To me one of the most impressive things about this performance is how long she was with the leaders. She blew up a bit in the last mile, which indicates that with more even pacing she could've been 5-10 seconds faster, which would have put her top-15. This isn't a knock on how she ran; she was clearly close enough in fitness to those women to roll the dice and go for it. Assuming she's healthy, she could be top-5 next year. The individual title is so tough to win in XC, but she will get some legit cracks at it.