Good Things Must End

The 2011 cross country season came to an end yesterday...and a very good ending at that. Amanda ran the race she had to run to give herself a chance to be an All American for the first time. She ran the first half of the race just off of the wicked pace set by the front pack. Only three runners who went through 3K (halfway) slower than her were able to crack the top 40 (AA standard). In fact, Amanda ran seven seconds faster than a year ago on a much more challenging course. She also battled a leg injury over the last four weeks that I know affected her ability to train and race the way she needed to in order to be at her best for the NCAA meet. So 84th place was a terrific effort. It caps one of the best seasons by a Utah cross country runner in school history. She finished fourth in both of her regular season races (Stanford and Chile Pepper). Then she rallied from 18th place with a thousand meters to go at the Pac-12 championships to finish tenth and become the U's first ever all-Pac 12 athlete. Finally, she duplicated her ninth place finish at the NCAA regional meet from a year ago and landed one of the four individual qualifier spots at the NCAA meet. Very steady and very good at every big meet.

Overall, I feel good about the move forward our program made this year. We undoubtedly must continue to improve and do a better job of racing together. I know that will occur as the younger runners mature and are able to use this years worth of experience next Fall. We will return all but one of our top seven runners, however, that one just happens to be Alyssa who has been here for six years thanks to a few injuries along the way. Her personal growth has been instrumental in how much the program as a whole has been able to grow. Her perseverance, toughness, and always expect more attitude has helped put this program back on solid footing. I know our younger runners have all learned so much from her and her trials of success and dealing with setbacks. Hopefully, those lessons can continue to be passed on each year so that future teams can learn and grow as this one has. We will have high expectations next year, but for now it's time to set the focus on the upcoming track season. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Windy and Wet

We have arrived in Terre Haute for the NCAA Championships. Amanda, Alyssa, Hanah (our athletic trainer) and me are the travel party. We brought Alyssa last year as well. Her and Amanda have forged a great relationship and it gives her someone to hang out with and not think about the race too much. The meet is on Monday, but most teams arrive Friday evening or on Saturday. It gives us a couple of days to run the course as well as attend the student athlete banquet. The weather has included light showers and very breezy conditions thus far. The winds are expected to let up, but the rain chances will increase slightly going into Monday. There are already a couple of mucky spots on the course at the start, around the mile mark, and again midway through the race. We have the banquet tonight with the other teams/qualifiers. This year's guest speaker is Olympic Gold Medalist ('72 Marathon) Frank Shorter. Shorter along with Steve Prefontaine and others are credited for the running boom that occurred during the mid 70's in the US. I'll try to get some more photos and/or video for you tomorrow.

Stachies for Nachies

Click HERE to check out our entry in the FloTrack.org "Stachies for Nachies" contest. Be sure to vote for (facebook like) our entry.

Back to the Show

Today's press conference (along with a few pics) recapping the NCAA Mountain Region Championships. Enjoy!

Back To Back

It took a while to find out, but it was the news we were hoping for. After finishing ninth overall at the NCAA Mountain Region championships, junior Amanda Mergaert is headed back to the NCAA Championships for the second straight year. Last year she was the third individual from a non qualifying team before any at-large team births were handed out so we knew instantly that she was in. This year that same ninth place finisher meant Amanda was the sixth individual from a non automatic qualifying team and we had to hope that two teams from our region would earn at-large bids and that is exactly what happened. This made Amanda the fourth individual in our region and now it's off to Terre Haute, IN for Monday's NCAA Championship meet.

Overall, our team finished eighth was slightly lower than we hoped. However, six of our top seven will return next year. Only senior Alyssa Abbott who finished 14th (and just missed making the NCAA meet for the second time) will graduate. I also thought sophomore Rebekah Winterton and junior Hilary Troutner gave us great individual efforts at the regional meet. Winterton was running with a broken toe.

Mergaert is slated to compete in the six-kilometer championship race at Gibson Championship Course in Terre Haute, Ind., beginning at 12:58 p.m. ET next Monday. A live webcast of the championships will be broadcast from noon to 1:30 p.m. ET on NCAA.com.

Pac 12 Pics

Pac 12 Chat

Post meet press conference. I discuss our performance at the inaugural Pac-12 Championship meet.