Runners Use Secret Ingredient to Win N.C.A.A. Race: Olive Oil

Brigham Young University was ready for the N.C.A.A. Division I cross-country championships on Saturday. It had strong men’s and women’s teams that had each won the Big 12 championship.

But there was a challenge facing B.Y.U. and all the other entrants. The day of the race in Verona, Wis., was going to be pretty cold, with a temperature in the mid-to-high 30s. That would make things less than pleasant for runners in shorts and singlets.

B.Y.U. had a plan both innovative and ancient: having the runners slather their bodies in olive oil, in what the men’s coach, Ed Eyestone, called “an old-school running trick.”

“We’ve done it every year if it’s cold,” said the women’s coach, Diljeet Taylor. “It’s a trick. You don’t see a lot of people doing it.”

“I used it as an athlete many times,” Eyestone said. “I won the N.C.A.A title 40 years ago wearing some brown gardening gloves and bare arms and shorts. That was a much worse day. I used olive oil.”

B.Y.U.’s trick was very likely theirs alone at this year’s championships. “I would guess we were the only ones using it,” Eyestone said. “I don’t see it as much anymore.”