The Road to Nationals, Literally
This is the story of one team’s route to Louisville, but it’s a story that transcends people and place. It’s a story for all of D3 cross country in the fall of 2021.
Since COVID-19 cancelled the cross season last year, the idea of a national meet seemed miles away. This season, I think I speak for many teams when I say it was a comeback. It was a chance to remind ourselves why we run cross country. It was emotional to toe the start line again. A “normal” season gave us all renewed hope and fight.
Late August — It is dusk outside and my team is sitting in a classroom during pre-season camp. The first-year runners are nervous while the returners are reminiscing. Our coach stands in front of the room and discusses our goals. We set a team goal of qualifying for the national meet, which hasn’t happened since 2017. We are cautiously optimistic, but coach believes we can make it happen. “You’ve got what it takes,” she says. With one senior and a handful of juniors, our team is young and inexperienced. Most of us have yet to race a full collegiate cross country season, but our depth will show in the upcoming meets. Later that week, the first USTFCCA rankings are released. Our team is 30th in the nation, enough to plant the seed of hope in our minds.
Mid October — Ten runners board a plane to New Jersey to duke it out with teams from different regions. The other twenty runners race at La Crosse, trying to prove our team is competitive without the top pack. In New Jersey, the team finishes third overall. We have accomplished what we came to do: secure a spot at nationals by placing higher than other regional teams. The rankings seed us higher and higher. We jump from 30th to 23rd. At La Crosse, the team places 8th without our top pack, proving our depth and talent. It’s a confidence boosting weekend; the national meet is no longer a harebrained scheme.
October 30th — At the start line on our home course, the energy is positive. We’re excited and in high spirits. Last night, coach told us we could win the conference meet. If we do, it will be the first time in five years and the tenth time in program history. Our only senior, Ellen Mickelson, has high hopes for her last meet on the home course. The gun goes off and we work in packs to pick off runners from other teams. When we come to the 3k mark, a wall of screaming meets us. It’s a crowd unlike any at our previous meets. When we hear the cheers, our instincts kick in and we surge. We push to the finish, outkicking the other teams for a conference title. Ellen races to a third-place podium finish for her last home meet. At the awards ceremony, when it is announced our team has won, we get up and scream for joy. For years, our rival team has beat us for the conference title, but not today. It’s a bittersweet moment winning on our home course, while also knowing it’s the last time our full team will race together.
November 12th — Coach picks twelve runners to represent us at the regional level. Our top-seven scorers and five alternates journey to Eau Claire for the regional championship. That night, those of us not racing the next day make signs. We cut out pictures of our runners and paint our team colors on cardboard. At regionals, the energy is compounded from our conference success. Teams are waving flags and cheering. The spectator count is high. The goal today is to beat our rival team (again), and finish third in the region. After the start, hordes of spectators cheer and scream. We run around with our handmade signs and flag. Ultimately, we finish in fourth place with four All-Region performances. While we didn’t meet our goal of third, the team felt confident in their race.
November 14th — While sitting at lunch in the cafeteria, the NCAA announces the teams who have qualified for nationals. We are in. It is a moment we have dreamt about all season, but the question arises, what now?
November 19th — The time is 1 p.m., and we pile into three cars heading for Louisville, KY. Our plan is to drive halfway from Northfield, MN to a team connection’s house in Peoria, IL. Sometime around 7 p.m., we pull into a gas station about an hour from our overnight stop. The woman inside asks where we are from, and we tell her how we are going to see our teammates race in Louisville. She looks at us like we are kind of crazy and tells us good luck.
November 20th — We’re racing the clock to get to Louisville. Not only is it a 5 ½ hour drive to Louisville from Peoria, but we’re also jumping an hour difference with the time zone. It may not seem like much, but it means we have to rise at 3:15 a.m. When our alarms go off, we stumble out of beds and off couches out to the cars. We’re on the road by 3:30, we’ve slept at most four hours. The sky is pitch black and cold. Despite our lack of sleep, those in my car are alert. The adrenaline and excitement keep us awake. As the sun rises, it occurs to us we are driving 22+ hours for a 22-minute race. It’s absurd if you think about it. One of my teammates says, “For every minute of the race, we drive an hour.”
As we cross the bridge into Kentucky, we begin cheering. When we arrive at E. P. Tom Sawyer State Park, it’s 10:30 a.m. The anticipation and competitive drive in the air is palpable. If we thought the atmosphere of regionals was intense, we were unprepared for nationals. Cars are lined up outside the entrance to the park and streams of people are walking in from the strip mall parking lots nearby. The air is cool and the sun is warm — perfect cross country weather. Leaves are still on the trees in Louisville; and so, for a couple of hours we get a taste of fall again.
We jog over to the start line to watch the men’s race. Teams run across the start waving their flag as roars erupt from the sidelines. It’s as though running across the field demonstrates the depth of your team pride. This year, our team of spectators is as naive as our team of racers. We arrive unaware of the spectating traditions teams like WashU and Tufts have cultivated as they run around in spandex and sports bras and body paint.
When the starting gun goes off, the cheering is deafening. The racers charge, and a pack of nearly three-hundred runners forms. My teammates are in the thick of the pack. After the race, they describe the feeling. In most races, they are at the front of the pack. Here, at nationals, they are in the middle. There is never a time where they are running by themselves.
At the finish line, we watch our runners sprint and pass people. When the official results come out, we’ve placed 13th, higher than we ever expected. To have a showing this strong has us talking about nationals next year. Come August, we’ll be dreaming of our next national appearance.
After the race, our spectators head back to Illinois; our racers head back to their hotel. The drive is relaxed without the worry of missing a race. We loosen up, and sleep-deprivation deliriousness takes over. My car plays road-trip games to pass the time. Our brains are clouded by the excitement and exhaustion of nationals, which makes everything funny. In the evening we arrive back at our overnight house and splay out tired, cramped limbs. The fifteen of us who road-tripped sit around the kitchen table and talk. The next day’s drive goes by quickly. We want to get back to our own beds, and on Monday we have classes to attend.
In the past week, Ellen (our sole senior) and I started joking that, “Grades are temporary, but the glory of running is forever.” It’s corny and was said on the fly, but I can’t help thinking it contains some truth. Years from now, I won’t remember the grade of my last exam, but I’ll remember the time my team qualified for nationals. And the time a bunch of us decided to drive 22+ hours to watch our best runners compete with the very best of D3.