On Friday, September 9, 2011 the IXC Club headed out to the EIU Walt Crawford Open in Charleston, Illinois. Conditions were perfect, with overcast skies and temperatures in the mid 60s. With such perfect conditions came some blazing fast times.
The IXC Women started off the day with a 5 kilometer race. The ladies did a fantastic job competing, putting 2 women under 20:00 and 10 women under 21:00. Amanda Zamora (So.) led the team with an incredible time of 19:12.82, breaking the former IXC Club EIU 5k record. Jessie Balagtas (So.) followed closely behind with a time of 19:16.05, en route breaking the old IXC Club EIU 5k record, too. Kerry Devitt, Victoria Knauf, Jess Mulcrone (Sr.), Ryoh Shinohara (Jr.), and Megan Mocogni rounded out the top 7 for the women on the day, all coming in under 20:40. All the hard work that the women have put in thus far is beginning to show. Nice job ladies!
The men, fueled by the stunning performances the women put up, set out to run some fast times for themselves in the 8 kilometer race. Led by Aaron Silver (Sr.), Mike Frigo (Sr.) and Paul Vandervelde (Law School Phenom), the team put on a spectacular display of early season strength, getting 3rd out of 11 teams in the race. Aaron Silver finished first for the IXC, getting 8th overall with a new EIU 8k club record of 25:29.68. Mike Frigo followed, running 25:32.81 and getting 11th overall. Paul Vandervelde and Brendan McDonnell (So.) were also able to dip underneath the 26:00 barrier. Matt Birkel (So.), Blake Flood (So.), and Brett Lustgarten (Sr.) rounded out the top 7 for the Men. Some awesome statistics from the day include:
– 4 men under 26:00
-10 men under 27:00
-All but 4 IXC Men running at or under their 8k PR
Some big performances that deserve some attention include Alex Harrison (Jr.), Evan White (So.), Mark Hayes (So.), and Zach Boehmke (So.) running at or over 90 second 8k PR”s. Top freshman on the day was Arthur Eng, who ended up finishing 12th for the IXCC Men and 64th overall.
In all honesty, one could not write enough on here to display how incredibly the IXC Men and Women ran at EIU this year. Everybody showed up to race, and conditions permitted them all to race fast. It was a great day all around.
