The Texas women’s cross country team ends its three-week hiatus this weekend, traveling to Madison, Wis., to compete against the nation’s best cross country programs in the Wisconsin Adidas Invitational. 

Saturday’s meet, starting at 11 a.m., is the team’s last regular season meet before the Big 12 Cross Country Championships, set to take place Nov. 2 in Waco. 

The women’s 6,000-meter race is a welcome challenge for the 29th-ranked Longhorns. This is the first time the women will run the five-year-old Wisconsin meet, held at the Thomas Zimmer Championship Cross Country Course. 

Texas will compete against 36 other teams, including 2012 champion Iowa State, and a trio of other programs who recently won the meet: Washington, Syracuse and Duke. There will be 17 of the 30 nationally-ranked teams competing. 

The relatively new meet has grown impressively in the five years Wisconsin has held it. Since the 2009 meet, which featured 12 women’s teams and 123 runners, the amount of competitors has more than doubled, totaling 48 teams and 327 runners in 2012.

Senior Megan Seibert, who finished in the top three in both of Texas’ last two races, will be a factor in the 6K.

The women’s team looks for a strong finish to hand them momentum before the Big 12 championships, where they previously finished third.