Less than 7 months into his Distance Running career, Darian Tierney no longer runs in borrowed racing shoes. With goods fresh off the store's inventory shelf, Darian asked me if he should where his brand new personally owned spikes in the race and break them in. I suggested that he go for it. In regards to performance, that is what he also did. . . GO FOR IT! Darian ran the toughest he ever has and came closer to breaking the elusive P.R. than any of the other guys. His time of 21:33 was only 18 seconds slower than the much fast Run-A-Ree course ran 2 weeks earlier. One more note to smile about, he's getting a 4.0!
"I'm going to run a P.R. anyway!" At our home opener, the actions and attitude of Kari Johnson reflected those thoughts. The previous week, Kari competed while not quite fully recovered from a slight illness. Her Saxon Invitational performance was good, but nowhere near how impressive some of her workouts have been. The difficulty and slowness of our home course makes it near impossible for an experienced runner to run a P.R., but Kari found a way to be the only Panther of the day to accomplish that feat. Her time of 27:46 moved her up to one of the top 7 on our ever improving team.