The Pac-10 conference cross-country meet in Long Beach, Calif., today will be a carefully choreographed chaos. With 150 athletes representing 18 programs, it will be up to each individual runner to remain calm, cool and collected within the eddy of elbows and race bibs around them. The scene Wednesday as the Washington runners departed was a microcosm of this mayhem and a chance to display the emotional preparedness of the squads.

One runner, Colton Tully-Doyle, was late for the 4:30 p.m. departure time. Assistant coach Jason Drake joked with head coach Greg Metcalf about leaving without Tully-Doyle, while Metcalf admired his freshly painted likeness on the newly festooned UW athletics bus. Trainer John Jackson was his usual good-spirited self, kidding around with Metcalf, Drake and assistant coach Kelly Strong. Runners casually loaded their bags onto the bus and shook hands with their teammates who had come out to bid the varsity good luck. In fact, the only person who seemed remotely nervous was the bus driver, who announced to no one in particular that he was running to the bathroom, but that he definitely would return.

The runners voiced this sense of serenity as they boarded. Max O’Donoghue-McDonald described himself as “ready.” Rob Webster Jr. was “focused,” and Kelly Spady felt, for lack of a better word, “jacked.” Last year at this time the men were headed into the championship season hoping to garner enough points to qualify for nationals. This campaign has been much stronger, and the team is almost assuredly headed to the national meet this year.

For the women, the expectations are clear. They are looking to defend their Pac-10 championship from last year, when they swept the first six places in a race that included Oregon, the second-highest ranked team in the nation. Although no one was assuring such a dominant performance this time, the team exuded extreme confidence. Coach Drake admitted the women could feasibly lose, but that it would take “the whole team getting food poisoning or some other random terrible thing.” He wasn’t cocky, and he wasn’t trying to excite the team, which by then was loaded on the bus. Drake was just that confident in the talent and experience that the women had.

This whole season has been typified by such levelheaded confidence. Metcalf has been, as Drake described, “tentative. He’s not hesitant about pulling people out for one day of training. Instead, he’s been focusing on staying healthy and on solid training blocks.”

With the top three runners from last year’s conference meet — Kendra Schaaf, Marie Lawrence and Christine Babcock — all returning and healthy, the coaches seem more comfortable playing it safe.

“We’ve got such a talented group, and they have such a great summer training base under them. Right now, at the end of the season, it’s like trying to sharpen a knife,” Drake said. “Hopefully we’ve got a meat cleaver and not a butter knife.”

As if on cue, Kailey Campbell darted off of the bus as it was leaving, followed by coach Strong. Campbell had forgotten her wallet, and Strong was going to drive her to the airport after picking it up. What was surprising was not that someone as organized and mature as Campbell should forget her wallet, but that it seemed like such a non-issue. The team seems honed and primed to slash through any obstacles that stand between now and Nov. 23rd, the date of the NCAA championship meet. Perhaps Drake was being modest when he likened this team to a sharpened cleaver. With so much focus and acuity, it might be closer to a Hattori Hanzo sword.

Reach reporter Zachary Gussin at sports@dailyuw.com.