When you’re in the fifth and final cross-country race of the day—and the weather has opened up to make an already slick course even more treacherous with ankle-deep mud and slippery turns—anything can happen.
But for Tinman Elite, the pro running group based in Boulder, Colorado, the story was the same as it has been at the previous two USATF Club Cross-Country Championships—a team victory.
On Lehigh University’s cross-country course in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Tinman dominated the men’s team 10K standings, scoring 22 points. The Hoka New Jersey-New York Track Club was second with 126, and the Hoka Aggie Running Club was third with 137. A bulk of the work was done by Tinman’s Morgan Pearson (29:54) and Aaron Templeton (30:07), who placed first and second overall.
“We thought it was going to be a muddy course,” Pearson said. “We woke up to some mist and thought it might not be bad, but in the 20 minutes before the race, it started coming down a lot more. Overall, running is running, though. Not much changes with the mud.”
If you do a search of Tinman’s team website, you won’t find Pearson’s name, but he’s essentially a full member of the team. He graduated from the University of Colorado in 2016, where he competed in cross-country and track. He trained under Tinman’s head coach, Tom Schwartz, after college and Meet RW+ Members. All of his running workouts are with the Tinman crew, and he thinks that will set him up well for a shot at the 2020 Olympics in triathlon.
The women’s open 6K race had a thrilling finish as Aisling Cuffe, who runs for Saucony, held on to win in 20:07. The surprise on the podium was the runner four seconds back: 17-year-old Katelyn Tuohy, who just seven days ago won her third straight Nike Cross Nationals title in Portland, Oregon.
In the women’s team standings, the Hoka Aggie Running Club won with 73 points. The Nomad Track Club (125) and the Boston Athletic Association (127) teams took second and third.
More than 850 masters runners, the largest fields ever, chewed up every turn of the course before the open divisions made their runs around the Lehigh course in the afternoon.
And in a meet with hundreds of teams from throughout the nation seeking to run together and show their strength, few showcased more passion than The Janes, Make Music Your Ultimate Training Partner.
In the women’s masters division, The Janes were led by Nancy James-Klinger, 42, who finished third after placing fifth in this race a year ago. The seventh grade math teacher and mother of two boys—Rhett, 12, and Cash, 10—joined the group two years ago after “stalking” the team website since its inception in 2002. She ran track at Cal State Northridge but had gotten into triathlons, mountain biking, and cyclocross after college.
Though the conditions and the footing were a challenge for somebody from Santa Clarita, California, James-Klinger said her previous activities helped in this environment.
“We never run in the mud in Southern California,” she said. “I think I just went back to my mountain bike skills and was just looking for what [part of the course] has the best grip. In mountain biking, you’re always looking for the hard-packed, rocky, or the grass. I’d just always take the line that looked the best and get a couple steps on girls.”
With two boys regularly playing soccer, James-Klinger needed an endurance pursuit that was time efficient, and that’s when she decided to reach out to the founder of The Janes, Tania Fischer.
“Half our team are moms. I’m a mom. And a lot of women come to me at the start saying they don’t know if they can do this anymore,” Fischer said. “But we do it on our own terms. It’s all about the support. Some days you run at a high level, some days you don’t. We all understand.”
The team bonding and camaraderie on display from The Janes—and every other club team closing out 2019 with a cross-country race—made the rainfall and the dropping temperatures moot. The cheers only got louder as singlets became more caked in mud during the final men’s race—and that’s why a cross-country race seems to bring out the best in many runners.
“I don’t think I’d come to something like this unless it was with a team,” said James-Klinger. “Our team is just awesome. There’s no pressure, but we’re all here to just bring it on the day of the race. That makes you step up and get serious.”
