The Grass Is Greener In Columbia ⏱️
Lap 247: Sponsored by Olipop
Sponsored by Olipop
Olipop gave grape an upgrade! Made from real concord grape juice with a hint of lime to create the perfect blend of sweet and tart, Olipop’s Classic Grape is the nostalgic flavor you know and love—all grown up.
Like every Olipop, it’s made with real ingredients that do good: 50 calories, 5g of sugar, and full of prebiotics and plant fiber that help your gut feel right. You can find Olipop at Target, Whole Foods, Walmart, or just head to DrinkOlipop.com and use code CITIUS25 for 25% off your orders.
Compiled by David Melly, Paul Snyder, Audrey Allen, Paul Hof-Mahoney & Jasmine Fehr
It’s Time For An NCAA Battle Royale ⚔️
This Saturday in Columbia, Missouri, the fastest collegians from across the country will be momentarily setting aside their holiday-themed Starbucks cups for Bicarb bowls and Nomio shots. And last we checked the forecast, it looks like we’re in for a perfectly muddy stage to dance on a quintessentially cross country day. Which is good news because there are some major unanswered questions hanging over the season.
Can the rookie defeat the reigning champ?
Last year’s winner, Doris Lemngole, has come off a fifth-place steeple showing at World Championships looking unstoppable. She won SECs in 19:32.4 then backed that up with a commanding 18:43.8 win at the South Regional. She has the experience, but Jane Hedengren has looked like she’s operating on an entirely different level. She opened her season with a win at Pre-Nats in 18:42.3, followed that with an 18:29.6 win at Big 12s, and then dominated the Mountain Regional in 19:06.6. That was a 42 second margin of victory over two-time NCAA champion Pamela Kosgei. Yes, 19:06 is slower than Doris’s 18:43 regional win, but Hedengren raced at 4,000 feet elevation and her margin of victory was enormous while Lemngole’s was only six seconds. On Saturday, we finally get to see the two stars match up.
Will Habtom Samuel finally get his cross country title?
And a second, equally important question: will the jersey swap tradition continue on the men’s podium? The New Mexico star donned the Harvard crimson in Madison last year as an ode to the repeat battle between him and two-time NCAA cross country champion Graham Blanks. Now that the crown is up for grabs and Samuel has notched second-place finishes in the indoor 5000m and outdoor 5000m and 10,000m since then, he looks poised to end his runner-up streak. He’s one of most experienced guys in the field and has the confidence of an undefeated season at his disposal, racking up margins of 7 seconds, 24 seconds, and 20 seconds in his wins at the Nuttycombe, Mountain West Champs, and Regionals, respectively.
Who you got in a fight: Wolves or Cougars?
NC State and BYU have spent the season trading places at the top of the women’s rankings and we finally get the matchup between the last two national champs. BYU is looking for their second straight, whereas NC State wants to get back on top for the fourth time in the last five years. One of BYU’s scorers is likely to score, at most, two points with Hedengren to lead the way. Meanwhile, NC State has World Championship finalist Angelina Napoleon, last year’s fifth-place finisher Grace Hartman, and a ton of depth behind the two. Hartman and standout freshman Sadie Engelhardt both sat out Regionals though, which could be injury-related or simply keeping them extra fresh for the Big Dance. Looking ahead, both teams have enough low sticks to win, but championships often come down to the fourth and fifth runners along with a bit of race day luck.
Who wins the favorite-less men’s team title?
In a dogfight for the top two men’s teams, Iowa State and Oklahoma State are likely both carrying a chip on their shoulders, either to bury some dramatic headlines this season or reassert their dominance on the national stage. OSU has the head-to-head edge this year at Big 12s and the Midwest Regional, but history isn’t in their favor: the Cowboys were the favorites heading into this meet last year before falling to eighth. Speaking of the Midwest regional, OSU won the dual-meet-at-the-top even when double national 5000m champ Brian Musau recorded the worst finish of his collegiate career in 17th place. It’s worth noting that Iowa State was without Meshack Kimutai, their fifth scorer from Big 12s, but it’s tough to picture a world where that could close the gap if Musau can deliver the goods.
Who will win the American race-within-a-race?
With all the recent news of international recruiting companies and their athletes dominating this year’s cross country scene, you might be asking what Americans are in the conversation for the individual podium. Virginia’s Gary Martin and Wake Forest’s Rocky Hansen will be returning for a third round in the ring, but the latter is looking like a heavy favorite given that he’s taken the win of the two-man race by 20+ seconds at ACCs and Southeast Regional. Michigan State’s Riley Hough has put together an excellent track cross country record this year, with eighth-place finishes at Gans Creek and Nuttycombe, but notched his worst finish of the season in 10th-place at the Great Lakes Regional so it’s possible the extra 2K isn’t his forte. Butler’s William Zegarski sure knows how to close and is the second-best returning American behind Martin, so he’s one to look out for after a promising fourth-place finish at the Great Lakes Regional. Plus, we can’t talk up this Bulldog without also mentioning his teammate Jesse Hamlin, the runner-up at that regional, and third-placer Ethan Coleman of Notre Dame.
Is Northwestern the biggest underdog?
The women of Northwestern may be the most surprising team in the country. They opened the season unranked and climbed all the way to eighth at their highest. At the Midwest Regional, they finished second behind Oklahoma State to earn an automatic qualifier… and they did it without going all-out. Their top three crossed together in 15th, 16th, and 17th, and their fourth and fifth runners were only a few seconds back in 18th and 20th. If their regional meet was just a glorified tempo, Northwestern could make a huge jump at nationals. Tennessee pulled off a similar rise in 2023 where they started the season unranked nationally and ultimately finished sixth at the NCAA Championship. Will we see a similar story with Northwestern?
Is Eastern Kentucky the biggest dark horse on the men’s side?
EKU wasn’t ranked a few weeks ago, but the team appears to be peaking at just the right time. At the Southeast Regional, they finished second behind Wake Forest and beat Virginia, one of the teams we think could be a legit podium contender. Virginia might have had an off day, but EKU’s runner-up finish still matters. They’ll be heading into NCAAs with a ton of confidence after pulling off one of the biggest upsets across all nine regional meets. If they can repeat that level of performance, they could shake up the entire men’s team race.
By how much will the course records be lowered?
This season alone, 31 women and 34 men ran under the Gans Creek 6K and 8K course records, respectively. That’s because, despite its muddy tangents and slight rolling hills, the Columbia, Missouri, course is a relatively young one: it opened in 2019. Of course, championship races, especially cross country ones, are never about the times, but we’d place our bets that the second-ever 10K to tear up the Gans grass will be faster than OSU’s Isai Rodriguez’s 29:40.1 win at the 2022 Midwest Regional. Each of the last five national titles has been won in times faster than that—on three occasions, over a full minute faster. On the 6K side of things, Hedengren wasn’t challenged with her 18:42.3 at Pre-Nats, which lowered the already-lowered 19:07.0 early-season CR by WSU’s Rosemary Longisa. So what can we expect with an honest race between the freshman phenom Hedegren and seasoned vets like Lemngole and Kosgei. Only (the) time(s) will tell.
With all that said, it’s Nationals time. You’re no longer subject to quad-box watching Regionals while waiting for lagging and sometimes wildly inaccurate splits to update on a jumble of signal-dependent timing websites. Unless you’re driving out to Missouri, spurred on by a devastating case of CoMo FOMO, you can watch the meet this Saturday at 10 a.m. ET on ESPNU. Hopefully the finish line will be represented by more than a pixel or two!
What’s Going On With USATF’s Finances These Days? 💸
Sure, it’s a quiet time for professional track and field. There aren’t many meets on the calendar, and virtually all the top athletes are in deep postseason hibernation. But nothing gets the fans engaged like some breaking news on everyone’s favorite topic: tax filings.
Don’t unsubscribe! This is important stuff. Because USA Track and Field is a tax-exempt nonprofit organization, every year they have to tell the IRS—and us, the public—how they’ve been making and spending their money over the past year. Don’t worry; we read the forms so you don’t have to, and here’s what you need to know:
This week, USATF reported, alongside a bunch of other information, that the organization generated record revenue in 2024. Hooray! Regardless of your personal feelings about Max Siegel, the board of directors, or the organization in general, it’s inarguably a good thing for American track and field fans that the governing body is making more money this year than the year before. Investing in the good things we all like—hosting high-quality domestic meets, direct athlete support, and sending full teams to championships, to name a few—isn’t possible if USATF has no money. So hearing that the organization brought in $44.6 million in the calendar year 2024, a 22% increase over 2023, is a surface-level takeaway we can all celebrate.
Now, here’s where we bring things back down to earth. USATF’s expenses still exceeded its revenue, which happens pretty much every year but was greatly exacerbated by the costs of hosting the 2022 World Championships. Currently, the organization is sitting on a total deficit of roughly $6 million, $1.2 million of which was added this year. That’s not a huge worry for an organization of USATF’s size and scale, but it’s one of those things that can become a huge worry over time if the trend of slightly outspending your income continues.
Promotional sponsorships from companies like Toyota and Nike make up a significant chunk of USATF’s revenue every year. Those numbers didn’t change much, which pretty much confirms what we already know: track and field didn’t become a wildly more valuable advertising space in 2024, and USATF didn’t bring in any new big-name corporate heavyweights. What did grow significantly was revenue from events ($1.3 million to $6.2 million) and memberships ($3.9 million to $5.4 million). The big former jump likely comes primarily from the U.S. Olympic Trials: it’s a lot more lucrative to host a ten-day championship in an Olympic year than a four-day version of USAs in a Worlds year. A full-session pass to last year’s Hayward festivities was over $400, with single-day tickets costing more per session. And the cost of a USATF membership has more than doubled since 2021, growing from $32 per year to $65 if you want to re-up for 2026.
So here’s one way to look at it: you, dear reader, are doing a lot to keep USATF afloat! The organization’s path toward revenue growth appears to rely heavily on getting track and field participants and fans to pay for services and experiences. As member fees and ticket prices, like pretty much everything else in the world right now, continue to swell, an important question for us as consumers of USATF’s offerings should be: does the product we receive in return reflect the added value we’re putting in? Because that trend is not reversing any time soon.
The news earlier this year that the 2025 NYC and LA Grand Prix-es would be cancelled will have ripple effects on next year’s tax report. There probably won’t be any bombshell revelations there, however. The simple fact that the meets got cancelled likely means that they weren’t generating much revenue to begin with, or at the very least that revenue came nowhere close to balancing out the expense of running the two meets.
So how else are your hard-earned dollars being spent? In the past, USATF CEO Max Siegel’s compensation structure has been the source of much scrutiny. Again, there’s a mixed bag to report here: Siegel is still making seven figures, but his salary actually decreased relative to 2023, from $1.17 million to $1.13 million. Organizational salary costs increased by around 11%, from $9.5 million to $10.5 million. Among the ten highest paid employees, no one else’s salary changed wildly, and generally speaking, staff costs accounting for less than a quarter of overall expenses is a fairly good ratio for nonprofits of this size.
All in all, this news paints the picture of an organization that’s not headed in a wildly positive direction, but not a wildly negative one either. What it likely means for the future is that USATF will be laser-focused on putting on revenue-generating events while keeping costs as low as possible, and there’s one big one coming up soon to keep an eye on: the World Cross Country Championships in Tallahassee on January 10. The success of that event will set the tone for the year. With no Olympic or World Championship on the track, USATF can’t afford—literally—for fans/customers to treat 2026 like a “down year.” Let’s hope for all our sakes they put together a calendar that’s well worth your time and your dollar.
A Chat With Sean Fries, NXR Heartland Champ And NXN Title Threat 🗣️
The CITIUS MAG crew was on-site in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, two weekends ago to take in all the excitement from Nike Cross Regionals Heartland, the first of eight regional competitions that’ll determine the fields for December 6th’s Nike Cross Nationals in Portland, Oregon.
After the dust (mud?) settled and Stanford-bound Sean Fries of Minnetonka, Minnesota, was crowned the boys’ individual champion, he sat down with CITIUS MAG’s Paul Hof-Mahoney for a conversation that ranged from Fries’s undefeated thus-far-season, his steady progression, and balancing being one of the country’s top prep distance runners with being the captain of his school’s swim team. You can read the full interview (edited lightly for length and clarity) here.
We also have an interview with Averi Lowen, who just won her third Georgia State cross country title. The Bowdon High School junior talks about how she fell in love with running, what it’s like training mostly on her own, and the mindset that keeps her motivated each season. She also shares about the big goals she’s chasing next. You can read the full interview here.
Paul Hof-Mahoney: The progression from just the last three years, 35th as a sophomore to ninth last year, and then you take the win this year. NXR is always such a big meet, what has this meet meant to you throughout your high school career?
Sean Fries: For me, it’s always kind of been the premier competition where all the different athletes from all the states come together. And because of that, it’s just always kind of been the focus, especially on my team of where all of us are trying to go. It’s a really flat course, so usually we’re trying to run super fast times. Obviously this year that wasn’t quite realistic, but in years past, that’s kind of the focus. And also it’s just a fun trip to go on as a team and get a little bit closer.
It was in that second mile where you really made the move, the top guys were all pretty bunched up coming through the one mile split. When you decided to go, was that the plan going in?
In the days leading up to the race, I was kind of talking with my coach. Obviously the Heartland region has a ton of great 1600m talent with guys like Quentin Nauman and Grady Lenn, obviously two amazing 1600m runners. So basically all the contenders besides me and a couple of other guys have really potent kicks that are really dangerous towards the end of the race. So my coach wanted me to try and go out a little bit more aggressive and try to make my move quite early on in the race. And he did specifically say, ‘Don’t lead at all that first mile, but after that mile mark, start pushing and try just to string things out as much as possible to make everybody hurt.’ And so that’s what I ended up doing and executing pretty well.
Your 2025 season as a whole, you’re up to 7-0 now, and you’ve just been consistently knocking out these A-plus performances every race. What has this season been like as you’ve been watching a season this excellent come to fruition every single race?
The entire year I’ve just been believing in the work that I’ve put in, trusting that the results will come from that work, and trusting that at the end of the season, I’m capable of doing something really special. Now it’s just a matter of putting things together and seeing how well I can mentally and emotionally prepare for that moment. There’s a whole host of people that are contenders to do that special thing, but I’m just happy to be in contention and to be one of those guys.
I was looking at your Instagram bio, and it says ‘swim and dive.’ It’s not often we see NXR champions that have a second sport still in their bio. What does your swim and dive career look like right now, and how does that kind of mingle with your cross country and track careers?
So I’m still on the Minnetonka Boys Swim and Dive team. I’m actually a captain as well. Luckily, it’s a winter sport, so I believe our practices now start in about a week and a half. Basically those first like three weeks of practice, I’ll just be doing a warmup and then getting out of the pool to do my running workout leading up to NXN. It’s definitely something that I think has benefited me over the past couple of years, being able to have kind of like a mental break in the middle of the winter when it’s really cold outside—not very many people wanna run outside when it’s that cold. Being able to kind of mentally focus on something else and then be able to redial in for the spring and have a little bit more energy going into track, then going into the summer cross country buildup.
You’re committed to go to Stanford in the fall. What about that program appealed to you in the recruiting process and how excited are you to get out there?
Going through the recruiting process, I was really looking for schools that I thought best balanced both academics and athletics. Obviously Stanford is one of the best in both aspects. Their team struck me as being extremely close. I felt like I really belonged there during my visit and I felt I was able to connect really well with a bunch of the runners on the team. It seemed like all of them enjoyed being around each other and it seemed like a great group of guys. But then obviously, Coach Santos and Coach Clark, they’ve coached a bunch of experienced teams, great teams and great runners. They know what they’re doing and I hope to be able to contribute to the program there and hopefully be able to keep on improving.
This interview is part of our 2025 Nike Cross Nationals Series, where we’re catching up with some of the top high school athletes in the country as they prepare for the biggest meet of the fall. Stay tuned for more Q&As with the rising stars of high school distance running.
More News From The Track And Field World 📰
– In what is perhaps the most The Lap Count-y thing to ever happen, there was an NCAA track and field-related question on Jeopardy last week. The clue: “Order up! Iona’s track & field director gave 2025 MAAC champ distance runner Lachlan Wellington this tasty nickname.” The answer (in the form of a question!)? “What is Beef Wellington?” Congrats to said track and field director, Joe Pienta, Beef Wellington himself, and to the entire Iona program on qualifying for NCAAs, too.
– Elaine Thompson-Herrah, the Jamaican great 100m/200m great who did not compete last season, has returned to her old training group, the Elite Performance Track Club, to work with coach Reynaldo Walcott.
– Elise Cranny has joined the Manchester, England-based M11 Track Club, and will work with coaches Jenny Meadows and Trevor Painter. Given that her plan to focus on the 800m/1500m next year, she could do worse than having Georgia Hunter Bell and Keely Hodgkinson as training partners!
– There’s depth, and then there’s DEPTH. At the Ageo City Half Marathon in Japan, the men’s winning time was only 60:45, but an astonishing 49 runners finished under 63 minutes.
– The finalists for Nicest Guy are out! World Athletics continued to announce its slate of end-of-year awards nominees with the finalists for the Fair Play award, which included pole vault silver medalist Emmanouil Karalis, 1500m finalist Josh Kerr, and steeplechaser Tim Van de Velde.
– University of New Mexico star Pamela Kosgei—winner of last year’s 5000m and 10,000m NCAA outdoor titles—has signed an NIL deal with HOKA.
Interested in reaching 20,000+ dedicated runners and track and field fans? Advertise with us here.