Nike Cross Nationals: Bartlett amazes with 2nd-place finish
Blair Bartlett (left) poses with her 2nd-place trophy alongside winner Natasza Dudek and 3rd-place finisher Jaelyn Williams. | Becky Holbrook for RunnerSpace
Lawrenceville junior Blair Bartlett continues to build her legacy as one of the greatest cross country runners in New Jersey history — this time taking 2nd place at Nike Cross Nationals!
She took 2nd place after an extremely exciting battle for the individual title. After a very fast first half, it was a three-girl race between Bartlett, Natasza Dudek (the NXR Midwest champion from Michigan ranked #1 in the country) and Jaelyn Williams (the California champion). They had separated themselves from the pack, with each refusing to back down or slow the pace. They were running three-wide at times.
Williams made a move at 3K and opened up a 4-second lead over the next kilometer. Just after the 4K mark, however, Dudek made a move to catch Williams. Bartlett covered Dudek’s move, and the two girls overtook Williams in quick succession going up a steep hill with 200m to go. As they both kicked with everything they had down the homestretch, Dudek just barely managed to hold her slim advantage over Bartlett, eventually breaking the tape in 16:50.1. Bartlett finished just a second later in 16:51.7 for 2nd place. Williams held on for the 3rd-place trophy in 16:58.0.
Once again, Bartlett is rewriting the record books. That’s the highest any New Jersey girl has ever placed at NXN. (Colts Neck’s Ashley Higginson won Nike Team Nationals in 2006, but that was before the meet featured an individual championship.) Even on a course which was muddy and even flooded in parts — which, to be fair, is not all that unusual in Portland — Bartlett’s time of 16:51.7 is #6 all-time on the championship course at the Glendoveer Golf Course.
As another way to consider how extraordinary that result is, remember that the New Jersey 5K record coming into this season — before Bartlett shattered it in October — was 16:43. Bartlett came within 8 seconds of that old record on a tough course in terrible conditions. Bartlett is on another level that this state has never seen.
“She’s a fighter.”
Bartlett works alongside Dudek to catch Williams in the last half-mile of the race. | Becky Holbrook for RunnerSpace
When asked for her thoughts on the race during a post-race interview, Bartlett shared, “I’m super happy with how that went. I had a tough week, but I was really happy with how I was able to show up and try my hardest.”
A “tough week” might’ve been an understatement. She came down with the stomach flu on Tuesday, threw up all that night, and then burned with a fever all of Wednesday. Miraculously, she woke up feeling better on Thursday and was able to catch her flight to Portland, where she continued to improve ahead of Saturday’s race.
To her credit, Bartlett never brought up her sickness as an excuse, before or after the race. “I felt strong during the race,” Bartlett clarified when an interviewer asked afterwards about the fever.
By Friday evening, she was feeling good physically, and she sat down with her coach, Derrhyl Duncan, for one final pep talk before the biggest race of her career. Coach Duncan’s message to her: know that you did the work to get here, know that you deserve to be here, and take control of your own destiny.
“Of all the athletes here,” Coach Duncan counseled, “you get to have a say in how tomorrow goes. Leave your mark on this race.”
Part of leaving her mark on the race included being assertive and intentional in her race tactics. Duncan wanted Bartlett to use her excellent racing instincts. “If you can sit on [the leaders], that’ll be great. But if you feel like there’s a window for you to be the frontrunner, you do it. We’re going to race throughout the race, and we’re going to find spots to put us in a better position for the end of the race.”
Bartlett did just that. She kept the pedal down in the first half as the hot opening pace whittled the lead pack down to three girls. She ran alongside the leaders but never pushed the pace alone in front. She stayed patient when Williams made a big move at the 3K mark. By the 4K mark, she was still within striking distance of 1st and had secured a top-three finish.
The lingering question was whether she’d still have the physical and mental edge to go for the win, even after the tough week coming into this race.
The answer: Regardless of whether the mid-week sickness took anything out of her physically, she wasn’t going to let it take anything away from her mentally. As Coach Duncan described after the race, “You could easily hang your hat on ‘well, this was week was bad for me so I don’t expect to win.’ But she went out there to try to win it regardless.”
“She’s a fighter. There’s never a time when you just see someone pass or someone get away from her and she gives up. She will never give up.”
She first showed her never-quit attitude at the 4K mark, while facing a four-second gap to 1st place. As she passed Coach Duncan, he called out for her to prepare mentally for another move. She gave him a slight nod, locked in, and began to reel in Williams.
Then, after she and Dudek went by Williams with 150m to go, with Dudek a couple strides in front of her, Bartlett was effectively guaranteed 2nd place. Again, though, she wasn’t ready to just coast and collect her trophy.
“I didn’t necessarily expect to be there,” Bartlett said when asked what it felt like to be kicking for the win against Dudek. “But I was so happy to be there, and ready to push as hard as I could.”
And that she did, giving it everything she had down the homestretch. “I was really focused trying to push past my limit and reach for as hard of an effort as I can,” Bartlett said afterwards. “I just knew that whatever that was going to be is what it was going to be.”
On Saturday, it barely wasn’t enough to catch Dudek for the win. But it was still a phenomenal, inspirational effort that she can be immensely proud of. The fact that Bartlett was one of two girls kicking for the win down the homestretch of a national championship is a testament to her amazing preparation, tactics, competitiveness, confidence, and grit.
Bartlett digs deep with less than 200m to go. | John Nepolitan for RunnerSpace
Bartlett makes Team USA
Bartlett’s grit not only earned her the second-place trophy, it also won her a spot on Team USA! This year, the USATF decided to award a spot on its six-person U20 XC team — which usually consists of college runners — to the NXN individual champion. In this case, the NXN winner, Dudek, is actually Polish and chose to run for Poland, so Bartlett was selected as the top USA finisher at NXN! She’ll don the stars and stripes for the World U20 XC Championships in Tallahassee on January 15th. It doesn’t get any better than that as an ending to her first-ever season of XC.
Of course, her domestic season isn’t over either. She’ll get a rematch against Dudek, Williams, and so many other incredible competitors (including WWP North’s Allison Lee) at the Brooks Nationals Championship this Saturday, December 13, in San Diego.
Race video
Watch the finish of the race here: