Nike Cross Nationals. It is, hands down, the single most compelling meet of the entire high school cross country season.
As such, you'd think it would merit a few lines of prediction. Or, barring prediction, at least ambitious speculation, no?
No.
In the 10 years since I've started thinking about this meet, I've learned a thing or two about it. And, one of the things I've learned is to respect the unpredictability and variability of it all.
First and foremost among the things that makes Nike Cross Nationals tough to get an intellectual grasp on is the two days leading up to the meet. Those two days and made or break a lot of teams. Allow me to explain.
Nike flies teams into Portland from across the nation on Thursday morning. Well, actually, Fayetteville-Manlius arrives early (on their own dime, I believe) as a matter of routine. At least I assume they're still doing that.
The game plan for Nike is to get the athletes to the Embassy Suites Hotel in Tigard by sometime prior to noon on Thursday. If you stop and think about that a little, it makes for some very early departures from home airports.
You already know all about security and TSA. ON top of all that, leaving very early on Thursday morning is the first opportunity of a long weekend for teams and individuals to mismanage a situation. Teams that have been to NXN before tend to have a better idea of how to manage the situation. First-time teams are a bit more subject to the whims of things left to chance.
And a bad Thursday morning is one good way to get your NXN weekend off to a rocky start. That happened to us at NXN 2008. We finished 13th in the race that year, but we were better than a 13th-place team. We did not, however, manage Thursday morning well (and the primary responsibility for that lands directly at the feet of the coach). As a result, we went through the rest of the weekend a bit discombobulated.
The Thursday at NXN is filled with grabbing a bag lunch, getting checked into your hotel room, getting to Nike headquarters, getting gear properly fitted, meeting and greeting, and trying to get a run wedged in before darkness settles in on Portland (and it settles in early this time of year).
The key to Thursday is simply staying calm and going with the flow. The flow will take you where you need to go. Anything else is trouble. You don't have time to spend in your hotel room settling in, making it feel like home, or making yourself look good. Period.
Do what the folks at Nike tell you. Don't come up with a better plan, just do what they ask. Have it in mind to be quick about all you do. Be on time for your shuttles. Stick together with your team or group of individuals, and all goes well. Deviate from the plan and things take a downward spiral in a hurry.
A coach with a placid external demeanor and a take-charge travel persona is a huge bonus here. Individuals need to attend closely to all the details provided them by their regional individual manager.
Friday is more of the same. Friday goes better if you slept well on Thursday night. Some people manage that well and others don't. Hopefully, one person doesn't keep half their team awake at night, but it has been known to happen.
Again, teams who have been there before are at a distinct advantage here. For them, the novelty of it all has worn off a little, and they slide into the Nike-prescribed routines a little more readily. As a rule, that is, but there are exceptions to be found on both sides of the fence.
Athletes spend a lot of time listening to people talk on Friday. It's not very active time, but it can be calming if you let it be. Don't be champing at the bit when it's not time to be champing at the bit. Everything will happen in its time; don't be anxious to rush the schedule. The schedule won't change, and you'll just frustrate yourself. Remind yourself, if necessary, that the schedule always wins.
The course visit is the highlight of Friday, and this typically helps calm the nerves of a lot of athletes. There is something profoundly reassuring about seeing firsthand the course you'll be running on on the next day.
And then, race day comes. Now more than ever, being prompt for every detail of the day is huge. A whole team waits if one person is dallying. A whole team can be set on edge by one person lagging.
All that to say some teams and some individuals will handle Thursday morning through the early hours of Saturday morning well, and some will not. And that goes a long way toward determining which teams and individuals will have great outcomes on Saturday and which will not.
But, travel and schedule compliance is not the only factor in play in how things go on Saturday.
Some teams locked in their berths three weeks ahead of the event, others had very difficult qualifying races a mere seven days before the event. Still others will have waited a week or two weeks to learn their qualifying fate.
There are pros and cons to every scenario, but likely the most difficult scenario is the one where a team has a breakout effort to qualify in a race (either a Nike Cross Regional or the California state meet) seven days before NXN. It's hard to ride that physical and emotional roller coaster and come back with a similar, or greater, effort at NXN. It's easy enough to talk that game as if it's going to happen, but but it is extremely difficult to play that game.
Historically, the teams that have qualified on the first weekend of NXN regionals have struggled a little with staying race sharp (both mentally and physically) into NXN Saturday. Some teams have overcome that, but more have not.
The last major variable that makes forecasting NXN very difficult is the approach to the race by the athletes themselves. This is a particular affliction of individual qualifiers, but shows up in team camps with some regularity as well. With teams, though, the variability seems to be moderated some by team considerations. Individuals have no such considerations to attend to.
If you have a strong favorite, such as Katie Rainsberger was last year, that person can more or less settle into their own race and simply make things happen. And Rainsberger was experienced enough in big races (including previous NXN showdowns) to keep everything in perspective leading up to last year's race.
It isn't that way for most individuals. Be assured, those individuals who qualify for NXN are not about to be content with coming home having run in the middle of the pack. Race performance is a point of personal pride for these folks (that's part of how they got there!), and every last one of them intends to run well. Not a few intend to run specifically for the win, regardless of who is favored.
This rapidly becomes a make-or-break kind of scenario, and a few athletes find themselves running hell-bent-for-leather each year at NXN. Results will vary.
So, what are you to do as you watch the course--either from the December chill of Portland, or from the comfort of your own home on the live stream? Enjoy it for what it is. And part of what it is, at least in part, is unpredictable.
If you watch the race on live stream, be prepared to be frustrated with catching only momentary glimpses of the athletes you're most interested in (unless, that is, the athletes you're most interested in happen to be running in the top four or five). There will be periodic updates on team scoring at intervals along the way, but you won't be able to sort out any of that from watching the runners at the front of the live stream. Whether in Portland or at home, the wait for the announcement of the team champion will take agonizingly long. It will take even longer for word of team finishes outside of the top three.
All I can counsel in that case is patience. Remember, we're the sport without a scoreboard.