- Senior Katelyn Tuohy won her third consecutive Nike Cross Nationals cross-country title on Saturday, winning in a time of 17:18.4. She is the first three-time winner of the event.
- Nico Young of Newbury Park High School in Thousand Oaks, California, won the boys’ event, running 14:52.3, a course record.
- In the team competitions, the girls of Saratoga Springs, New York, won with 78 points, while Young’s team of Newbury Park (California) won with 128 points.
Katelyn Tuohy, a 17-year-old senior from North Rockland High School in Thiells, New York, concluded an extraordinary high school cross-country career today by winning Nike Cross Nationals (NXN) for the third time in a row. She becomes the first three-time winner of the event, which began in 2004.
Her time, 17:18.4, was the slowest of her three wins at the Glendoveer Golf Course in Portland, Oregon, but the race took place in heavy rain and cold temperatures—after the boys’ race had already turned the course to mud. In Tuohy’s previous two NXN victories, she set course records: Last year she ran 16:37.8 and in 2017 she ran 16:44.7, winning by large margins both times.
Today, she never opened a wide gap—she usually goes out hard and leads by several meters from the opening strides. This time, the chase pack kept close, and two runners came right up on Tuohy’s shoulder over the final 200 meters to the finish line.
In the end, Tuohy held them off by a narrow margin. Taylor Ewert, a senior from Beavercreek (Ohio) High School, finished second, in 17:19.1; Sydney Thorvaldson, a junior from Rawlins (Wyoming) High School was third in 17:19.4.
For Tuohy, the day was as much a mental victory over the pressure that plagued her coming into the race as it was a showcase of her speed. She was initially disappointed that her margin of victory was so slim.
“Right after I wasn’t too happy,” Tuohy told Runner’s World. “My coach kind of reminded me that was one of my best races mentally. I’m pretty stoked I was able to finish my high school cross-country career like that. It really showed who I am as an athlete mentally because today physically I didn’t have it. It was just gutting it out the last 1K of the race.”
Her coach, Brian Diglio, was impressed, although he could tell midway through the race that his star athlete was struggling.
“This one, she got to show she does have the heart of a champion,” he said. “This one she did get pushed by two tremendous competitors to come out on top. After she crossed the line, I grabbed her and she said, ‘I don’t know if I could have done it if it was another five meters longer.’ They were spent. They gave it everything that they had.”
Tuohy said the combination of nerves, a flight delay, and jet lag combined to make her feel achy and tired.
“This was probably the most nervous for a race I’ve ever been,” she said, “just because the stakes were high. My last high school race. There was a lot of people putting a lot of pressure on this race. It kind of got to me a little bit. I tried my best to stay off social media, but it’s hard when it’s all you hear.”
Tuohy and the other leaders opened with a 5:16 mile in the muddy conditions, a more conservative approach than last year when she opened in 5:04. She gapped the field slightly in the second mile, but she showed her discomfort, looking over her shoulder multiple times to gauge the lead she had.
“I was really struggling so I was just looking back,” she said. “It was like I had a devil and angel on my shoulder: ‘You’re not going to win,’ or ‘You’re going to win. Just tough it out, you can do it.’ It was the most mentally challenging race I’ve ever had.”
Diglio said she had been healthy all fall. Her mileage was in the 50s per week, and Tuohy’s done well in workouts with long intervals: 800s, 1,000s, and miles as well as fartleks.
The challenge was always going to be to keep her mind at ease. How do you manage the stress when so much was expected? Tuohy hadn’t lost a high school cross country race since her freshman year, in 2016, when she finished 13th at NXN in 17:58.
“Nobody is harder on herself than Katelyn. I spend most of my time trying to lower the pressure as much as possible,” he said. “But it’s impossible. At races like this, everyone is talking about a three-peat, and this field was so deep.
“One of the things in terms of continuing to improve will be for her to learn how to deal and handle this type of pressure and these type of situations,” he continued. “That’s something that we’ve got to keep working on.”
In the team competition, the girls of Saratoga Springs, New York (racing under the name Kinetic, in keeping with state high school rules about postseason competitions), won decisively with 78 points. The defending champions from Summit High School in Bend, Oregon, were well back in second, with 160 points.
On the boys’ side, Nico Young of Newbury Park High School in Thousand Oaks, California, obliterated the field, running 14:52.3, a course record. Josh Methner of Hersey High School in Arlington Heights, Illinois, was second in 15:06.1, and Caleb Brown of Shelby (Ohio) High School was third in 15:08.3.
Behind Young, Newbury Park also won the team title with 128 points. They were only four points ahead of their in-state rival, Great Oak High School.
Next weekend, Tuohy faces a new cross-country experience when she will race 6 kilometers at the U.S. Club Cross Country Championships in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. It’s a chance for her to rub shoulders with pro competition. She hopes to qualify for the 2020 Olympic Track Trials in the 5,000 meters. Next weekend, she’s unlikely to be the favorite, and it will be interesting to see how she can do as an underdog.
Unlike other high school runners of her talent, though, Tuohy is not turning pro just yet. She plans to attend college and has made official visits to five schools: the University of Michigan, DAA Industry Opt Out, Providence College, Syracuse University, and Villanova University. Tuohy said she has narrowed the list to three, but she wasn’t saying which ones or when she would announce her decision.
For now, she’ll enjoy making high school cross country history.
“I think it’s pretty cool that I got to rewrite the record books a bit,” she said. “Just leaving my mark. Someday hopefully someone could do the same thing.”
Sarah Lorge Butler is a writer and editor living in Eugene, Oregon, and her stories about the sport, its trends, and fascinating individuals have appeared in Runner’s World USATF to Elect New President Amid Budget Deficit, Run Your Butt Off! and Walk Your Butt Off!
