The Utah women’s track and field team took a weekend trip to Palo Alto, Calif. for the Stanford invitational. The large event saw runners from all across the country, some as far away as the east coast. The bright lights of competition didn’t seem to slow down this Utah team, however, as it finished with strong performances that saw several members of the team set season and lifetime bests.
“Overall, it was a great weekend for us. We had a lot of athletes perform very well, and we’re excited to build on this performance,” said head coach Kyle Kepler.
In Palo Alto, fifth-year senior Andrea Chavez was the highlight of the weekend, setting a lifetime best in the 1500-meter race and coming up just shy of another personal record in the 800-meter dash the following day. Kepler believes this is a testament to the work she and the rest of the team have been putting in recently.
“We’ve been training hard as a team this past week, not wanting to take a step back before this invitational, and all of our kids ran hard,” Kepler said. “That shows how strong our athletes are and how much they want to make a statement. Despite having tired legs, they still went out and competed really well.”
Chavez wasn’t the only Ute who participated in the 800-meter event, either. Joining Chavez were teammates Sarah Feeny and Catie Faust, but in separate sections of the event. While Chavez was first and competed in the second section, where she finished 10th in that section and 22nd overall with a time of 2.07:92, Feeny ran in Section 5, taking third place and finishing 35th overall at 2.10.06.
Finishing it off for the Rocky Mountain trio was true freshman Faust, who ran in Section 7, placing seventh in her race, which was good enough for the 53rd-overall spot at the event, clocking in at 2.15:49.
Other notable performers throughout the weekend were Feeny in the 1500-meter run, finishing in 4:20.65, and true freshman Chrissy Glasmann, earning 10th overall in the javelin throw.
Next up for the Utes is this Friday as they play host to several schools from in and out of state. Following the home meet, Utah will head back out to California for the Mt. San Antonio College (SAC) invitational in two weeks’ time.