Nike Pre-Nationals, a meet that is merely 5 years old, will host teams from nine different California conferences, a representative from each large Washington division, British Columbia, Colorado, Idaho, and the top 1A-3A/4A/5A/6A Oregon schools. Hell, even a team from Texas is making the trek up to the Northwest.  Yeah, it’s supposed to be sunny for the race, but my guess is that they haven’t felt temperatures below 85 since January in the Lone Star state (that stat may be a slight dramatization).  

This is also the second year where one of the biggest races in the Northwest has included more than just High-School runners. There is a 3000m race that starts the day reserved solely for middle school students.

The course, highly dependent on the time of the year, has yielded times as slow as 16:25 and 19:23, for the men and women respectively (these were ran in the second NTN) and as fast as 15:05 and 17:42 (ran at the 2009 and 2010 Pre-Nationals). With Nike Team Nationals becoming Nike Cross Nationals 4 years ago and entering its 8^th year, this course has been run a total of 11 times. While the course has weathered some memorable rainstorms and endured slight changes to its layout, it still remains one of the more sought after courses in the nation. Some of the most dominant colligate runners we will see this year have stamped their name on this course.

A key to understanding this race is that times seldom tell the whole story. A flat course yes, but with a man made rollercoaster of moguls and hay bales on each loop, it can be hard to gain momentum.

The course is anything but hard to follow. Almost every turn of the course will have a teammate, coach, or screaming on-looker cheering on the competitors. Portland Meadows racetrack is in for a hell of a weekend. While there is only one top 25 team ranked by Flotrack in this race (Redondo Union (CA) on the women’s side is ranked #13), ESPNRISE top 50 has also ranked…

 

On the Mens Side                            Womens Side

            No. 23 Gig Harbor (WA)                   No. 22 Moutain View (WA)

No. 32 Seattle Prep (WA)                  No. 47 Cherry Creek (CO)

No. 47 Jesuit (Beaverton, OR)

 

Think of the two different rankings as the AP and Coaches polls for the NCAA. Individually, pre-races favorites include Korey Krotzer from Auburn Riverside in Washington and Maddie Meyers of Northwest School in Seattle. Krotzer ran 15:42 in 2010 at Pre-Nationals (placing 7^th)  and is the second fastest returner in Washingtons 4A division behind Andrew Gardner who has the weekend off. Meyers who ran a Personal Best of 17:31 last season and is the reigning 1A Washington champion has already ran 18:19 this season and is posed to post a low time tomorrow.