When was the first time you watched something more elite than a high school race?
Mine was the 2003 NCAA XC championships in Waterloo. I was in high school at the time. I had run my first half marathon race the day before and piled in a car early Monday to ride up to Waterloo with my high school XC coach. It was pretty cold that day, in the 20s I believe, and my legs were super stiff when I was trying to run around and cheer. I didn't follow college running super closely at the time but I knew generally who good individuals were. I remember Flanagan had a gap on the field like 200m in which I thought was absolutely absurd. I wasn't really surprised when Ritz won because I had known of his high school cross country accolades (didn't know he'd been injured that fall). I remember saying to my coach, "I thought college teams would have more differentiation in their jerseys. Like every other guy in that top 15 had the same style, Nike crimson jersey. Wait....good God they were ALL Stanford guys."
I've been to many more NCAA champs since then because I loved that first experience.