April 3, 2002

A Great Start to a New Season

Great training, decent weather, and good competition propelled the Akron distance crew to a series of terrific performances on our spring break trip to North Carolina and Florida last week. Highlighting the week were the races of Bobbie Hardbarger. At the UNC Classic she placed 2nd in the 1500m with an impressive time of 4:33.03 (~4:51 for 1600m). At Florida Relays she improved on that, winning her section of the 1500m (4:30.87, ~4:48 for 1600m) and then ran the anchor 800m leg of the sprint medley relay in 2:09.0 and led the squad to a new school record (3:56.65). Also contributing to that school record were Deanna Norflee (200m), Lucretia Corbin (200m) and Jennie Castle (400m in 57.9). In addition to contributing to that school record Jennie also placed third in her section of the 800m (behind American record holder Jearl Miles-Clark), ran a 57.7 split on the 4x4 and, in Chapel Hill, opened up her season with a 2:12.03 time in the 800m. Todd Moyers ran a PR in the 1500m in Florida (4:02.08, ~ 4:18 for 1600m) as did Jaime Alton in the 5000m (18:15.6)

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Jaime Alton and Erin Frye compete under the lights in the Florida Relays 5000m.