After months of training, the men’s and women’s cross country teams are finally heading into their biggest race of the season: the Ivy League Heps. Starting this afternoon, the Ancient Eight will battle it out at Van Cortlandt Park in Bronx, N.Y.

The women’s squad will be racing first, with high expectations based on quality of preparation and a talented core group of runners.

“They’re pretty excited about this,” said head coach Lou Duesing. “Every week their training has gotten better, and in each race they’ve gotten better … this is their opportunity.”

The women finished fourth at last year’s Heps, but this year they are looking to improve upon that record. However, they also know that they will be up against some tough competition.

“Princeton is ranked in the top six in the nation, and Harvard has also been getting some national attention,” Duesing said. “And Columbia and Brown are about equal with us … we’ve got to give the very best effort we can.”

The Red returns two of its top five finishers from last year — sophomore Meghan Brown and senior captain Stephanie Pancoast. Their experience will certainly be needed in such an important race, but a talented group of freshmen — including front-runners Genna Hartung and Katie Kellner — will also provide a huge boost for the Red.

As for the men’s team, a 2008 third-place finish left the Red hungry for a chance at victory. And although the current Ivy rankings do not favor Cornell, the men are eager to defy the odds.

“Looking at the rankings, we’re not ranked to win,” said junior Max Kasak. “But we’ve been racing well all season. We’re strong and ready to go … we’re going to go for it.”

Assistant coach Robert Johnson emphasized that, despite the rankings, the race could potentially go in any direction.

“I think, so far, Columbia’s been running the best of everybody, and Princeton has won [Heps] three years in a row … but it’s still pretty wide open,” he said. “We could really place anywhere from as low as seventh to as high as first.”

To pull off a first-place finish, however, the Red will have to demonstrate consistency as a team — something that it has struggled with throughout this season.

“The thing is, a lot of our guys have run well once this year,” Johnson said. “We just need five guys to run well all on the same day … we need one good race.”

For this, the men will count on the experience brought by junior Nate Edelman, who has been the Red’s front-runner all season. Edelman will be supported by a solid core group of runners, including Kasak, junior Matt DeSilva, senior Joel Frost-Tift and freshman Brett Kelley.

With such a strong team, the Red is prepared to meet the challenge and finish off the season with excitement.

“It’s going to be hard, and everyone’s going to be good,” Kasak said. “But we’re going to give it everything we’ve got, it will be 110 percent.”

The women’s team shares the same enthusiasm.

“Everything we do in cross country is to prepare for the championship part of the season,” Duesing said. “Well, this is it. We’ve got to take advantage of this opportunity.”