Results
 | This section is empty. You can help by adding to it. (December 2010) |
The 2009 Nike Cross Nationals were held at Portland Meadows in Portland, Oregon on December 5, 2009. It was the sixth edition of the nationals, and for the second year in a row individual runners were allowed to compete alongside team qualifiers. The boys' race was won by Craig Lutz, a junior from Marcus High School in Flower Mound, Texas, in a championship record time of 15:09.2 for the 5 km course. Lutz came from third to first in the closing stages of the race, overtaking Joe Rosa and just holding off a strong kick from Elias Gedyon. The top five finishers in the boys' race were all juniors.
On the team side, Boerne Samuel V. Champion High School from Boerne, Texas narrowly defeated Joel E. Ferris High School from Spokane, Washington and defending champion The Woodlands High School from The Woodlands, Texas. Boerne Champion held a narrow lead from 3 km on out, gaining the biggest advantage from their second runner Nathan Christianson who finished 16th in team scoring to Ferris' second runner Alexander Avilia who finished 36th.
The girls' race was won by Katie Flood, a senior from Dowling Catholic High School in Des Moines, Iowa, who just held off Kathleen Stevens of Blacksburg High School in Blacksburg, Virginia.
| | This section is empty. You can help by adding to it. (December 2010) |
| Rank | Athlete | Grade | School | Time (m:s.mm) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Craig Lutz | 11 |  Marcus High School | 15:09.2 |
 | Elias Gedyon | 11 |  Loyola High School | 15:09.5 |
 | Joe Rosa | 11 |  WW-P North High School | 15:09.8 |
| 4 | Ammar Moussa | 11 | Arcadia High School | 15:17.6 |
| 5 | Zach Wills | 11 |  Mason High School | 15:18.5 |
| 6 | Sherod Hardt | 12 |  Queen Creek High School | 15:18.7 |
| 7 | David Osborn | 12 |  Chesterton High School | 15:19.6 |
| 8 | Ben Johnston | 12 |  North Central High School | 15:22.3 |
| 9 | Justin Vilhauer | 11 | Redwood High School | 15:24.6 |
| 10 | Adam Thorne | 12 | Ferris High School | 15:25.5 |
| Rank | Team | Points |
|---|---|---|
| | Boerne Samuel V. Champion High School | 195 |
| | Joel E. Ferris High School | 201 |
| | The Woodlands High School | 207 |
| 4 |  Loyola Academy | 208 |
| 5 |  Albuquerque Academy | 236 |
| 6 | Dana Hills High School | 238 |
| 7 | Mead Senior High School | 239 |
| 8 |  American Fork High School | 247 |
| 9 |  Fayetteville-Manlius High School | 270 |
| 10 |  Bishop Hendricken High School | 284 |
Cross country running is a sport in which teams and individuals run a race on open-air courses over natural terrain such as dirt or grass. The course, typically 4–12 kilometres (2.5–7.5 mi) long, may include surfaces of grass and earth, pass through woodlands and open country, and include hills, flat ground and sometimes gravel road and minor obstacles. It is both an individual and a team sport; runners are judged on individual times and teams by a points-scoring method. Both men and women of all ages compete in cross country, which usually takes place during autumn and winter, and can include weather conditions of rain, sleet, snow or hail, and a wide range of temperatures.
Ekiden (駅伝) is a long-distance running multi-stage relay race, mostly held on roads.
Dathan James Ritzenhein is a retired American long-distance runner, and current head coach of On Athletics Club. He held the American record in the 5,000 metres (12:56.27) from 2009-2010, when it was broken by Bernard Lagat. He is a three-time national cross country champion with wins at the USA Cross Country Championships in 2005, 2008 and 2010. Formerly a Nike athlete for the majority of his professional career, Dathan joined the Hansons-Brooks Distance Project team in 2017. In early May 2020, he announced his retirement from competition. He signed with the Swiss shoe brand On shortly thereafter in June 2020 and currently acts as the coach for the OAC in Boulder, Colorado.
Chris Solinsky is a retired American distance runner and an American college cross country coach. Solinsky is the current assistant coach of the Florida Gators cross country team at the University of Florida. Among his more notable achievements, he won eight state championships in high school and five NCAA Division I championships at the University of Wisconsin. He was the American 10,000 meters record holder with a time of 26:59.60 as well as the first non-African to break the 27-minute barrier in the 10,000 m.
Jordan Melissa Hasay is an American distance runner. She grew up in Arroyo Grande, California, and attended Mission College Preparatory High School in San Luis Obispo. She was unanimously selected 2008 Girls High School Athlete of the Year by the voting panel at Track and Field News. In March 2009, she became the ninth high school athlete and third woman on the cover of Track and Field News magazine. She attended the University of Oregon, where she studied business administration and competed on the cross country and track and field teams earning 18 All-American honors, 2011 Mile and 3,000 meters NCAA titles. Her father was a high school basketball star in Pennsylvania, and her mother was a national level swimmer in her native England. Jordan Hasay is no longer coached by Alberto Salazar due to his suspension.
Nike Cross Nationals (NXN) is an invitational cross country meet that serves as the unofficial team national championship of United States high school cross country. Sponsored by Nike, It was designed to heighten competition between high school cross country teams nationwide. NXN was formerly a part of the Nike Nationals Series, which included national events for indoor and outdoor track before New Balance became the sole national championship events for track and field.
Carroll Senior High School is a public secondary school in Southlake, Texas, serving students in grades 11 and 12. The school is part of the Carroll Independent School District, serving the majority of the city of Southlake, Texas and portions of northwest Grapevine, far northern Colleyville and eastern Westlake. The building is located at 1501 W. Southlake Blvd at the intersection of S. Peytonville Avenue and Southlake Blvd.
Blacksburg High School is a high school in the Montgomery County public school division. The school serves the town of Blacksburg, Virginia and surrounding areas of the county.
The Eastbay-Foot Locker Cross Country Championships are a series of annual cross country running races held in various regions of the United States to determine the premier cross country runner in various age groups, but mainly serves to find the best prep cross country athlete in the country. The event began in 1979 by the F. W. Woolworth Company, which initially branded it as the Kinney Cross Country Championships, at the Morley Field Sports Complex in Balboa Park, San Diego, California before Woolworth rebranded the event in 1993 to the Foot Locker Cross Country Championships for Woolworth's sporting goods company. For most people associated with the sport, the name was just shortened to Foot Locker or even abbreviated in agate results as FL. In 2021 the event was rebranded again as the Eastbay Cross Country Championships after the Foot Locker owned company. The event is the longest-running national cross country race for high school students.
Boerne High School is a public high school located in the hill country just 30 miles northwest of San Antonio in Boerne, Texas, USA. The high school used to be the only high school in Boerne which now has a second high school, Boerne Samuel V. Champion High School. The "original" Boerne High School currently serves as Boerne Middle School North.
German Fernandez is a retired American professional runner from Riverbank, California, known for his performance in high school and collegiate cross country and track and field. Later he trained under Jerry Schumacher for the Bowerman Track Club. He is most well known for running the California Cross Country State Meet course record (14:24), as well as running a new American high-school record, 8:34.40 for two miles, at the 2008 Nike Outdoor Nationals championship. He also holds the World Junior Indoor Mile record at 3:55.02. A local meet in Riverbank, California, the German Fernandez Distance Carnival, is named after him.
Chris Derrick is an American distance runner who won 3 consecutive US Cross Country Championships in 2013–15. He attended Stanford University, where he earned 14 All-American honors and holds an American junior record in the 5000 meters.
Suguru Osako is a Japanese long-distance runner. He won the 10,000 metres gold medal at the 2011 Summer Universiade in Shenzhen and holds the Asian junior record for the half marathon. He held the Japanese National Record for the marathon of 2:05:29 set at the 2020 Tokyo Marathon, where he finished fourth.
Mary Cecilia Cain is an American professional middle distance runner from Bronxville, New York. Cain was the 2014 World Junior Champion in the 3000 meter event. She is the youngest American athlete ever to represent the United States at a track and field World Championships meet after competing in the 2013 World Championships in Athletics in Moscow aged 17 years and 3 months.
Alexa Efraimson is an American professional middle distance runner from Camas, Washington who competes for Nike. During the 2014 indoor and outdoor season, as a junior, she set a pair of U.S. high-school records, breaking Mary Cain's 2013 mark in the indoor 3,000 meters (9:02.10) with a time of 9:00.16 and running 4:33.29 in the 1,600 meters to shave 0.53 seconds from Christine Babcock's 4:33.82, set in 2008. Efraimson captured the bronze medal in the 1,500 meters at the 2013 World (U18) Youth Championships in Donetsk, Ukraine.
Ryan Hill is an American long-distance runner. Hill was a silver medalist at the 2016 IAAF World Indoor Championships after finishing second in the 3,000 meters. He represented the United States at the 2009 IAAF World Cross Country Championships – Junior men's race 52nd place, 2013 World Championships in Athletics and the 2015 World Championships in Athletics, where he ran the 5000 meters at both finishing 7th and 5th, respectively.
Craig Engels is an American middle-distance runner. He competed for the United States at the 2013 Pan American Junior Athletics Championships, where he won the men's 1500 meters. In the 2016 USA Olympic Trials Engels was focused on making the semi-finals of the 800m and was listed as an alternate for the 1500m. He finished 4th in the 800m final and 5th in the 1500m final, barely missing out on the Olympics in both events.
Eric Jenkins is a professional distance runner. He first began running at Portsmouth High School in his hometown, after which he was recruited by Northeastern University. After his junior year Jenkins transferred to University of Oregon, where he further established his reputation in collegiate distance running. After his collegiate career he signed a contract with Nike. He formerly ran with the Nike Oregon Project.
Luke Puskedra is an American long-distance runner who competes over distances ranging from 10,000 meters to the marathon.
Taylor Ewert is an American long-distance runner and college track and field athlete for the University of Arkansas. In high school, she set numerous records and was the cross country OHSAA Division I individual state champion in 2019, representing Beavercreek High School. Ewert committed to the University of Arkansas later that year, and in 2020, she was named the Gatorade National Girls Track and Field Athlete of the Year.