Cam Levins

I am a big Cam Levins fan.  Now, that may seem counter-intuitive seeing as he attends the Jackrabbits biggest rivals in Cross Country, Southern Utah University.  However, you can't not like the guy.  The only reason I ever felt any dislike for him is when Jason Bigelow was trying to run him down in the 2010 Summit League Indoor Mile and Cam moved out a couple lanes to ensure his victory.  Other than that, here are a few reasons why I like Cam Levins:

1. He runs BIG miles.  I like to run lots of miles and I think that generally more miles are better.  Many athletes that run as many miles as Cam end up hurt or burnt out.  That hasn't happened to Cam yet, and I don't think it will.  Cam has had a nice progression up to his average of 155 this past fall.

2. He is a good, humble interviewer.  It is obvious that Cam has a lot of confidence, you need to to run at his level, but he doesn't necessarily show it in his interviews.

3. He is a very smart racer.  Many people are really fast but when you put them in a less than ideal situation they don't know how to react.  I have watched Cam run fairly low-key (for him) meets like the Summit League all the way up to the Regional and National levels and he seems to never have a bad race.

4. He has a rockin' Jew Fro. (I've had many people search: Cam Levins Jewish, and find my site so to clarify, he isn't Jewish)

5. He hails from my conference, and even if he didn't, he's still from a small school.  He also didn't run crazy fast high school times as the video below shows.  He was a talented kid but didn't run fast enough for many to think he would ever approach this level.

6. He races with balls.  He was the only one to go with Lawi at NCAA XC.  It may have cost him a place or two at the end and it may not have at all.  Cam went for the win and came up short.  However, Lawi may be one of the most talented runners in NCAA history.  Obviously there's no way of proving that Cam could have won NCAAs in past years but I like to think he would have had a shot.

7. He gives it everything he's got, every race. Some may see this as a negative or may think he could race faster if he didn't run this hard often.  But it might be the same as his miles, it seems to be working for him.

8. He's Canadian, and from BC even.  I am fascinated with the Pacific Northwest.  Anyway, he's the two-time Canadian National Cross Country champion.  The second of which came right after his 4th place at NCAA XC.

9. He has a monster kick.  This was evident at last year's NCAA West region 5k when he battled Elliott Heath and his kick in the UW 3k last weekend wasn't bad.

10. He just set meet records at the Dempsey.  13:42 on Friday followed by 7:48 on Saturday.  He beat some legit runners along the way.  And again, this was back to back days!

11. He hasn't left Southern Utah for say... Oklahoma.

12. He isn't afraid to race a lot.  Including 5 times (4 events) at the Summit League winning all events and setting two conference records!  People who race too infrequently are bad for the sport of track and field.

Cam's Flotrack Vids

Runner's Feed Interview- High Mileage

Confirmation of High Mileage

5k Video

3k Video