “Stanford is a big one. There will be great competition so it’s a good meet for Josh to run.”

Babiak was the only SF State runner entered in the 8,000-meter competition at the Stanford Golf Course.

“I didn’t really have that good of a race,” Babiak said. “I think I was in better shape in 2005 than I am now.”

Though the results of this race do not affect the overall season of the cross country team, it was a good gauge of both Babiak’s condition and his training.

“At this point, I think it’s time for me to tweak things a little bit,” Babiak said, meaning he will now begin trying some other training techniques to get ready for the rest of the season.

One reason Babiak was picked to do this race alone is that he was forced to miss a meet held in Portland, Ore. on Sept. 12 due to a sprained ankle.

“My ankle’s fine,” Babiak said after the race. “Everything is, for the most part, pretty good. I get little pains here and there but it’s the usual stuff.”

Lyons indicated that he was not worried about the ankle going into the Stanford meet.

The next meet for Babiak and the rest of the SF State cross country runners will be a home meet hosted by the Gators in Golden Gate Park’s Speedway Meadows on Friday, Oct. 10 at 4p.m.

Both the full men’s and women’s teams will be competing in this run.

The conference meet will be the next thing slated for the teams, scheduled to be held on Nov. 8 in San Bernardino.