- Cross Country is the only sport that has a true national championship. You can become a national champion as a team or an individual in cross country.
- There are no tryouts or cuts in cross country, if you choose to run, you are on the team.
- Anybody can run cross country, even if you’ve never run before. Everybody starts out small and builds up to the race distance.
- Cross country is a great sport all alone, but is also a great way to stay in shape for other sports like soccer, basketball, wrestling, and swimming.
- A high school cross country race is 5 kilometers long (5k) which is about 3.1 miles.
- The top 7-10 runners run in the varsity race and everybody else runs jv.
- The top 5 runners in a race score for a team. Whatever place a runner finishes in is the amount of points they score for their team. The lowest score wins. If there is a tie, the 6th runner breaks it.
- A perfect score in cross country would be taking the first five places in the race, which would total 15 points.
- Adams State in Colorado is the only college to ever accomplish a perfect score at a national championship.
- There are no playoffs in cross country, just a state meet. The success of a season is determined by a teams performance at the final meet.
- The world record for a 5k is 12:36, the American record is 12:56, the high school record is 13:37, and the St. Pius record is 15:06. All of those runners started from nothing and worked their way to becoming great runners.
- Cross country runners prepare for the season by running summer mileage and going to team camp in July.
- Cross country teams are very close, and tend to become friends for a very long time. The camaraderie on a cross country team cannot be matched by any other sport.
