Kenneth Rooks wins 1st place at Club XC Nationals in 31:08

OH MY GOD!!!!

You mean there's a race where the runners have to run in adverse conditions, and potentially get some mud and dirt on themselves? and God forbid the temperature is below 70 degrees?

Yep! it's called "Real" cross country, and it's not for the faint of heart. Enough with "the times were so slow, and the course was wet and sloppy".

Wah! Wah!

It's $5,000 for the winning TEAM, not individual. It is club cross nationals, not individual nationals. I don't think he made a dollar from it unless he had some sort of Nike contract bonus. So if you had a good team and only sent 5 people, each runner would get $1,000. No expenses paid for, so it really eats into the profits.

They can, and have, had B races in the past. When they had it on the horse racing track a couple years back, they just had everyone line up with no assigned boxes. It ended up sort of self seeding like a road race with Panning, Hocker, etc up front and the slower runners in the back. I hope they have XC Nationals on the West Coast next December. Club Nationals is cool in that it's one of the few places you can line up with very elite runners in a somewhat small race. Hopefully the influencers don't discover it!

As it should be. They used to offer individual prize purse, even for fricken masters, and it brought the wrong element to the event.

Check the OP’s posting history - yes he is a dumb rookie.

They still do offer individual prizes for Masters only. Highest age grade gets $200.

It’s actually zero money for Kenny. You could only get prize money as a club so an individual running club xc is truly a waste of time… unless you want to just be like Lebron James at a pick up game of basketball at the Y

Haha. I sure hope not!

Rumor is that Nike paid him to run because Brooks had positioned itself to appear as title sponsors. Usatf had ZERO Nike marketing posted anywhere all weekend which is a huge deal considering the $$$ Nike spent buying Usatf rights.

Having a B race at this event is very unpopular, the goal is to use facilities that can accommodate all of the open men in one race.

There are multiple ways to achieve this. 1. Only allow the designated top 7 of each club to start in the official start boxes and make others start behind them. 2. Only allow clubs to enter 7 in the A race and have no limit in the B race. 3. Adopt the track Master's definition and place 35 year olds into the Master's race (and maybe bump 55+ to the 60+ 8k). I think everyone who wants to run it should be able to.

I'm sure that's why Cole Hocker wasted his time with it a few years ago. Heaven forbid people RACE. For FUN even *gasp*

San Diego (Mission Bay), January 2022.

Clubs has been in December. You're referencing a different event.

Title should be:

CLUB NATTYS: ROOK TAKES KING!!!

1. 1 Allie Buchalski 20:27.3
2. 2 Kayley Delay 20:29.5
3. 3 Megan Hasz 20:34.5
4. 4 Bethany Hasz 20:34.5
5. 5 Emma Bates 20:37.5
6. 6 Jessie Cardin 20:40.6
7. 7 Cailie Logue 20:42.8
8. 8 Hannah Eagon 20:48.4
9. 9 Makenna Thurston 21:06.7
10. 10 Amy Davis 21:09.7
11. 11 Cailee Peterson 21:11.5
12. 12 Claire Green 21:12.0
13. 13 Rachel Anderson 21:14.8
14. 14 Makayla Perez 21:15.0
15. 15 Anne-Marie Blaney 21:17.1
16. 16 Elizabeth Chikotas 21:18.2
17. 17 Caroline Alcorta 21:20.0
18. 18 Maya Weigel 21:26.7
19. 19 Kidan Kidane 21:30.3
20. 20 Rebecca Mehra 21:31.0

Open Men

1. 1 Kenneth Rooks 31:08.6
2. 2 Aidan Reed 31:37.0
3. 3 Waleed Suliman 31:43.2
4. 4 Jake Ritter 31:54.2
5. 5 Austen Dalquist 31:59.7
6. 6 Ares Reading 32:01.4
7. 7 Reid Buchanan 32:04.2
8. 8 Henry Wynne 32:04.9
9. 9 Brendan Gregg 32:05.4
10. 10 Shuaib Aljabaly 32:11.1
11. 11 Alexander Ostberg 32:14.0
12. 12 Tom Anderson 32:17.4
13. 13 Turner Wiley 32:19.8
14. 14 Dayton Brown 32:21.0
15. 15 Titus Winders 32:22.6
16. 16 Parker Stokes 32:24.3
17. 17 Carlee Stimpfel 32:25.7
18. 18 Joseph Trojan 32:26.7
19. 19 Mark Huizar 32:26.7
20. 20 Liam Meirow 32:29.5