QA1.txt

Q&A

Layne Anderson

MenÕs/WomenÕs Cross Country Coach

What do you expect from your menÕs cross country program this fall?
I think weÕll be a much improved team with a lot of new faces in Angel Ibarra, Brad Hansen, and Aaron Richberg.  We have some familiar faces, too, with the likes of sophomore Ryan Emery.  We can expect a much closer pack and a much tighter gap between our No. 1 and No. 5 runners.  Compared to last year, I also expect our times to be faster and have as many as five guys running in the 25-minute range for 8,000-meters. I feel time-wise and performance-wise, we should be much better this season.  Where that puts us in the conference race is difficult to tell because it is so early in the season.  Alabama and Arkansas are the class of the conference this year with Tennessee and Florida having talented, young teams.

How about the womenÕs team?  What are your expectations?
On the womenÕs side, we are still a young team with primarily sophomores and freshmen running for us.  We are also without sophomore Nerissa Johnson, who is out with an injury.  Her loss is a huge blow to us because without her we lose our number one runner and we are not as deep of a team.  Because of our lack of depth and because we donÕt have a lot of runners that have run at the SEC level it will be a challenging season.  We are however much improved, because even without Nerissa, we still return our top three runners from last season.  The SEC is such a talented conference, you not only have to have a front runner, but you have to be deep all the way down to your seventh or eighth runner.

What is a typical training week for a cross country runner?
A typical training week for the guys is in the order of 60-75 miles a week depending on if we have a race or not. The women meanwhile, will run 45-55 miles a week.  During the week weÕll run a couple of quality training sessions, three morning runs, a long run on Sunday and weights twice a week.  On Sundays the women will run upwards of an hour and twenty minutes, while the men will run up to an hour and a half.

You will host the Auburn Bank Invitational on Oct. 1 and the NCAA Region IX Championships on Nov. 13.  What can fans expect at both of these meets?
Hopefully we will get great fan support and fans can expect to see more Auburn runners pushing their way towards the front.  We will have a large field here in October and at the NCAA Region IX Meet, and we will host the best teams in the Southern part of the country.  The exciting part of the Region IX Championships is that teams will be vying for spots at the NCAA Championships, so there is a lot riding on the line.  As far as watching both meets, our course is very conducive for fans to watch a race.  Typically at a cross country meet, you donÕt see much of the race.  YouÕll see the start, part of the middle, and the finish.  At our course on Indian Pines Golf Course here in Auburn, the course gives you a chance to see more of the race.  It allows fans to see the tactics that go into a race Ð the surging, running as a pack Ð and it also allows fans to see how the race unfolds.