And Your 2009 NCAA DI Champion Is...

Samuel Chelanga of Liberty easily ran away with the individual champion title Nov. 23 at Terre Haute, Ind.

Chelanga had a finishing time of 28:41.3 for the 10K race. Chelanga beat out second place finisher, David McNeill of Northern Arizona by 25 seconds.

Chelanga's performance was exciting, however, it was Oklahoma State who got all the attention by running to a team championship.

OSU upset the Oregon Ducks, and won by a mere 16 points, which is virtually nothing in a cross country race. Oregon did manage to finish all five scoring runners in front of Oklahoma State's fifth guy, but it wasn't enough.

This year's race was surprisingly televised live on the cable channel Versus. Some funny things happened during the coverage. One of the telecast guys talked about how many of the runners in the race have logged "thousands of miles" during the fall season to prepare for this race. This is embellishing at its finest. Most elite teams will run at the most 100, maybe 120 miles a week during the season. Most teams, however, run around 80. With the season starting in August, and now ending in November, you don't have to be a math wiz to figure out the mileage doesn't come out to be in the thousands. Throw in embellishing like that along with mispronunciations of school names, such as the cringe-worthy calling Villanova "Villacoma," and we have poor coverage all around.

Not only that, Versus went with the individual angle during the entire coverage. Most of the time, the cameras where set on Chelanga, who was way ahead of everybody. Versus should have forgot about him even though he was going to be the winner and focused on the close pack running of Oklahoma State and Oregon who were in a tight race for who would win the team title. This would have been much more interesting than watching someone run by himself the entire way.

In great comedic irony, right after the race coverage was over, a show about duck hunting came on.

Michigan State Wows, And Some Steeple Love

The biggest surprise to come out of last Saturday's NCAA Divison I regional races was Michigan State finishing second in the Great Lakes region.

The second place finish automatically qualifies the team for the national meet. This is the same team that only managed to finish eighth in the Big Ten Championships a few weeks earlier.

When Walt Drenth took over the program in 2004, he was seen as the savior and the one to progress the Spartans and reach their full potential. Compared to their rival Michigan, MSU is usually seen as the program that picks up the second-rate recruits from around the state (Only two out of the 27-man roster are from a different state). However, Drenth has only managed to get his boys to finish as high as fourth in the Big Ten.

How the Spartys make such a drastic jump? Maybe Drenth perfectly peaked his runners for this race, or maybe it was the switch from the usual 8K to the regional 10K that benefited the team.

Moving on to the funnier side of running, I present to you a steeplechase video. For those unaware, the steeplechase is a 3K race found in outdoor track, that contains barriers to hurdle over, as well as a water pit. Yup, athletes in the race are forced to jump into water. Whenever it comes time for this race at a meet, everyone gathers around the pit, not to see how well the runners are doing, but to see someone bite it. Being a steeplechase runner has to be one of the most frustrating things ever, because you can't escape the fact everyone is rooting for you to fall.

Sometimes a fall is no big deal, but sometimes you really bite it. In this amazing video contains one of the craziest steeplechase falls (the guy gets seriously submerged) I have ever witnessed. Between the fall, the commentary by the camera operator, and the music edited within, this is one of the funniest YouTube videos out there.

A look at Saturday's Regionals, and Why Does Michigan Continue to Disappoint?

NCAA Division I Cross Country Regionals are this Saturday, and this is what the season comes down to.

The usual dominant teams, both from the West Region , Stanford and Oregon will dual each other for the West title, but both will easily qualify for nationals, since the top two teams move on to the national meet. The West region in fact should be the only the close race out of all nine regions.

Wisconsin, Northern Arizona, Oklahoma State, Iona, Alabama, Arkansas, and William & Mary should all easily walk away with a win in their respective regions, unless there are some blow-ups within their teams.

On to what has been the biggest disappointment of the post-season, Michigan. Like usual they had the freshman standouts, along with high-placing finishing at regular-season invitationals. Michigan continues to disappoint.

Going off the talent on Michigan's team, they could have sneaked in and won the Big Ten Championships. However, only one of their runners, Freshman Brendon Blacklaws managed to break the 26-minute barrier in the 8K. The race ended up slow (winning time was only 25 minutes flat), since it became more of a strategic-based race. This should have favored Michigan considering the talent consisting on the squad however, they blew-up, and finished a dreadful fifth place. Hard work really does beat talent. Looking at that race, it doesn't seem like they should fair well at the Great Lakes Region.

Perhaps they just need a little inspiration. Maybe they should watch this (unintentional) funny music video that was inspired by ultra-runner Dean Karnazes.

Meb's New York Marathon Victory Should Make Americans Proud

The New York Marathon was this past week, and an American won the 26.2 mile race for the first time since 1982. Who’s that American? Mebrahtom Keflezighi.

Better known as just Meb, he’s not the typical American. He was born in Eritrea, a country in Africa. His family moved to the United States when he was a kid, and he became a naturalized citizen in 1998.

So the issue at hand here is how big of a difference is it for an American-born runner to win the marathon, compared to someone who was born somewhere else, then later gained their citizenship after moving?

I’m sure a lot of people would have liked to see Ryan Hall. Hall has become a fan favorite as of late, with his 2008 Olympic trials marathon victory, and since he became the first U.S. runner to break the one-hour barrier in the half marathon. Hall even graduated from high school the same year as running juggernauts Dathan Ritzenhein and Alan Webb, but seems to be passing them in popularity. Many figured Hall to be the favorite going into the race.

I would say even with Meb winning the marathon, it’s still something for U.S. running fans to be excited about. It’s not like he took the Chris Kaman route, and decided to get U.S. citizenship because his country was too competitive in running. Meb even went to high school in the U.S., so he has been here awhile. Him winning in no way should tarnish the “American victory.”

After his victory, Meb appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman, where he delivered a hilarious Top Ten List about running the marathon. For example, Meb posed the question, "Why can I run 26 miles in less time than it takes to play a World Series game?"