By: Ben Wietmarschen

Centuries ago, toughness challenged grit to a fight.  It was an epic battle.  Some say it was a hopeless clash of wills, others say it was a triumph of spirit.  Without a doubt, it was a jumble of strength, tenacity, and body hair and it ended in a tangled mess.  That tangled mess is known today as NCAA cross country.
 
College cross country is a sport with a distinct personality.  It is an old school, hard hat and lunch-pail type of personality.  If this personality had a face, that face would have a full, bushy beard and might answer to the name Brock or Earl or Galen (wait, no).  Brock is a personality separate from the world of track and field and professional distance running.  It's a weird, beautiful distinction the running world makes every fall.
 
This upcoming cross country season is going to be a great one.  It has everything that makes for an epic battle.  It has the evil empire that is insanely favored (Oregon), it has the spunky  once-great-but-now-we-got-something-to-prove challengers (Wisconsin), the always looming and mysterious foreign contingent (Alabama), and the country yokels pooling the townsfolk's money to buy shoes and travel to Terre Haute (Oklahoma St.).  Like I said, everything.
 
It is going to be way better than the Stanford domination of '03 (Ryan Hall's first good college race) or the Arkansas late '90's three-peat (Yeah, the Razorbacks used to dominate back then.  Days gone by…).  We might even have a season on par with the infamous Buffalo Undertow of 2004 (Wisconsin has it, Wisconsin has it! Oh wait, OH WAIT!!!!).  Goosebumps.
 
As for our part in this sure to be great season at trackshark.com, we'll be