Broughton senior Sam Roberson will be keeping a daily journal of his activities at Nike Cross Nationals in Portland, Oregon this weekend. Sam qualified by finishing third in the Southeast Regional race last weekend at WakeMed. Nike Cross Nationals (originally named "Nike Team Nationals") began in 2004 and has grown into a major national event. With its focus on team competition, it is the perfect complement to the individual-oriented Foot Locker Nationals (next weekend in San Diego). The competition is also unique in that it takes place entirely within a stadium, using a looped course with artificial hills (similar to what you might see in a motocross event). Sam and Erica Amatori will both be sending me periodic updates, and I hope to pair those up with pictures through the MileSplit Network.
Thursday Night
After a long trip out to Portland, DC (my coach) and I finally arrived. After getting situated in a hotel room, I was shuttled to Nike headquaters where I met up with fellow runners from Califrnia to Rhode Island and everywhere in between. I finally got to experince the beatiful scenery I had eyed from the plane on the trails that run through the Nike facilities. The trails seemed like they should belong in a park rather then a coporate headquarters and along the way, I saw Galen Rupp and Mo Farah doing mile repeats! To top off the evening, every region recieved an athlete as a captain. The Southeast's was Andrew Bumbalough, whom I knew from my days at Brentwood Academy!
Friday
Today, I got my first look at the legendary Portland Meadows course. It lives up to the stories with the rows of hills (rightly named "Whoopde Do's"), haybails, and plenty of mud. I'm not worrying about the new course and am even a little excited to try it out. After that, the Southeast qualifiers and I recieved a plethora of Nike shoes, uniforms, jackets, and spikes. With all the new clothes, I can rest assured if I don't have a succesful track season, I'll at least win best dressed award. Later on, I got to meet some members of the Oregon Track Club (Shalane Flanagan says hello), some of the best in our nation and even the world. The evening concluded with a delicious pasta dinner. I'm ready to race tomorrow!
Saturday and Sunday
The morning of race day was fairly cold with a thick layer of mist in the air, the type of weather you would expect in Oregon. Before the race, I felt an unusual mixture of excitement and nervousness. It seemed a perfect combination of the two as I was happy to be at the meet, yet still anticipating the pain I would feel in the most competitive race of my career thus far. I toed the line with my fellow Southeast runners and could feel a hunger like none other down the whole line that results when you bring the best from all across the country and tell them to decide supremacy over the course of five kilometers.
A blast from the cannon signaled the start of the race and from the first few strides there was already shoving to escape the mob. On the first turn, a man in front of me trying to run the edge of the curve hit a fence stake and tripped. Runners, all trying to dodge his body, at once ensued into a four man pile up that I narrowly dodged. I was in a decent position to start and was ready to move outside on the next straght away when the unpredictible happend. Four years of training year round, countless miles, awards, medals, travelling across the country, or willingness could not protect me from the fraction of a second that a spike from another runner shreded through the back of my shoe and rendered it to a slipper barely clinging on as I ran. I immediatly questioned why this would happen to me. Why would the climax of my high school cross country career be severly cut in my ability to perform for a reason I could not control? I pondered this while still running, with wild emotions racing through my head. The thought of stopping right there even entered my mind for a few seconds. Then I made a decision to run as well as I could given my circumstace. I knew I would be greatly handicapped with only one shoe on a course that regulary calls for half inch spikes. Disappointment was my main emotion for the rest of the race and especially after. I sat in a tent after the race feeling cheated out of my chance to run in a national meet.
Now I have put the race behind me knowing that there was nothing I could do to stop what happened and there will be other races, some even more important than this one in the future. The day was not completely without celebration as Adam Visokay placed 10th and Mike Crozier 13th, both from the Southeast. With Elliot Clemente in 20th, that made three from the Southeast comprising the second and third team All Americans. Also, my old neighbors from Brentwood broke the streak of the 2nd place Southeast team finishing last with their 17th place.
All in all, NXN was still a great experience as I made new friends and felt a sense of comradery especially with my team from the southeast (including our friend California) and ran a race that taught me to use the day to it's full potential.