Graham Blanks, a two-time NCAA Division 1 cross country All-American and the reigning Ivy League Heptagonal champion who has gone unbeaten in four races this season, joins DyeStat editor Erik Boal to discuss competing Nov. 18 at the Division 1 championship meet at the Panorama Farms Course in Earlysville, Va. Blanks placed sixth last year at the Greiner Family Course in Stillwater, Okla., after earning 23rd place in 2021 at Apalachee Regional Park in Tallahassee, Fla. He examines the potential for he and teammates Acer Iverson and Ben Rosa to all earn All-America honors in the same race in Virginia, similar to the achievement of Matthew Pereira, Blanks and Iverson in Florida, leading Harvard to a 12th-place team finish. Blanks shares his inspiration to help lead the Crimson to only the second top-10 team performance in program history after Harvard finished ninth in 1968. He reflects on Harvard being edged by a 40-43 margin Oct. 28 against Princeton at the Ivy League Heps championship meet at Franklin Park, before securing runner-up behind Iona by a 40-57 margin Nov. 10 at the Division 1 Northeast Regional final at Van Cortlandt Park in New York to achieve an automatic qualifying berth. Blanks explains how significant it is to have both the Crimson men's and women's teams competing at the NCAA final in Virginia, especially after Harvard finished fourth in the women's 6-kilometer race at the Northeast Regional and needed an at-large berth to advance to the Division 1 championship meet. He analyzes how beneficial it was to have the opportunity to race against the deepest regular-season field in the country Oct. 13 at the Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational in preparation for the postseason, and how much Blanks has emphasized the final mile of his 8-kilometer competitions and the last kilometer of his 10-kilometer races. Blanks revisits earning All-America honors in both the Division 1 5,000- and 10,000-meter finals in June in Austin, Texas, and how instrumental those performances were in establishing the belief and confidence that he could contend for the NCAA cross country title this fall. He also shares how significant it would be to become the first Ivy League male athlete to win the Division 1 cross country crown and how meaningful it would be for the Harvard program.