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Northern Arizona Head XC Coach Eric Heins pre-meet - NCAA D1 Cross Country Championships 2013Published by
Northern Arizona Head Coach Eric Heins and his team have not lost a meet this year. Last year they finished fourth at this meet. They just won a tightly fought meet at the Mountain Region against #1 Colorado, #6 BYU and #11 New Mexico. After winning, they moved from #2 to #1. We caught up with him on Wednesday after he and his team took a run. Adam Schneider (AS) - How is your team doing? Eric Heins (EH) - We are doing great! We went for a run at Depaul nature park. They closed the course today because of the rains. They (the course) were pounded again today. I think they (the team) are pretty excited. Our team is pretty confident. I don't think there is a lotta pressure. The team itself has had the goal (of winning) all this year. The team is very loose. The guys that have been here before, they are not anxious. AS - How do you beat Oklahoma State? EH - Our top three man for man have to beat their top three. I think Nathan can beat their #5 guy. You have to score fewer points than they do. It's going to be reallly tight. AS - How did winning the Mountain Region help the team? EH - It’s always good to win. We treated it like a preliminary round. You never know about that week of training after the meet. The main thing is that they feel good about how they did. After practice, just about the time we were going to leave after practice, about 100 people including admins, professors, a middle school team and others came out to give us a send-off from campus. It is great for our University and community. For the guys that is the kind of experience they will never forget. It has gotten the University excited. AS - Georgetown Head Women's Coach Michael Smith used to work in Flagstaff, how do you know him?
EH - Originally he was part of some elite level guys training. He had qualified for the Olympic Trials in the marathon. I was training and I knew him from running on the trails. Once he moved on as part of high performace, I would run into him.
AS - How much do you think your team has benefitted from the high altitude distance program that Michael Smith was part of with Jack Daniels?
EH - Our team would maybe see them weekends when they are training together. It is nice to have Olympians around training. Olympian (and NAU graduate) David McNeil is in graduate school right now and would run with them. Some runners like to run with Nick Arcianaga and talk about things, The kids can see what it takes to take the next step, even post-Colliagiately.
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