Ben Rayner - Mud, Sweat, Tears $33
Ben Rayner and Good Sport Studio are pleased to announce the release of Mud, Sweat & Tears, a 58-page zine documenting the 2025 Nike Cross Nationals (NXN) - America’s premier high school cross country championship - photographed on film in Portland, Oregon on December 5th, 2025.
Shot entirely on film, the work moves beyond the podium to capture what NXN is really about: the several hundred athletes who converge on Portland knowing they won’t win. It’s a portrait of a team sport disguised as an individual one - the pre-race nerves, the mud, the effort, the collapse at the finish line, and the arms of a teammate waiting on the other side. Rayner’s camera finds the emotion that lives in the mid-pack, the glitter face paint, the bare feet in the mud, and the embraces that carry four years of high school cross country in a single moment.
The zine pairs Rayner’s photography - intimate, spontaneous, and alive with film grain - with an original essay by writer and former HS cross country star Paul Snyder, and features bold, color-blocked graphic design by Logan Buchanan. Contact sheets printed throughout give the work the feel of a photographer’s journal: unfiltered access to a day that most people never see.
Mud, Sweat & Tears is published in a limited edition of 500 copies by Good Sport Studio.
“I was interested in the details of the meet. The emotions. The rituals. Cross country is sold as an individual sport but at NXN it’s unmistakably a team one — you can see it in how people fall apart and hold each other up within the same minute. I wanted to capture the experience of the 400 athletes who come to Portland, give everything, and go home without a trophy.”
— Ben Rayner
DETAILS
Title: Mud, Sweat & Tears
Format : 210x297mm /8.27 x 11.69 inches, 4 Color offset printed.
Photographer: Ben Rayner
Essay: Paul Snyder
Graphic Design: Logan Buchanan
Publisher: Good Sport Studio
Edition: 500 copies
Price: $25 USD
Available — US: benrayner.bigcartel.com
Available — Australia / Europe: goodsportmagazine.com
More information: benrayner.com | goodsportmagazine.com
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