I finished college 40 years ago this month. Grinnell College of 1980.5
I graduated a semester later than my class because over the winter of 1979 I ski bummed in Steamboat Springs. Washing breakfast dishes in the morning and skiing in the afternoon, something like 110 days straight of skiing.
The Roaring 80s
After graduating I nearly stayed at Grinnell to work as a graduate assistant coach with a new coach of the track team. He had a stipend all set up and I could live in a dorm room for free. That coach was the now well known Will Freeman, author of Peak When it Counts (Peak When It Counts : Periodization for American Track and Field (4th ed): William H. Freeman, Freeman, William H.: 9780911521627: Amazon.com: Books), and several other training manuals. Had I known Will would accomplish so much as a coach, maybe I should have stuck around for a semester or two. I was leaning toward staying, but talked to a couple of my biology professors, and they said why stick around? You need to move on. So with mild regrets (then, maybe now) I did.
What follows is a guide to how I have spent my life since that decision, which I mad in early December 1980.
I went home to my parents’ house in Colorado and started looking for work as a wildlife biologist. The beginning of the Reagan era was not a good time to seek employment with the federal government, not to mention that we were in a recession and a period of malaise.
1981-84 I took a course in ornithology at CU Boulder, and found that wolf biologist David Mech was giving a lecture on campus. In his hour long talk he mentioned that he was looking for field technicians, with a degree and willing to work hard. The next day he gave a seminar, and I handed him a resume’ and letter of interest, and a week later he called back and asked if I could start in April! So I worked for Mech and “The Wolf Project” in Minnesota for a year.
Then I came back to Colorado and picked up the schooling with a summer at CU at their Mountain Research Station near Nederland, and CSU for the academic year enrolling in undergraduate courses in wildlife biology. Summer and fall of 1983 I worked for the US Forest Service back in Steamboat Springs, but over the winter I bucked my 1979 desires to ski bum again, and went back to CSU for another semester. By then I had amassed enough credits and experience to apply for graduate school, and I landed a research assistantship in the Department of Natural Resources, studying food habits of elk and deer. I started the program in the summer of 1984.
1984-86. Stayed in Fort Collins working with tame elk and domestic goats, feeding and mucking pens every day and many weekends while taking classes and doing research. That’s also when I met Tamara, an animal enthusiast, and she was smitten the moment that I told her that I had done research work on wolves and elk.
1987. I wrapped up my thesis over the winter, while taking one last stab at ski bumming. This time as a Nordic racer where I competed on the Rocky Mountain circuit and national championships. We got married and I needed a job.
1987-89. I landed a technician job with the Bureau of Land Management in Nevada, and we packed our bags on the 4th of July and moved out to the middle of nowhere in the high desert. I collected grazing data, worked on a couple of wild horse gathers, and did a season of habitat mapping. They offered me a career position, but we decided that Nevada was not for us and I applied for graduate schools and jobs across the country.
1989. I ended not going to graduate school right away, but landed a job as a research associate at Cornell University in New York, doing work on deer damage to ornamental plants in urban and suburban areas.
What race is a dozen years older than did the Boston Marathon? Also, it allowed women’s competition before Boston. This race also has featured a deeper field throughout much of its history, and until recently has been more competitive at the top. In fact, this race was long a proving ground for future Boston winners as well as Olympians, some of whom went on to win Olympic medals.
Look no further than USA Cross Country Championships.
The event started in 1883 when Thomas Delany covered 4.25 miles in 26:30 in New York City. A long (too long) 81 years later Marie Mulder ran 2K in 6:51 in Seattle, Washington to win the first women’s championship. Although the race has not been continuously held (there were no championships in some years in the 1890s at early 1900s). Men’s races have ranged from 4K to 8 miles, although most years it has been 10K (6 to 6.5 miles). Women have run from 2K or 2 miles in the early years up to 8K, with 6K being the most common distance.
The format has changed many times, and going back to the advent of the IAAF (now World Athletics) era in the early-mid 1970s, there have actually been two USA cross country championships each year. One traditionally in the fall, and starting in 1974 a second championship was added, usually in January or February, to allow qualification for the IAAF World Championships. (more on that later)
Until 1920 most of the championships were all held in New York City, with Buffalo, NY (1901, along with the Pan American Exposition), and Boston 1917 being the early exceptions. Since 1930 the championship has been held at venues all over the country, from Florida to Washington State.
Who Are the Champions?
Fred Faller 1919 Champion
Men
Edward Carter (1885-88, and 1892) with five championships was the first multi-champion, with his fastest being 41:35 for 8 miles. George Orton of Canada was the first international winner, running 6.25 miles in 35:58 in 1897, and Orton won again the following year.
Here are the most notable multi-winners after 1890.
(read this article if you have a few minutes!), from Alamosa, via Evergreen, Colorado.
Women
Although the addition of the women’s even did not begin until the 1960s, the women’s cross country championships preceded the running boom by more than a decade. And, like the men there have been a series of multi-winners.
9—Lynn Jennings – 1985, 1987-93, 1996
6—Deena Drossin – 1997-2002 (mix of fall and winter championships)
Doris Brown Heritage was the pioneer, with four wins in the early years, and along the way won the International Cross Country Championships five times, and placed 5th in the 800 at the 1968 Olympics—at the time the longest event at the Olympics–with a 2:01.9.
Later, Deena Drossin (Kastor) won seven championships, both in the fall and the spring, on her way to winning an Olympic medal and setting the American record in the marathon. Likewise, Olympic Silver medalist Shalane Flanagan won six titles, all in the winter championships. They were all greats.
However, no one, male or female has matched Lynn Jennings who won nine cross country championships in her career, and those vaulted her to three IAAF cross country championships, and a and Olympic medal in the 10000 meters. https://trackandfieldnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/lynn_jennings.pdf
Porter and Jennings, early 1990s
Race Formats
From its beginning until the IAAF era (early 1970s) there was one US Championship a year. But when the World Championships were started, a winter “trials” was added, and now it serves as a championship in its own right.
Traditionally, the fall championship was held on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. The ultimate high-level turkey trot. However, starting in 1998, USATF changed the format and created the Club Cross Country championships, usually two weeks later. This race is more diverse, and prior to that time, the overall winner and top 25 (All-American) were the prestige goals, and any team competition was more of an afterthought. Media-wise the fall race received more attention and participation, while the winter event was small but elite event, a prelude to the World XC Championships.
The Club XC Championships emphasize teams, and participation more, and with open men’s and women’s as well as masters (from 40 on up) competition the event usually includes five separate races (Two open men’s races, two men’s masters events, women’s open, and women’s masters).
The winter championships are held in January or February, about six weeks ahead of the World XC championships. Frank Shorter (15K) was the first winner of this race, but typically the men’s race has been 12K. The first women’s winter championship was not held until 1997 when Olympian Amy Rudolf captured the 4K and Nnenna Lynch won the 8K. From 1997 through 2005 the world and USA winter championships had two distances for men and women. Men ran 4K and 12K, and the women ran 4K and 8K.
From 2006-2019 the format has one fall race for men (10K) and the winter race (12K), and for women it has been 6K for fall and 8K in the winter.
The 2020 fall and 2021 winter championships were canceled due to the coronavirus.
My Experiences
I started following the US championships in the late 1970s, and Kenny Moore (Olympic marathoner and author of Bowerman and the Men of Oregon) always had a write-up of the event in Sports Ilustrated. Track and Field News would always follow up a month later with a detailed report and would usually list 60 or 80 of the top 100 runners. But the race always seemed to be on the other side of the country, and over Thanksgiving weekend so post-season and not a great time to fly across the continent.
However, in 1990 we were living in upstate NY and the championships were held at the historic venue at Van Cortland Park in New York City. Talk about the top bucket event of all time! I wouldn’t miss it. Our club ran an XC series that fall and I tried to get the teammates together, but no one else wanted to run. However, my wife had won the women’s division of that series and was up for it.
The race had about 300 men and 200 women. The women went first. Lynn Jennings dominated again, and my wife was about 50th—I wish she had been able to run a year or two earlier (placing 2nd and 3rd at very competitive regional championships in 1988 and 1989), but she still ran solid in 1990.
Pat Porter had his eight-win streak on the line. As I was stretching a half hour before the start upstart Bob Kempainen plopped down next to me on the field and started his own routine. He had finished 2nd place before and I said good luck. Kempainen went on to break Porter’s streak that day, running the course in 30:23 about 8 or 9 seconds ahead of Porter. I would run about 35 minutes and was somewhere in the middle, high 150s or low 160s.
I would not return to any championship cross country for another 23 years. And it changed the trajectory of my life.
After a decade of living in Alaska, I saw that the 2013 fall Club Cross Country championships would be in Bend, OR, not too bad a of a flight. My son was a college student near Seattle, so we met for weekend. It was the first time I had ventured out of Alaska in the winter since I had been there. Some runners in Bend were complaining about the snow on the course and blustery weather. I was thrilled to have 8 hours of daylight and 40 degree temperatures in December! Just a couple months later I started applying for jobs in the Lower 48 and within a year landed a transfer to my homes state, just a few miles where I was born.
I have since competed as a masters in winter 2015 winter (solo) and fall (masters team 7th), 2017 fall (solo), 2018 fall (team 3rd), and 2019 winter (team 2nd) and got a couple age group podiums and a team medal in the process.
I would have run this year, scheduled in for Golden Gate Park in San Francisco (next weekend), at one of the best venues in the country in a great city. I raced there in 2015 and think that the participation is highest of any of the races in the rotation (last year’s race at Lehigh, PA was also well-attended).
Club XC is still the big event, with up to 1,000 open men and 500 women, typically 400-500 runners in the masters (age 40-59) men’s race, and another 200 or so in the 60+ race, and 300 for women masters. However, the winter championship is now the more competitive of the two, with open and junior World Championship or international teams at stake.
Since Club XC was canceled, as well as our state association championship last month, I did not do any specific XC training this fall, nor any XC racing.
Maybe 2021 will be better for us all and we can return.
Questions!
Did you run cross country in high school or college?
If you did, when was your last XC conference, regional/state or national championships?
Do you belong to a club or team that has cross country on the calendar?
Do you have any mudder pictures or epic XC stories of your own?
rrunnin234 