40 girls and 40 boys descend on San Diego, CA this weekend for the final meet of the cross country season.
Great Outdoor Provision Co. presents the Featured Meet of Week 17:
Foot Locker Nationals
(Saturday, Balboa Park, San Diego)
The Meet
The Foot Locker Cross Country Championship dates back to 1979, when it was sponsored by Kinney Shoes, a subsidiary of Woolworth's department stores. Often thought of as the individual national championship, the meet started out at Balboa Park in San Diego. Over time, the meet has spent several years in Orlando (most recently 1997-2001) alongside long stretches in San Diego, where it has been since 2002. As the longest-running high school national championship, the meet has a very deep history, and many of America's best runners have left their mark on it (many of them got beaten, too). Past winners include Dathan Ritzenhein, Chris Solinski, Adam Goucher, Bob Kennedy, among many others. In addition to the high level of competition and the sheer honor of qualifying, participating athletes are treated to a weekend at the famous Hotel Del Coronado, complete with one of the best beaches in the world.
Meet History
(from FootLockerCC.com)
Meet Records
(From the MileSplit database)
The Course
Balboa Park has been the home of the Foot Locker Nationals for 26 of the 33 iterations of the Foot Locker Nationals, and it is no cakewalk. The course is a 1.5-mile loop run twice, and it includes a significant hill on each loop. Despite the challenge (and because of the competition, no doubt), the course has been home to 19 sub-15 performances and even six sub-17 girls' races (although it should be noted that the course set-up has varied from year to year, and in particular it ran very fast in 1985). This can make it tough for those whose states emphasize courses that run to the faster side, which definitely includes North Carolina. For example, last year the Foot Locker finalists who advanced from the South regional ran roughly 50 seconds slower at Balboa Park than at McAlpine. Although it is certainly no Mt. Sac or Van Corlandt Park, this is a challenging course that will really test the athletes, and has the potential to break those that peaked for the regionals.
Course Records
(From the MileSplit database)
Things to Do Outdoors
You're kidding, right? If you're traveling to San Diego in December, there's only one thing to do in your free time: enjoy the 70 miles of nearly perfect beaches! If you need more than that, just check out the immense number of activites available at Balboa Park, home of the meet and the San Diego Zoo as well as 19 trails and many other things to do.