Shippensburg University’s outdoor track-and-field teams hit the ground running at the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) Championships on Thursday, May 12. The day began at 11 a.m. with the decathlon and the heptathlon and ended with the 10K races.
When one hears the phrase “the 10K race”, the first image that comes to mind is probably one of an excruciatingly long, boring race that takes an eternity to complete and has zero excitement. However, this was not the case on Thursday night.
The men’s 10K began promptly at 8 p.m. with a total of three SU representatives: Senior Austin McGinley, sophomore Alex Balla and junior Alec Brand. Although the race lasted a little more than over a half hour, every moment was filled with intensity and excitement as the runners practically flew around the track while their coaches and teammates encouraged them from the sidelines.
It was at the sound of the last lap bell that SU’s McGinley kicked it into high gear and pulled away from the other competitors. McGinley was the first to cross the finish line with a time of 31:23.23, making him the 10K champion for the men.
Although McGinley makes running six miles look easy, he shared that the race gets especially challenging at the halfway mark, and that it is easy to “fall asleep” during the middle portion of the race.
“When they said about 15 laps left, I thought, 'Dang, we only went around 10 times. We’re not even halfway done,'” McGinley said.
Balla, who claimed a fourth place victory with a time of 31.29.13, echoed McGinley when talking about the challenge of pushing past the halfway mark of the 10K.
“[The hardest part is] the middle and staying in it mentally. It’s so easy for your mind to drift…it’s easy to get into a lull,” Balla said.
There is a variety of different preparation that goes into running a race this long. For McGinley, it is all about the patience.
“Preparation is just going in knowing you got to be patient with it…it is just getting your training in and being patient when the race starts,” McGinley said.
Balla touched on the mental preparation that is needed to run the 10K when he said, “[There’s] a lot of mental [preparation]…being relaxed and knowing you don’t have to take it from the gun. There’s a lot that can happen over 25 laps so you can’t really stress about the first half.”
Brand, who finished 13th with a time of 33:27.05, gets ready for the race with the assistance of Cliff Bars, Gatorade, lots of running and lots of time talking to coach Steve Spence.
Redshirt-freshman Hannah Fulton, SU’s only competitor in the women’s 10K, stressed the importance of getting the miles in before big race days. Fulton placed 13th, running 41:11.06 under the lights.
The question remains of why and how these long-distance runners do what they do. What is the motivation behind running 25 consecutive laps at high speed? Believe it or not, they actually thoroughly enjoy it.
“I love all of it, you just got to go along for the ride…Long distance is just great,” Brand said.
McGinley mirrored his teammates response when he said, “There’s something about it; it’s just fun.”
And for Balla, he simply stated, “Because I can’t do anything else.”
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