TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — A few feet after crossing the final finish line of the season Jenny Barringer didn't have the energy to sit up on her own.

One of the medics at the finish line pulled the collapsed Colorado cross country runner to the side of the finish chute. After a few seconds she did gain enough strength to at least talk.

"Whoooooooo," she said, followed by a sigh. "That was so hard."

Barringer had just made an impressive charge through the top of the field at Monday's NCAA cross country national championships. She gave everything she had to be the second-best runner in the nation in a time of 20 minutes, 37.9 seconds. She dropped at the finish line after going from ninth to second in half a 6K race and helped her team finish second in the nation.

"I don't think I have ever worked that hard," Barringer said after she recovered and spoke to the media. "That's the deepest I've dug in my life."

Barringer — and the rest of the field — had a tough challenge to beat Texas Tech's Sally Kipyego. The Red Raider sophomore beat Barringer twice this season by 45 seconds each time. So Barringer knew she needed the race of her life to win, and that might not be enough. It wasn't like she hadn't won a big race before, though. She is the reigning national steeplechase champion.

"I said to myself, 'I knew I still have to show up and race,'" said Barringer, the top American. "But I also raced her twice and she beat me twice by 45 seconds. So there was a slap of reality with that."

That didn't stop the Oviedo, Fla., resident from pushing through to help her team finish second despite having its fifth runner in 165th place. Barringer had 13 family members in attendance at the race, and everyone of them was cheering as she crossed the line.

She didn't get full credit for her effort. The announcer saw the black and gold and thought Barringer was a Wake Forest runner. Very few people took notice, especially Barringer. She was too busy concentrating on making sure her body didn't shut down before she crossed the line.

And get this. After all that pain, as she laid slumped in the medic's arms like a rag doll, she was smiling.

Pasciuto's pain

At last year's national championships, Liza Pasciuto finished ninth as a sophomore. She won the mountain regional. Monday was the third time she ran at the national championships, and it could have been another big step in her career.

Her left shin didn't see it that way. The junior from Murrieta Valley, Calif., has two stress fractures in her left leg. So she only finished 16th. Imagine what would have happened on two legs.

"She trains a day, then she spends a day in a boot. She trains a day, then she spends a day in a boot," CU coach Mark Wetmore said. "We told her, 'You don't have to do this. We have other women.' She didn't even want to talk about it."

Not done yet

Only one of Colorado's runners who scored in the women's race is a senior, and she was the fifth runner. Erin Marston finished in 165th and the other four runners were in the top 50. All of those runners have eligibility left.

Barringer is only a sophomore and Pasciuto a junior. Aislinn Ryan and Claire Maduza were highly touted freshmen coming into the program this year and showed they may live up to expectations. Ryan was 46th and Maduza 48th. Ryan was the seventh-best freshman and Maduza was the eighth-best.

The other two runners in Colorado's top seven, Emily Hanenburg and Hilary McClendon, are also freshmen.