Saturday, I got the incredible opportunity to go up to Nike Team Nationals, which is an awesome experience in its self, I would encourage anyone who hasnt seen this event to go! Its really neat. Well,I got to experience not only NTN, but what goes into covering a meet like this!

It all started at about 5:30am, I hopped out of bed so excited! Filled up my gas tank and began my journey to Portland Oregon. 8am rolled around and there I was, in the parking lot on Portland Meadows, site of Nike Team Nationals! I was so stoked to get to see this meet.. Then I recieved a call from Ross saying "Tiff I have your first assignment... find a starbucks and get 4 Big triple shot mocha's and some food, if we are going to make it through the day we'll need lots of coffee", so off I went.. Might I add, I do NOT know my way around portland, so my first stop wasnt Starbucks... it was AM/PM for directions.. I think luck was on my side because I drove right too it! But on my way out of starbucks dun dun dun... I noticed, there was white flaky cold stuff falling from the sky. I thought to myself "oh man, this is gonna be a hoot and I dont think I brought enough clothes!"

Needless to say... after a couple wrong truns, I made it back to Portland meadows just in to see the start of the Open Boys race! Imagine a horse race track, turned high school race extrordinare! Not only is this event held in an unlikely place, but it was on december 1st, probably one of the most cold and wet days to choose. This december 1st in particular, it snowed.. so these kids were racing in some of the worst conditions I'd ever seen. Mud up to their ankles, standing water, snow, WIND and temperatures in the 30's.. It was definately a sight.. Those kids had some guts!

The kids werent the only people with guts that day, our runnerspace team was right out there with the big dogs! They braved the eliments to get the best interviews and race coverage runnerspace has seen thus far! These guys were on their feet all day, only stopping to change their camera batteries and memory cards, which I had to change because their fingers were too frozen to bend in the way needed to retrieve the batteries!

Ross and I were the nerds, we uploaded the videos as soon as they came in.. I think we had around 50 uploaded on to runnerspace by the end of the 4th race! Which meant people were catching these interviews and highlights almost directly after we filmed them! I had no idea we could pull this off! It was pretty crazy...

This day really made me realize how big of a deal this site is going to be, not only because its just freaking cool, but becuase we have so many passionate people involved. It was so neat to see how excited the guys got when they knew they had awesome footage. They worked so hard to capture the atmosphere of this event and I believe they did an AMAZING job. I was so glad to be a part of NTN.. The whole experience really has inspired me to keep going with runnerspace!

If you are reading this as a new comer to the site, there is so much more where this came from! Enjoy the NTN footage and understand that the people behind the scenes of this site are so passionate about getting you the best footage they can! Please explore the site, make a profile and get to know some new people! The runnerspace crew are normal runners just like you, so don't be affraid to get to know us! Let us know what you think! We love video comments! Speak up runnerspacers!