Follow the NAU distance runners at the Flotrack Husky Classic with live results online (http://www.gohuskies.com/livestats/c-track/021012/index.htm) or on your phone with the Live Results app. The meet will also be covered with live video feed at http://www.gohuskies.com/dempseyindoor/. Agnes Laurent competes in the 800 at 11:30 am, Caroline Hogard in the mile at 2:00 pm, Jordan Chipangama in the invitational mile at 3:45 pm, and Diego Estrada in the invitational 3000 at 5:00 pm (all times are Pacific).

The school record of 7′ 3.25″ is certainly in jeopardy. Look for Kemper to continue to reach new heights as he sets his eyes on the NCAA Indoor Nationals automatic qualifier of 7′ 4″.

The men’s team is the favorite for the Big Sky Indoor Championships, which will be hosted by NAU on February 24-25. The women’s team is ranked 4th in the preseason rankings. Read the full story at NAUAthletics.com.

Now the NAU Track & Field team is getting prepared for the 2012 Indoor and Outdoor track seasons. Their first meet will be next weekend on January 14th at the Lumberjack Invitational. The Indoor Track & Field Big Sky Conference Championships will be held in Flagstaff on February 24th and 25th.

NAU's 7 All-Region Award Winners

The men’s cross country team did exactly what they needed to to qualify for their fifth straight NCAA Championships by placing 3rd at the Mountain Regional. The men put all five of their scorers in the top-25, earning All-Region awards. Since Coach Heins began coaching cross country at NAU, this is the first time a team has earned five All-Region awards.

The women finished off their season with a 7th place finish. They were ranked 9th heading into the meet, moving pass Big Sky runner-ups Idaho State. The women’s team saw two individual earn All-Region awards, with Rochelle Kanuho and Kortnee Burton finishing 16th and 17th, respectively.

For a full regional recap, check NAUAthletics.com.

The men are currently ranked 12th in the country heading into the NCAA Championships. In their last four trips to the “big dance” they have not finished outside the top-10, and don’t expect this year’s team to break the trend.

While I strongly believe Coach Heins is one of the best coaches in the NCAA and someone I credit a lot of my success to, there was something more that has influenced the success. The more I look back at it, the more I realize what really caused my breakthrough freshman season; the season where I completely exceeded my own expectations, expectations that I had set really high to begin with. While a lot of my friends and teammates back home credit that breakthrough to a healthy year, I don’t. I strongly believe that the reason for having a smooth college transition was the environment I was in. In Flagstaff I found peace and comfort. I was blessed with great friends/teammates that were very encouraging and supportive. I was constantly smiling riding my bike on the trails and smelling that fresh air. I found a good church to attend and had a daily peace of mind. Life wasn’t complicated. It was exciting. I was worry free and kept in constant contact with my family and Coach. I had a picture perfect living environment; my life was full of joy. I had a firm foundation, I had my priorities straight and not once did I question the move. Flagstaff changed my life!

The rest of his blogs are filled with insights into the experiences, relationships and training that has developed him into one of the finest American distance runners in the country. Read all of Diego’s blogs at INSTRIDE. (New blogs are featured every Monday)

Heins learned a lot from Mann, but just being “knowledgeable” in this sport only takes you so far. To have one of the best cross country teams in the country, year after year, takes much more. Below are some words from Heins explaining that, just like the athletes he coaches, he is always striving for perfection.

I have been accused of being too negative in my race reviews on this blog. I think negative is the wrong word, but I do believe “critical” is a fair description of my comments. As the coach of this program I am always looking for that perfect race and I have high expectations of my athletes. I am critical of any and all mistakes and will continue to push my athletes to strive for the same standard. If I do not, I believe I am doing a disservice to everyone on this team.
I grew up and competed in a time when those that worked hard and had the highest commitment to their sport, were generally rewarded with the victory. Sometime in the recent past our society has become more about giving everyone a chance to win. I see it in states that have six different divisions for state championships in high school sports. I see it today when young people lose and create excuses instead of accepting responsibility for what needs to be worked on. I see it when somebody gets defensive over constructive criticism. I am by no means perfect, but will continue to work on being a better coach and will continue to offer my opinions on how we can become a better team.
As soon as you decide to participate in a competitive event, you must realize that there will be winners and losers. Yes it is important to win, but if you do not win, it must not be because of a lack of effort. Sometimes there will be things that you, the team or I can do better in order to win. Realizing what those are and fixing them is just as important as any aspect of training you can do. Sometimes you will get beat because the other person or team is simply better. The importance of competition is to learn how to be humble in victory, gracious in defeat and to be at your best when it counts the most.
Each of you has a small window of time to compete as an athlete and you need to be able to take more away from it than wins and losses. If you do not “win” that first job interview, are you going to pat yourself on the back or are you going to look at what you can do better the next time you have an interview? My goal for each member of this team is to develop the tools to be positive, productive, successful citizens in each of their chosen professions.

Read more about Heins’ record breaking honor on NAUAthletics.com.

Pocatello, Idaho -- the setting for the 2011 Big Sky Cross Country Championships

Women’s race:

The 2011 edition of our women’s team entered the season with high hopes and a lot of new, young members that brought a great energy to the program. We have made some great strides this year to get back to being a major player in the Big Sky Conference, Mountain Region and national stage. Heading into this weekend, we were focused on one thing – winning the Big Sky Conference Championship. We all knew that it would not be an easy task looking at the rest of the conference, but we did not back down from the challenge.
In golf the wisdom says to compete against the course, not your opponent. This past weekend, we tried to implement that strategy as we would be running on one of the toughest cross country courses we would ever see. We wanted to get out into a good spot up front before the course narrowed down and the long hill came into play. We did that perfectly and were in the thick of the team race throughout the competition. It was clear to me that Weber State and Idaho State were running first and we were in third after the first 3000 meter loop and unfortunately we could not make up the ground over the last hilly 2000 meters. Our hats go off to Weber State and Idaho State as they ran superbly and on this day were simply better than we were.
Our women’s team is made up of three “middle distance types” in Haley, Agnes and Caroline and this course did not suit their strengths, yet they still competed very well and all finished in the top half of the race. At NAU even when we do not win, we should expect ourselves to run in the top half and we accomplished that. Caroline also showed her toughness as she ran the entire race with a thorn stuck in her shoe that had pushed through into the ball of her foot. I got the same thing during our shake out the day before and had to stop to take it out because it felt like a nail was sticking into my foot, so I know exactly how she was feeling. I have no idea how she finished the way she did.

3rd Kortnee Burton and 10th Rochelle Kanuho

We also had two All-Conference finishers in Senior Kortnee Burton and Junior Rochelle Kanuho. Kortnee finished 3rd to back up her 2nd place finish from 2009 and Rochelle came away with a respectable 10th place finish after dealing with some shin pain the last month. We also had two of our freshman run solid races, which should give each of them more confidence heading into the Mountain Regional in two weeks. Lauren Justus showed that she is one of the top Freshman in the Conference with a 25th placing and Kylee Kieser made a strong move over the last 1000 meters in order to finish 28th.

Men’s race:

Ten years ago, I started my coaching career at Northern Arizona University as a graduate assistant and the first Big Sky Championships I was a part of was hosted at Idaho State University. That year our men’s team was beat by a very good Montana State team, that went on to finish 11th in the NCAA National Championships. Our men were obviously beat by a good team, but we had the potential to win that Big Sky Championships, as we would later finish fourth in the country that same year. Every year before the Conference championships I remind my teams that they cannot take the Big Sky lightly and use 2001 team as my example why.
This year was no different; we knew that Idaho State had a very challenging course and that if anything would even the playing field it would be that course. We also knew that Weber State was running well and that Coach Pilkington would have them prepared well and challenge us for the title.
As I reflected on our performance at Wisconsin I felt that we needed to get better at working together through the beginning and middle of the race. I felt that if we could do that our last few thousand meters would be much more positive than they were at Wisconsin. I was not too concerned about whether we had the individual champion or not, but whether we could be patient the first half of the race, especially on such a tough course, where a fast first lap could mean a painfully slow last lap.
I felt that we addressed a couple of those issues in training and had a solid two weeks of workouts. We set up our training so that the guys could work on faster pace reps, but also learn to run through that pain that inevitably hits you three-quarters of the way into a race. I presented my race strategy to the guys and they could not have executed it any better.
Two weeks ago at the Adidas Wisconsin Invitational we went from 5th to 8th over the last 3000 meters. This weekend we went from second place after the first 3000m to winning our historic 5th straight conference title. This was accomplished over the last 5000m and I believe we gained a lot of confidence from this race. Diego and Jordan were not in 1st and 2nd place until the last 2000 meter loop. Matt, Tim and Andrew all worked together through 5000m until Matt and Tim gradually put some distance between them and Andrew. Caleb Hoover was the top freshman finisher and also ran his best race, since his opener at the George Kyte Invitational.

2011 Big Sky Cross Country Champions

I have felt all year that this team is top-10 caliber and if we get a little better, we can make another run at the podium on November 21st. This race was a huge step in that progression. We are not a team made up of high school All-Americans, but a group of guys focused on the same goal and willing to put in the work to get there. Our fitness and confidence has made a big jump over the last two weeks and if we can execute our race strategy in our next two races as well as we did this past weekend, we will finish the 2011 season with a great feeling.

The men’s victory marks their 8th Big Sky Cross Country title in the last 9 years, and 16th since 1992. 2011 was also the 7th time an NAU athlete won the race individually (Jon Cardenas 2005, Lopez Lomong 2006-2007, David McNeill 2008-2010, Diego Estrada 2011) . Perhaps more impressive is that this was the 5th straight year the men have finished 1-2 individually.

After the conference championship weekend, the women’s team is now ranked 9th in the Mountain Region and the men’s team ranked 3rd. The men’s team moved up to 12th overall in the country.

Full results and recap can be found on NAUAthletics.com.

Our six all-conference award winners

Q: What is your favorite place to eat in Flagstaff?
A: My favorite place to eat would have to be Oregano’s, an Italian place in Flagstaff. I guess they have a few locations down in the Phoenix area too, so it’s not an ultra-local restaurant or anything (if you’re into that sort of thing then Diablo Burger would be the answer to this question), but I’ve never left Oregano’s disappointed. Not to mention that if you’re even a bit unsatisfied with being skipped on the waiting list and vocalize your concern, they’ll hook you up with a free pizookie.

Full story.

If you know Tim personally, you know he enjoys eating. You may go as far as to say he runs so that he can eat. Once you see him compete on the track or over the cross country course, however, you will see that his passion burns much deeper.