2003 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships
Thursday - Day 2 - Evening Session - 10k Finals
Sacramento, CA -

WOMEN'S 10K
The women's 10k quickly separated itself into a pack of contenders and a pack of pretenders.  At 2 miles (10:37.70), 11 people were in the lead group which was led by #1 seed Vicki Gill of FSU.  The O'Neill twins of Yale took over the lead at 4400 .  At 5k (16:38), the lead back was down to 7.  Gill would fall off the back at 6k and six remained with Kate  O'Neill in the lead, Laura O'Neill, Kristin Price of NC State (last year's champ), Jamie Kryzminski of Michigan State, Wake Forest's Annie Bersagel, and Alicia Craig of Stanford. With six laps to go, Bersagel dropped off and only five remained in contention.  With 1200 to go, Stanford's Craig threw down the gauntlet with a 71.28 lap that dropped the field except for Yale's Kate O'Neill.  Craig's next lap of 73.81 ended O'Neill's bid for victory and the Yale senior would have to settle for her third 2nd place finish of her senior campaign (Cross country, indoor 5k and tonight's 10k).  Craig final lap of 73.82 was just icing on the cake.

Lap Splits Women -
Mile 1 - 77.87, 80.56, 80.05, 77.26 (5:15.68)
Mile 2 - 79.99, 79.66, 81.00, 81.37 (10:37.70)
Mile 3 - 80.67, 81.71, 79.33, 78.64 (15:58.05)
Mile 4 - 2:38.65 , 79.25, 79.12 (21:15.07)
Mile 5 - 78.59, 76.69, 78.10, 77.14 (26:25.59)
Mile 6 - 78.08, 77.15, 71.28 (Craig's decisive lap which cut the lead pack from 5 to 2), 73.81 (3 second lead now for Craig) (31:35.91)
73.82.
Mile by Mile Splits - 5:15.68, 5:22.02, 5:20.35, 5:17.02, 5:10.52, 5:10.42 32.39.73
5k splits - 16:38, 16:02

Press: Did you have a plan as to when you wanted to make your move?
Craig: The plan was to be as patient as possible - make it a 5,000 meter run and then a 5,000 meter race.  Just kind of bide my time and after the first 5k, if I wasn't happen with the pace, I was going to take the lead but they were doing a good job so I just kind of hung back.

Press: At 9k, you just couldn't be patient anymore?
Craig: It just felt so good, my legs felt good so I just wanted to get out of there.

Press: So you were actually spending time thinking, I'd like to go now but I want to win, I want to win.
Yeah, I'm not that familiar with the 10k so I don't know how you should feel at a particular point. (This was only Craig's 2nd 10k ever - she ran one at the Pac 10s to qualify).

Press: So 25 laps on the track  is comfortable to you now?
Craigg: I don't mind it. I love tempo runs and this is just basically a little quicker tempo run.

Press: So what were you thinking out there for the first 20 laps?
Craig: I don't know I was just kind of thinking and praying.  

MEN'S 10K
Going into the race, everyone figured it would be a two man duel between Boaz Cheboiywo, who had the fastest qualifying time of 27:46.47 coming in and Alistair Cragg of Arkansas. The pundits were right - it turned into a two person race but it certainly wasn't a duel and it didn't involve both Cragg and Cheboiywo.  

Cheboiywo led the first 11 laps at a steady 28 minute low clip before slowing down. His 12th lap was a bit slow and Cragg threw in a faster 12th and 13th lap to feel things out.  He let the field catch back up on the 14th lap before breaking things up for good with a 66.43 15th lap.  The only surprise was that Cheboiywo would fade all the way out of the scoring and Cragg's teammate Dan Lincoln would move up to 2nd and eventually join Cragg in the lead.  The two teammates ran it in together from there and made the race look more like a training run, rather than the NCAA 10k.  They crossed the line hand in hand, with Lincoln getting the "win" in 28:20.

It was a day that will be remembered for quite some time in Arkansas history. Not only did they score 18 points for the Hogs, they also broke the school 10k record in the process. Amazingly, given Arkansas' amazing distance prowess, their old 10k school record was 28:31.90 set by Pat Vaughn in 1982. Not that 28:31 is a bad school record, but given how the Hogs take their track and field quite seriously, you'd think it would be faster.  Case in point as to how big of a priority track is to the Hogs, Lincoln and Cragg were congratulated immediately after the race by the President of the University of Arkansas.

Lap Splits Men -
Mile 1 - 67.26, 71.52, 66.88, 66.26 (4:31.92)
Mile 2 - 66.70, 67.64, 67.91, 68.36 (9:02.53)
Mile 3- 68.19, 68.15, 2:17.59 (the one lap I missed was actually kind of important as at 2:17 Craig started to pull away from Boaz so I'm assuming it went like 71 then 66) (13:36.46)
Mile 4 - 64.73 (14:08 at 5k), 71.23 (guys caught back up), 66.43 (surge broke things up again), 66.91 (18:05.74)
Mile 5 - 67.82, 68.35, 68.77, 68.65 (22:39.33)
Mile 6 - 67.38, 68.90, 69.21, 68.57 (27:13.39)
66.74.
Mile by Mile Splits - 4:31.92, 4:30.61, 4:33.93, 4:29.28, 4:33.59, 4:34.06.
5k Splits - 14:08, 14:12.

Interview With Men's 10k "Winner" Dan Lincoln -
Press: Were you surprised by that?
Lincoln: I didn't expect that. What did I run?

LRC: 28:20.
Lincoln. No way, holy shit. I am surprised by that. That's really surprising. It was fun. I just got out there and tucked my head down and let big old Jason Hartmann block the wind for me for a while. Then I just played it out as it came.  It just was set up pretty good for me. It was fun running with Alistair and he did a lot of the work, and I appreciate it. I call it a "tie". It was a tie.

I said let's come across and we'll leave it to chance and he said, "Oh, no you're a senior, blah blah blah. It was fun."

Interview with Alistair Cragg - "2nd Place" Finisher in NCAA Men's 10k
LRC: Were you surprised Boaz didn't hang on longer?
Cragg: You know I saw him hobbling before the race so I wasn't sure he'd be up there or not. But he's strong I mean he easily could have been up there with us.  I just got out there and waited and I felt him slow the pace down a lot at one stage (on the 11th lap which is the split we missed). I didn't know if it was a tactical move or not so I went and I was just watching him, watching him. And he came back and I was like you sneaky little bugger.  (Editor's Note: He only came back briefly before Craig dropped him once again).

Press: Did you think Daniel was going to stay up there with you as far as he did?
Cragg: Not at all.  When I looked back and he was second to me and I had made my move, I was like "Man (that's great)." I was actually hurting then (so it was good) as if I'd had to run the whole way into the wind that would have been a hard run.  So when I saw him behind me, that was a relief - that was nice.  

Press: Now you talked about the finish with a mile to go. What were you thinking? "I'm going to let this guy win it."
Cragg: We had to save our legs - that's what it came down to. It would have been stupid to race each other when we both have finals coming up in the next two days. I was the one who brought it up.  I said, "Hey I want you to win - it's your senior year." I wasn't going to let him win but there would be no reason for both of us to kick it in and get tired. Then I brought up another idea, "Why don't we just hold hands?"

Press: You didn't really know who was going to go across first did you?
Cragg: I was hoping to just step back (and let him win). I mean I respect the guy (a ton). I owe a lot to Daniel Lincoln. It would have been easy for me to just step back and give him the 10k title on top of the steeplechase (which is what appeared to happen as Lincoln got the win). He deserves it.

Press: Did you expect before the race that the two of you would be together?
Cragg: Not at all.  I actually doubted my run before (the race).  I've been hurting with stomach pains and I've gotten some treatment.  I just was scared as to how the race would turn out but I just felt amazing comfortable out there and I knew I could go for it. I wasn't sure how strong Boaz was going to be today. I felt he was a little niggled.

When Daniel was out there with me, it just turned into a show. We knew that the president of our University was here and Coach Mac deserves something like this.

Press: Ever had a race end like that?
Cragg: It was nice to be a part of. I've never been apart of a race like that..... Actually, my first race for Arkansas, I ran so scared of Daniel, being the new kid, I went kicking in to the last mile and sort of looked back and he was chasing me down and I slowed down and we sort of went into together.  That was our first race together and this is our last race together for Arkansas.

Press: For the record, now did you slow down and let him win?
Cragg: Whatever is decided is decided.