With the Diamond League concluded, we can say, officially, Graham Blanks, Cooper Teare and
Weini Kelati have nothing better to do atm than get ready for XC.
While we're on the definitely-not-too-early subject, it's completely reasonable to expect Parker Valby, Alicia Monson, Karissa Schweizer and Abdi Nur to be dedicating their every moment to being ready on January 10. We can wait until after Chicago before we expect Connor Mantz to focus full time on representing USA Distance running at home.
Actually the only women I had in my top five who still has track obligations is Taylor Roe; although I will be very interested to see how Shelby Houlihan, Josette Andrews, and Emily Infeld are running come December.
I was disappointed to see several of my dark horses to make the team (Joe Klecker, Hillary Bor, Biya Simbassa, Alex Maier) will be running NYC 5 weeks before nationals and are unlikely to show up, let alone run particularly well.
2022 NCAA and 2025 10m Champ Chares Hicks would be on that list but his 2023 Euro U23 5k title means the two time Euro U23 XC champ wont be able to represent his adopted country at home.
Point of this post: it's not to early to start prodding top runners on their social media about XC.