The No. 1 Stanford women’s cross country team will look to run to its third consecutive national title on Monday at the NCAA Championships in Terre Haute, Ind.

The men’s squad will be joining the women in Indiana and also have high hopes. The men finished fourth at last year’s championship and are looking to build off of their third place finish at this year’s NCAA West Regionals.

The Cardinal women will be led by a slew of experienced runners: seniors Teresa McWalters, Arianna Lambie and Lauren Centrowitz are the heart of the lineup, but the team received a pleasant surprise at the Regionals last weekend when freshman Alexandra Gits came virtually out of nowhere to finish in third place overall at the West Regionals.

McWalters commented on the difficulty of the course and what challenges the women expect to see on Monday.

“I’ve run it four times now,” she said. “Each time I’ve learned that you should go into it expecting nothing. It’s kind of in a league of its own.

“There’s such a concentration of incredible athletes that you never feel like you’re running well because you’re surrounded by people [as] equally talented as yourself. Its easy to lose yourself in that race environment. Nationals always seem foreign, no matter how many times you’ve run it.”

The No. 13 men will also led by an experienced group of runners. Seniors Neftalem Araia, Russell Brown, and juniors Hakon DeVries and Hari Mix.

As McWalters explained before, both teams are simply looking to run their best on Monday. A national title is no more than icing on the cake for an accomplished group of runners; although a women’s victory would cement the team’s place as a Stanford dynasty, the team is thrilled with its season thus far.

That said, the Cardinal won’t be holding back one bit when it tries to capture its third straight national title.

As McWalters said, “There’s no better feeling.”