Senior excels at track & field’s secret weapon race
“You need the endurance of a 10k runner, the speed of a 1,500m runner and the flexibility and agility of a 400m hurdler,” said head cross country coach Steve Magness. “So you have to train to not only run fast at the distance, but ensure that you have enough left at the end to hurdle barriers that will not move if you hit them. There’s not much pain that compares to coming down the final 200 meters of the steeple and knowing that you will have to jump over a pit of water and then clear the final barrier with 50 meters to go, all while trying to sprint to the finish line.”
This makes what redshirt senior Brian Barraza has done all the more important for the track & field team.
At the Victor Lopez Classic, in his first and, so far, only steeplechase of the season, Barraza ran a time of eight minutes, 41.58s. His time broke the school record, making it the sixth school record Barraza has collected in his collegiate career. Four weeks later, his time is still No. 3 in the NCAA.