Great Outdoor Provision Co. Recap: Nike Cross Nationals

Dec 03, 2012

NXN 2012 was crammed full of experiences impossible to get anywhere else, including the impossibly muddy course.

Meet Page

(Results, Photos, Videos)

The weekend-long event that is Nike Cross Nationals was amazing in many ways, and it was great to catch a glimpse of what the athletes experience. Unfortunately, when it comes to the actual race, things didn't go terribly well for North Carolina's two representatives. On a chilly and windy morning following a heavy storm, after a week of frequent rain, 400 runners ran through mud that, frankly, you had to be there to fully comprehend. Although the meet has become synonymous with the mud, I would like to point out that the crew responsible for preparing the course fought valiantly against insurmountable odds to try to keep things passable for the runners. Contrary to public opinion, meet management doesn't try to make the course muddy; it is built on and around a grassy field that is part of a golf course, and it is simply very susceptible to Portland's almost constant rain. The regular attendees all agreed, however, that this ended up being the sloppiest the course has been in the meet's history, and that is reflected in the times. In the boys' race, things were made even more difficult by a field that stayed tightly packed for the first two-thirds of the race (check out my race video below to see for yourself). Wesley Frazier (68th) and Ben Huffman (129th) both had a difficult time with the conditions, but I know that both of them still took away far more from the weekend than the mud took away from them. I hope you'll take the time to look through the highlights of my coverage below, and get a small idea of what an incredible experience this whole weekend is for the athletes involved.