In a word: everything.

When the graceful, gracious CU senior gathers herself Monday morning in Terre Haute, Ind., to begin her final collegiate cross country race in the NCAA Championships, she expects her mind to be clear, her gaze steely - exactly as they have been before other monster races.

This monster is different. If Barringer steps to the line expecting just as much of herself as she has in the past, in this race she wants - in her words - to complete a "storybook" finish.

More than in other races and the myriad NCAA and national titles she has won, she will be mindful of a conversation she had with Buffaloes coach Mark Wetmore as a freshman in 2005 and what Monday's race over the Indiana countryside means in that conversation's context.

"When I stand on the starting line, I want to think of this as another race," Barringer told me before leaving for Terre Haute. "This is another time when the gun goes off, I go out and do what I'm good at, do what I know how to do.