By: Kyle Markley

Championship season is upon us! This collegiate indoor season has been filled with fast times and record-breaking performances. Over the course of this weekend, the top men and women from each event will square off in Birmingham, Alabama to see who’s the best of the best. Here is a list of distance runners to keep an eye out for over the weekend.

Morgan Beadlescomb

(Photo: Citius Mag)

This Spartan is having one of the best indoor seasons of any athlete this year. His times of 3:52 and 7:43 rank him 1st in the mile, and 4^th in the 3000m. Beadlescomb comes into these championships with experience racing on the big stage in meets like the Olympic Trials and Millrose Games. His confidence and knowledge will help throughout the weekend whether the races are sit and kick or fast from the gun. This experience sets him apart from most of the competition and puts him as one of the favorites to take home a national title this year.

Courtney Wayment

Wayment enters the championship with one of the toughest doubles of any athlete, the 3000m and 5000m. But this BYU Cougar has an ace up her sleeve, she enters the weekend with the fastest 5000m and 2^nd fastest 3000m in the field. Giving her the confidence and motivation to show she belongs on top of this year’s podium. Along with striving to continue the streak of success the BYU women have had during previous Championships.

NAU Contingent in the 5000m

(Photo: NAU Athletics)

When it comes to the national championships, NAU is no stranger to success. This weekend the team looks to continue that success in multiple distance events. However, I want to focus solely on the 5000m race. This event has three NAU runners in the field: Nico Young, Abdihamid Nur, and Drew Bosley. With this event occurring on the first day and at sea level, it allows for these three to be running on fresh legs and drowning in oxygen. Combine these factors with a potential team racing tactics under the leadership of Coach Smith, there is a chance that these three could become All-Americans. Now I’m not a gambling man, but if I were I would put my money on these three finishing in the top eight. Helping NAU earn some team points and add some more hardware to their collection.

Julia Heymach     

(Photo: Stanford Athletics)

This Stanford Cardinal is no stranger to championship racing. This past year she finished 6^th at the Olympic Trials in the 1500m final, running the 4^th fastest colligate time in NCAA history. This season she ranks 2^nd in the mile with a time of 4:31, which she ran at the Boston Valentine Invitational where no record was safe. Heymach has shown she can compete when national titles are on the line and will look to add a new title to her running resume this weekend, a national champion.

Ole Miss Men's & Women's DMR

The Rebels hold the 3^rd ranked seed time for both the men and women DMR’s heading into this weekend. The men’s relay enters the race less than a second behind the first place seeded Washington. On the women’s side the Rebels seed time is only five seconds back from 1^st place Arkansas. Both squads are no stranger to this event. Last year the men finished runner up to Oregon by one second, while the women finished a distant 8^th. And even though the runners on the relays might have changed, you can never count Ole Miss out of the race.

This weekend champions will be crowned, and records could be broken, but either way it’s going to be a great time for fans of track and field!

Drop in the comments who you think will win this year!