David Kimani, 25; NCAA Champion Distance Runner

David Kimani, 25, a six-time NCAA champion distance runner, died Wednesday after collapsing while eating lunch at a dining hall at the University of Alabama. An autopsy was planned to determine the cause of death.

Kimani was in excellent physical shape and was not known to be taking any drugs for a recent stress fracture to his leg.

Kimani led the University of Alabama to a second-place finish at last year’s NCAA Indoor Championships. He won indoor titles at 3,000 and 5,000 meters in 2000 and 2001, as well as the 5,000-meter outdoor championship last season.

As a freshman at the University of South Alabama he won the 1999 national cross-country title. He later transferred to the University of Alabama.

Kimani once said that running was his ticket out of poverty in his native Nairobi, Kenya, where he said he was the first in his family to graduate from high school.