Friday, March 9, 2007
In December 2006, junior distance runner Colby Wissel’s hopes of a successful indoor track season were all but gone.
The 2006 Big 12 cross country champion injured his hamstring during Christmas break, missed a full week of running and consequently returned to campus in early January with an enormous amount of ground to make up.
“I hurt my hamstring and training wasn’t going real well, but coach Clark had a great plan to get me back into the swing of things without rushing anything, and I basically raced myself into shape,” Wissel said.
Coach Doug Clark’s plan has paid off in full thus far, producing a Big 12 indoor title in the 3,000 meters for Wissel. The regular-season punctuation came last weekend at the Alex Wilson Invitational in South Bend, Ind.
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With 400 meters to go, my coach told me I was on pace to go to nationals, so I just kicked it in and ran my last 400 in 58 seconds.
-Colby Wissel
Wissel’s NCAA-championship race is set to start at 7:50 p.m. Saturday.
Wissel traveled to Notre Dame knowing that he had just one more chance to qualify for nationals. He responded with a career-best, NCAA-automatic-qualifying and new Kansas-record time of 7:53.08.
“With 400 meters to go, my coach told me I was on pace to go to nationals, so I just kicked it in and ran my last 400 in 58 seconds,” Wissel said.
Wissel thought his finishing kick set him apart from the competition. That confident attitude was a new feeling for a guy who, up until his breakout cross country season, thought of himself as a lower-tier runner, rather than one of the nation’s best.
Clark thinks that the cross country title skewed Wissel’s perception for the better.
“This year, mentally, he’s a different person,” Clark said. “He’s just now starting to understand how talented he is.”
Wissel’s finish time on March 3 is the second best in the nation, and puts him in what Clark thinks is an ideal situation. Most of his competitors qualified two or more weeks ago and have been fighting to keep their form. But because of his early injury, Wissel is only now in top shape, and it couldn’t come at a better time.
A couple keys to success are to remember what he’s accomplished this season and not get intimidated by his competition.
“I have to take them off that pedestal and realize that I can run with these guys,” Wissel said. “Cross country gave me a lot of confidence because not only was I running with a lot of these guys, I was beating some of them.”
Clark’s advice to his star runner is as simple as staying the course.
“He just needs to not try and do anything extra or above and beyond, because what he’s already doing is the best way to approach it,” Clark said.
With a little time to reflect on his 2006-07 cross country and track seasons, Wissel was able to get past his uncertainties to see the potential in himself that his coaches have seen all along.
“I don’t want to sound cocky,” Wissel said, “but the way things have been going, I don’t want to put any limits on myself.”
Kansan sportswriter Taylor Bern can be contacted at tbern@kansan.com.
— Edited by Kelly Lanigan
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