On Saturday, the 2023 Foot Locker Cross Country champions won their races with a similar tactic: Boerne Champion High School (San Antonio, Texas) sophomore Elizabeth Leachman and Butler (Pa.) High School senior Drew Griffith watched a leader jump ahead, waited for them to tire, and then made their move to the finish line, where they crossed the finish line in first place.
Leachman, just the seventh sophomore to win this race and first since 2018, finished in 16:50.7, while Griffith finished in 15:06.9.
In the first race of the day, Leachman used the disappointment from her race the week before to plan her strategy. On Dec. 2, she finished 15th in the Nike Cross Country Nationals in Portland after starting fast but wearing down over the final 1,000 meters. She focused on that experience as she saw two dozen girls pull ahead of her on Saturday at the start of the race.
Stay patient. Keep pace. Don’t go on a surge that’ll wear her out later.
It didn’t take long before she overtook the majority of the girls, and around the one-mile mark, she was behind only Michigan State commit Rachel Forsyth, who finished her first mile in 5:00.
“I tried to focus on not doing too many hard surges because sometimes it’s really hard for me to recover from those. So I let myself just slowly creep up to her,” Leachman said. “When she made those surges to try to pass me back, I just let her do it until she was tired enough out that I could kind of go and take it.”
The strategy paid off, as Leachman crossed the finish line without a competitor in sight. She finished 13.8 seconds ahead of the second-place Allie Zealand and 17.6 seconds ahead of Forsyth.
It was a remarkable finish, not only because of Leachman’s age, but because just a year ago, she was dealing with hip and hamstring issues, including tendonitis and bursitis. With cross-training activities like elliptical machines and aqua-jogs, as well as joining her school swim team and a club swim team, she regained form in a blazing-fast period of time.
She ran with support from her friends and family and wrote Jeremiah 29:11 on her arm to remind her of the plan set before her.
“Having them behind me helps me know that I’m not defined by my running, but it also gives me the power and the ability to go run for a greater purpose,” Leachman said.
While Leachman won as a sophomore, boys champion Griffith didn’t start competing in high school cross country until he was a sophomore.
He was the top runner on the seventh grade team in junior high, but a growth spurt in eighth grade caused knee pains that forced him off the track until his sophomore year. Nevertheless, after swimming competitively for a decade, he had the aerobic fitness to jump right back in.
Griffith needed all that strength this year as a group of runners worked to catch up to leader Ty Steorts in the second half of the race. On the final hill, a group of five boys clustered with the chance for a single runner to pull away.
“I just saw the guys kind of start to stutter up the top of the hill. That was when I was like, ‘Alright, these guys are fading, I’m ready to make my move,’” Griffith said. “I just knew that all these guys were hurting as much as I am. On the hill, I knew maybe I’m feeling a little bit better than these guys, and it was time to go.”
Griffith felt himself cramping but surged forward, guiding himself with the experience on the hill he gained last year when he competed in this championship race as a junior.
He pulled ahead of the group alongside Berkley Nance, who challenged Griffith as the finish line approached. A little more than 500 meters out, Nance fell back, and Griffith pulled ahead, beating second-place finisher Ryan Pajak by 5.2 seconds and Tamrat Gavenas by 9.7 seconds. Nance finished fourth and Steorts sixth, sandwiching fifth-place finisher Brayden Marshall.
Griffith is committed to run at Notre Dame. He credited the coach and the team for creating an environment that felt like home when he visited.
Until then, he has a few more months to finish high school as the Foot Locker Boys National Champion.
“I’m super pumped to come here and perform at the highest stage, and to be able to come away with the win is just the greatest feeling ever,” Griffith said.