Kevin
James of Cardinal O'Hara competed in his final high school cross country race
on December 7 at the NXN Finals in Portland, Oregon! The Syracuse commit
finished 61st in the race to cap off a fantastic career that included four top
three state meet finishes with his Cardinal O'Hara teammates, 1 team NXN berth,
and 2 individual NXN berths. Kevin reflected on his trip and race in Oregon
with PennTrack!
Hey everyone! My name is Kevin James and I’m a senior at
Cardinal O’Hara and PennTrack asked me to write a journal talking about my NXN
experience. So hopefully this journal will help influence some of you to try
attending NXN. (It’s pretty cool)
So on Wednesday I
had a flight out of Philadelphia, to LAX, then to Oregon. But the bad thing was
that there was about a 3 hour layover in LA, which is never fun. But Aislinn
Devlin from Downingtown West was also on my flight, so we hung out in between
flights so it wasn’t as bad if you were on your own with that long of a
layover. After a really long day of traveling we landed in Oregon around 11:30pm,
which is 2:30 in the A.M on the east coast, so that means I was very tired and
happy to get to the hotel and get to bed.
On Thursday I met my roommate Austin Gilbert, who was
from Connecticut. So that morning we had breakfast and then met up with the
rest of the Northeast individuals to head over to the Nike campus. If you have
never been to the Nike campus, I suggest checking it out at least once in your
life because it is awesome there. But when we got there, we got all of our free
gear! This is probably the best part of the whole trip because Nike really
spoils us and gives us so much stuff it’s great. After that we went on a run
around the Nike campus trails which was really nice to run on and we saw some
of the Nike athletes running on the same trails we were on, which is always
pretty cool to see. After that, they took everyone back to the hotel to shower,
and chill out until we had to go back over to Nike for dinner and the opening
ceremonies.
I woke up on Friday very excited to see the new course,
because it was something that was going to make the race feel more like a legit
XC race, unlike the old course. So when we got to the course, they brought us
to the new athlete village, which was indoors unlike the old course, so it was
already a big step up from the year before. Then after they explained the new
course, everyone went out and started running through the course, and I
realized during the run through how flat the course actually was, which made me
excited since I really never run flat courses. So after the course preview, we
went back to the hotel for some down time before we had to go back to Nike.
When we got to Nike, we had dinner and there was an athlete Q&A, which was
awesome and funny because everyone got to hear some cool stories from the Nike
athletes. After that, they took us back to the hotel for the night.
The next day I
woke up very nervous/excited because it is such a big race. On the way over to
the course, the buses were very quiet and so was the athlete village because
everyone was all business and focused on the race, so this made me kind of
nervous. I don’t really know why.
The
race
I got through my warmup feeling very good and ready to
go. The race plan was to get out early and put myself in the top 20 in the
first mile, and then to make a judgment call on whether I was going to go with
the leaders or not. So in the first mile everything went perfect, I was with
the front pack and was feeling very good, but right around 2K going downhill I
took a weird step in the mud that caused
me to straighten up really hard which for some reason caused my back to tighten
up really bad. So after this happened I was in a lot of pain for the last 2
miles and was just going backwards, which was very frustrating. I ended up
finishing 61st which was extremely disappointing, but it left me
motivated for track to start!
After the race was over they took us back to the hotel and
over to Nike for dinner and the closing ceremonies. Then they brought us back
to the hotel where they have a dance which ends up being pretty fun every year.
Then on Sunday I spent the rest of the day sadly
traveling back home.
But NXN is definitely a great experience. You get
treated like royalty the whole time your there and you get to meet a bunch of
cool people, and get a lot of cool stuff! So anyone debating Foot Locker or NXN,
I suggest NXN!
Lastly I want to thank my family, my teammates, and
especially my coaches because without them, none of this would have ever been
possible. And I want to congratulate Olivia, Aislinn, and the Unionville girls
on killing it and representing PA really well!
Good luck to all of PA on the upcoming track season!
-Kevin
(P.S. Rob Morro has tiny calves)
