The 59th Annual Men's and 30th Annual Women's NAIA Outdoor Track and Field National Championships get underway on Thursday at the Outdoor Sports Complex in Marion, Ind. The Wayland Baptist women are the two-time defending outdoor champions, while the Pioneer men will be looking to capture their first-ever outdoor title.

The entire 2010 NAIA Men's and Women's Outdoor Track and Field National Championships will be streamed online. You can catch all of the track and field action for free by clicking here and selecting one of three different camera feeds.

Hosted for the first time by Indiana Wesleyan University, the Championships feature over 1,400 student-athletes, including 25 from Wayland, on 241 teams from across the U.S. and Canada competing in 48 different events contested over the next three days. There are 125 men's teams and 116 women's teams participating.

The Pioneer women dominated last year's competition winning by 44 points over second place Oklahoma Baptist, but will be hard pressed to duplicate that fete this year. Wayland will be without the services of junior Latanya Nation, an 11-time All-American, who was forced to red-shirt the outdoor season after suffering a severe hamstring injury in the finals of the 60-meter hurdles at the Indoor national meet.

WBU head coach Brian Whitlock is optimistic that his team can at least make it to the podium, however. The 4x100m, 4x400m and 4x800m relay teams all rank in the top-five among this year's field, and sprinter Kimberly Smith is shooting for her third-straight 100m dash title. The junior enters the Championship with a NAIA-best qualifying time of 11.38.

Sophomore Bianca Grant joins Smith as a top seed going into nationals. Grant has the NAIA's best long jump of the season of 6.06 meters. She will also compete in the triple jump, an event in which she finished sixth a year ago, and in the 100m dash, as well as on the 4x100m relay.

Senior Keliesha Ross and sophomore Leandria Lee are also members of the second-seeded sprint relay team, which has won the past three national championships. The 4x100m trials opened the running events at 1:30 on Thursday.

Ross won All-American honors in both the 100m and 200m in 2008, and will be competing in both events this year as well. Lee is also set to run both sprint races, and is a part of the 4x400m relay team, which includes Ross, along with senior Kydia Echols and either Smith or freshman Milca Villegas.

Senior Elva Pedroza and freshman Jennifer Secrest join Echols and Villegas as part of the third-seeded 4x800m relay team. Echols, the defending indoor champion in the 1000m, is also scheduled to run the 800m and is down as an alternate on the 4x1 team, as is freshman Britnay Walton.

The Wayland men are looking to dethrone two-time defending champion Azusa Pacific University. APU has won 16 overall titles, most in NAIA history. The Cougars have defeated Dickinson State University for the outdoor title in each of the past two seasons, and won the 2010 Indoor Championships for the fourth straight year. WBU finished just 15 points behind APU and 12 points in front of third place Oklahoma Baptist.

The Pioneers hold the top seed in three individual events, and all three relay teams rank among the top six. Freshman distance runner Kennedy Kithuka is the favorite in the 5000m with a time of 14:09.9 and his top time of 28:53.83 in the 10K is almost a full minute in front of the rest of the field.

The other first place seed that will be wearing a WBU uniform is sprinter/jumper Myran Roundtree. The freshman won the national title in the indoor triple jump, and has the top mark of 7.74m in the outdoor long jump competition. Roundtree is also among the top ten seeds in the 100m dash and the triple jump, and is a part of the second-seeded 4x100m relay team.

The remaining members of the 4x1 team are sophomores Jerry-Lee Davis and Lee Prevost, and junior Caleb McLean. The foursome's time of 40.88 is just .06 behind top-ranked Shorter College.

Davis is set to compete in the 200m and 4x400m relay. Prevost is set to run the 200m, and McLean is looking to repeat as an All-American in the 400m and as a member of the 4x400m relay team. Other members of that foursome are juniors Mario Scott and Andre Hamilton. Their top time of 3:13.28 is sixth-best in the NAIA this season. Davis, McLean and Hamilton made up three-fourths of the group that won the Indoor national championship back in March.

The Pioneer 4x800m relay team's time of 7:40.52 is also sixth-best this year. The 4x8 team is composed of senior Kirby Dunn, Scott, and freshmen Hildon Boen and Jarrod Morris. Junior Victor Lemay and sophomore Lucius Lopez will most likely compete in the preliminary rounds.

Dunn, the defending NAIA Indoor Champion in the 1000m, is the third seed in the 800m with a time of 1:50.38. Timmy McCune, a senior, will be competing in the Men's Marathon for the first time in his WBU career. He comes into the event with the seventh-best time this season. Sophomore Michael Sandoval will be joining McCune in the event, which takes place at 6:00 a.m. on Saturday.

The remaining individual qualifiers representing Wayland at the national meet include Boen in the 800m, junior All-American Brandon Mansfield in the Hammer Throw and Shot Put, and freshman Edward Taragon in the Steeplechase.

The national meet concludes on Saturday evening at 6:30 with the Awards Ceremony.