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2004
NCAA CROSS COUNTRY CHAMPIONSHIPS by Parker Morse
The first surprise of the day at the 2004 NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships came before most runners even set out for the course. A band of rain arrived in Terre Haute, Indiana, before sunrise on Monday, and thoroughly watered the already-sodden course. The rain stopped well before race time, and the sun was peeking through as the women's race was called to the line, but the measure of slickness added an element of entropy and unpredictability the race hadn't had before. What was predictable was contained in the person of Kim Smith of Providence, undefeated against NCAA competitors since last year's race, and the class of the field by far. Smith is known for only one race tactic in the NCAA: get away from the field immediately, and stay away. That's exactly what she did this time, opening a wide gap inside the first mile, which she reached in 5:05. No runner would get within 10 seconds of her for the rest of the race. Smith had explained in Sunday's press conference that she considered herself more fit than she'd ever been before. More fit, even, than when she had run a 15:09 5,000m in the spring. It looked more than likely, even at this point, that that fitness would not be tested. Behind Smith, the race was developing much as it had last year — the same script, with different players. The breakaway pursuit role played by Smith in 2003 was filled this time by Colorado's Renee Metivier, who pushed to the front of the pursuit within the first kilometer and then opened a gap on the long uphill climb which made up the back side of the course. Metivier, like Smith, was running in her last NCAA Cross Country Championship, and like Smith she led a team expected to contend for the title. Second once before, in her sophomore season (2001, then running for Georgia Tech,) Metivier was absent from top-level competition for two years, first suffering with compartment syndrome serious enough to warrant surgery, then, attempting to recover from the surgery, hobbled by a stress fracture. Metivier arrived in Boulder "completely out of shape," according to coach Mark Wetmore. "He believed in me," Metivier. "He said, 'Talent never leaves.'" Knowing the challenge she faced in Smith, Metivier planned a race which would be almost cautiously aggressive: she would follow Smith out, put herself in position to make up any ground Smith might relinquish, but she wouldn't push herself to a futile attack. She would, as Smith explained she had last year, "maintain the gap." At the end of the first lap, with Smith prohibitively ahead and Metivier alone in pursuit, heads turned immediately to size up the team race. Providence and Colorado were expected to be the top challengers to top-ranked Stanford, so the first order of business was hunting up Stanford's leader, and she was easy to find: senior Alicia Craig was securely within the pack. That's three number-ones. But now what? Providence should have had Mary Cullen with that pack, but neither she nor Fiona Crombie were with the leaders. Stanford should have had Craig's longtime training partner Sara Bei, but Bei was injured and did not start. What Wetmore saw, instead, was a Colorado team which had overruled his plan. With the rain in the morning, he had decided Colorado would have to "risk being a little more patient." Instead, the Buffs had started with an almost un-Colorado-like aggressiveness, to the point that the unofficial team scores (generated by the chip mats) put them in the lead (by four points over Stanford) at 3K. What's more, Wetmore didn't even see first-year Liza Pasciuto, and assumed she had dropped out. "She's had an inflamed meniscus all season, and when I didn't see her at 500m, I thought she was out of the race." Colorado, traditionally a fast-closing team, was in position to steal the race and slam the door on the rest of the country far earlier than usual. The end of the first lap also signaled status checks and action plans for most athletes, and for those who still felt strong, it was time to start asserting themselves. One of the runners who started getting assertive on the back stretch was Columbia's Caroline Bierbaum, who had come in to the race hoping for a top-20 finish. Instead, Bierbaum found herself among the top 10, with athletes coming back to her. Not three months ago, Bierbaum hadn't even planned on racing this season. Recovering from an iron deficiency, she had expected to race only NYRR road races in Central Park. When she ran the Harry Murphy Cross Country 5K in Van Cortlandt Park on October 3rd, finishing in 18:02, Columbia coach Craig Lake opened the door. "You're clearly fit," Bierbaum recalled Lake saying, "So if you want to come, we'd love to have you." Bierbaum ran only three races before the NCAAs: the Lafayette Invitational, where she won the JV race; then the Heptagonal Championships, which she won, and the Northeast regional. In Terre Haute, Bierbaum was between 15th and 20th around the halfway point of the 6K race, but in the second lap she was tearing through the tiring pack. Entering the homestretch, Smith ran unpressed to the finish line, finishing in a 20:08.5 which was clearly well inside her significant abilities. Metivier, behind her, was similarly smooth in 20:26.4, but looked more vulnerable to a hard-charging pack behind her. Bierbaum won the sprint from that group, taking third in 20:30.7, followed immediately by BYU's Laura Turner (20:37.5), Maureen McCandless of Pittsburgh (20:38.2), Yale's Lindsay Donaldson (first freshman at 20:40.0), and UNC's Carol Henry in 20:41.9. Providence had the first second runner in (Crombie, 10th in 20:45.9,) signaling the time to start doing team math. Right away, Colorado's aggressive strategy paid off, with Liza Pasciuto and Christine Bolf finishing 13th and 14th (scoring nine and 10 points, respectively, due to individuals removed from the team scoring.) Less than 20 seconds after Bolf, Sara Slattery and Natalie Florence arrived in 28th and 30th, scoring 20 and 22 points. Colorado's scoring was complete before Providence's third runner had arrived, and before Stanford finished more than one (Alicia Craig, 26th.) Colorado's total was 63 points, and nobody else would be able to come close. One team got three runners in before Colorado's fifth: Duke. With ACC champion Sally Meyerhoff in 16th, and Shannon Rowbury and Clara Horowitz 27th and 29th, respectively (and just in front of Slattery and Florence) Duke then closed well enough to put 20 points on Providence and steal second, 144 to Providence's 164. However, so close was Colorado's pack that even if Duke had retained Bierbaum (who ran her freshman season at Duke in 2002,) they still could not have overtaken the Buffs. Still, very few experts had mentioned Duke even as a top-three finisher before the race. Behind Providence's second-consecutive third-place finish was another impressive team race, Notre Dame with 170 points; Stanford finished fifth with 175. Had Stanford had the services of Bei (and had she run as well as she did in 2003,) they might have leapfrogged into second, since second through fifth were separated by barely 31 points. Metivier now has two track seasons to chase an actual individual championship, but Smith has completed her eligibility. Her first race as an open runner will come on Thursday at the Manchester Road Race in Connecticut, a favorite race of her regular training partners, Amy Rudolph and Marie Davenport. (Posted November 23, 2004)
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