The 6K portion of cross country’s schedule begins this weekend.

The Huskies will participate in the 28th annual Bradley Classic 4 p.m. Friday in Peoria. The event, hosted by the Bradley Braves, will showcase top talent from across the country. This fall marks the fourth-straight season NIU has done the 6K loop around Detweiller Park.

NIU is coming off a 25th out of 31 finish at the Oct. 4 Greater Louisville Classic, where it had two runners — true freshman Kelsey Hildreth and senior Meghan Heuer — finish in the top 40 out of 300 runners.

The Huskies have battled injuries and sickness this season, but they will have junior Ali Olson back in the lineup after she missed the race in Louisville, Ky., because she was feeling under the weather.

“Having Ali [Olson] back is a big difference there, and if Hannah [Savage is] back it does the same,” said head coach Greg Hipp. “Lorena [Martin], Carly [Pederson] and Taylor Perkins are all capable of running really strong for us, and [I’m] just looking for them to execute a pretty good race.”

Olson has run the course two times in her career.

“… Most of us are familiar with it and know how to attack it, so it should go well,” Olson said.

The race will be the last competition before Nov. 1, when the Huskies head to Mount Pleasant, Mich., for the MAC Championships.

“I’m definitely ready to race. It’s a good race to have before we compete for [the] MAC” Championships, Olson said. “There are a lot of good teams that are going to be at Bradley, so it will be nice to see how the team lines up [in the] overall standings before we go into MAC.”

Hipp said NIU has had one of the best 10-day stretches of the early season on the practice course since its last race, and he hopes that will translate to the competition Friday.

“… Primarily, it’s about race execution and getting ourselves ready for MAC,” Hipp said. “So, we just want to see the girls run with confidence and put ourselves in good positon the first couple kilometers, and we just need to be a little bit tougher… . So, we’re kind of looking [at] how we’ll respond to that more so then anything. [I] just want to see our racing continue to progress as we go into the last couple weeks of the season here.”