Albemarle senior Adam Visokay had one of the best individual races yet by a Virginian in the history of the Nike Cross Nationals with his 10th place finish in a loaded field of the nation's top runners. Only Midlothian's Jason Witt in 2006 with his sixth place finish has placed higher from Virginia at NXN and Visokay arguably ran in a tougher field since the addition and growing popularity of the individual qualifier component of the meet. The 2011 Group AAA 3200 meter state champion Visokay clocked a time of 15:37 on the muddy Portland Meadows 5K course, which was 35 seconds behind the winner Futsum Zeinasellaissie of Indiana. Matthew Schwartzer of Princess Anne (59th, 16:05) and Carolyn Bethel of Hidden Valley (99th, 19:22) also made the trip across the country to Virginia and faired respectably in their national championship appearance.
Meanwhile, the Midlothian girls were making their second Nike Cross Nationals appearance as a full squad with a completely new lineup from their 2006 squad which finished 10th in Oregon. An at-large selection from the Southeast Region, the Midlothian girls ended up placing 19th out of 22 teams as only Kara Dickerson (86th, 19:10) was able to break into a very deep top 100 finishers which saw the Group AA state champion Bethel barely squeak into.