This is the interview with the 2025-2026 Gatorade National Boys Cross Country Player of the Year, Jackson Spencer, who won his state meet, the NIKE NXR regional, the NIKE Cross Nationals, and the Brooks XC Nationals. Jackson leads the country at the 3200 meters outdoors with 8:46.04. He will compete at the iconic Arcadia Invitaitonal on April 11, 2026.
RunBlogRun and NIKE Present
The Journey to Compete Episode 2 –
Jackson Spencer
This is our interview with Jackson Spencer, who won the 2025 NIKE Outdoor Cross Country on December 6, 2025, and the Brooks XC National Championships on December 13, 2025.
At the World Cross Country Championships, Jackson led the US with 18th place, helping the US team win bronze in the World Juniors! Jackson told RBR that the last lap in Tallahassee was pretty tough. After Tallahassee, Jackson took two weeks off, then ran 8:50.50 at the Simplot Games.
At the New Balance Indoor Nationals, Jackson ran 13:54.70 for the 5,000 meters, solo, the #2 All-time U.S. high school indoor mark. Jackson Spencer also anchored his club’s DMR team at the NBIndoors.
At the Pine View Invitational, Jackson Spencer ran 3200m in a national leader 8:46.06!
On April 11, 2026, Jackson Spencer and Marcelo Mantecon will race over 3200 meters at the Arcadia Invitational. It could be a race for the ages!
Here’s our interview with Jackson Spencer (we will be interviewing Marcelo Mantecon next week).
Find all of our Socialing The Distance interview series here: https://bit.ly/34czL0e
Find all of our Athletics Chat episodes here: https://bit.ly/2GkVoDD
Find all of our Conversations with Larry here: https://bit.ly/30io2vY
#SocialingTheDistance #RunBlogRun #theshoeaddict
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Special thanks to Mike Deering, original member of The Shoe Addicts, who edits, clips, manages, and produces the podcast for Fortius Media Group, LLC, and RunBlogRun.com.
Special thanks to Jackson Spencer for this thought-provoking interview and NIKE Sports Marketing for their kind support. NIKE Sports Marketing and NIKE running believe that we build the sport, one athlete and one coach at a time.
To learn more about NIKE Running, please go to www.nikerunning.com. We highly recommend the NIKE Vomero Premium and the NIKE Pegasus 42 (And the new NIKE Structure PLUS!)
