| Buchanan will try to become the 27th Jayhawk to attain All-America honors this Saturday at the National Championships. |
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LAWRENCE, Kan. – After a career performance Nov. 8 at the NCAA Midwest Regional Championship in Ames, Iowa, earned him an automatic bid Kansas junior Reid Buchanan will head to Terre Haute, Ind., for the 2013 NCAA Cross Country Championships to be run Saturday afternoon.
Indiana State University will host the 2013 NCAA Cross Country Championships on Nov. 23 at the LaVern Gibson Championship Course for the 10th time in the last 12 years. The men’s 10K race will begin at approximately 11 a.m. (CT).
Buchanan tallied a 12th-place finish at the Midwest Regional last week, while posting a career-best 10K time of 30:43.5, all of which was done after his right shoe fell off within the first 1,000 meters of the six-mile race. He was the top finisher for the KU men, who tallied their highest finish (fifth) at the Regional meet in seven years. While the Jayhawk men were unable to earn a team bid to Nationals, Buchanan’s performance made him the fourth finisher not a member of a qualifying team, meaning he was given the last of four individual automatic bids to this week’s NCAA Championships.
A junior from Manhattan, Kan., Buchanan has consistently been one of the top performers for the Jayhawks this season. In each of the four races he has competed in, Buchanan has been among the top-three Jayhawk finishers, leading KU in two of the competitions and placing in the top-24 overall in three meets. He set a career-best 8K time at the Big 12 Championships on Nov. 2 to go along with his personal best 10K time last week.
Buchanan has the opportunity to make Kansas cross country history Saturday by putting his name on the prestigious list of Jayhawk cross country All-Americans. Men donning the Crimson and Blue at the NCAA meet have attained All-America status 26 times in the 74-year history of the Cross Country National Championships, with Colby Wissel the most recent Jayhawk to earn the All-American title in back-to-back seasons in 2006 and 2007.
Buchanan will be well prepared for the race to be held at the LaVern Gibson Championship Course as he has already competed there once this season. On Oct. 19, the Jayhawks took part in the ISU Pre-National Invitational at the same venue he will see Saturday, giving Buchanan a lay of the land which should come in handy this weekend. The junior was KU’s top finisher in the 8K race, completing the course in 24:05.84 to finish 37th overall. The field Buchanan ran against that day will not be all that different than the one he will see at Nationals, which proved he is capable of running through a Championship-caliber field and attaining All-America accolades.
Fans can watch Buchanan’s race by logging on to the NCAA Championship central page here. Also be sure to follow @KansasXC to get live, in-race updates. Live splits and results will also be posted at the NCAA results page here during and after the competition.
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