Even if the Nebraska cross country teams run as well as they can at the Big 12 Conference Championship on Saturday, the uniforms at the front of the races will be orange and black.
The men’s race will be a duel between Oklahoma State and Colorado – both are ranked in the top five nationally and have several runners that Nebraska standout David Adams can’t seem to catch. There are a couple more teams that look superior to the Cornhuskers on paper, but NU coach Jay Dirksen doesn’t pay much mind to that.
“We’re disappointed the men can’t do the things we planned,” Dirksen said of the team that lost three of its best five runners to injuries before the season started. “Nobody can withstand that. … We’re not going to dwell on it too much because it looks like we’re making excuses.”
The men’s team, he said, still has plenty to compete for. This is Dirksen’s 27th season as head coach; he’s had five teams that won the conference title and others that barely competed. There’s a simplicity to the sport that keeps runners wanting to improve, even if the odds of an archetypal success story are against them.
“We’re going to line up and run as fast as we can,” Dirksen said. “It’s not rocket science. Everybody starts at the line, and whoever wins is the first back.”
What will decide NU’s place within the conference won’t rely as much on their star front-runner in Adams, but rather how the runners who round out the team’s top five places perform. Runners like Todd Gulizia, a junior running in his second cross country season. Gulizia ran a 25:47.4 at the pre-national meet but has been picking up his tempo during recent workouts.
“I’ve felt better and better as the year has gone on,” Gulizia said. “Sometimes, at the end, you feel the fatigue of all the miles.”
Gulizia credits the success of his taper to him learning to trust the workouts his coaches put him through.
“I’ve learned in three years here that different workouts have different purposes. Some days are easier. Easy days are easy,” he said. “I used to go pretty hard every day.”
As for how the women finish, even their coach isn’t sure what to expect. Colorado, Texas Tech and Iowa State are nationally ranked, but he said if they run well, the women can place between third and eighth.
Junior Lara Crofford said the team is shooting for a fourth-place finish, but isn’t going to hang its hat on their finishing place. If the final races of the season are the best of the season, the team is happy, Crofford said.
“Basically, it’s a whole year of training for these next (two or three) meets,” she said. “We need to be confident in our training. It’s knowing what you should do and what you shouldn’t.”
ryanboetel@dailynebraskan.com
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