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Running club looks for third marathon relay win

The Bradley Running Club is hoping to collect a third consecutive victory in the Illinois Marathon Relay on Saturday in Champaign.

 

This is the largest race of the semester for the Running Braves. They will enter two relay teams, made up of four runners each, as well as an individual competitor.

 

Saturday’s race starts on the campus on the University of Illinois and finishes on the 50-yard line of Memorial Stadium. As a part of the relay event, each runner will run 6-7 miles, then hand off to the next runner to combine for a 26.2 mile race.

 

“The marathon relay is a unique event because it is not offered in many running events, especially for distance running,” club president Cal Weisman said. “The marathon relay does a great job at incorporating teamwork into what’s usually an individual sport in distance running.”

 

The running club has competed in this race each of the past two years and won the entire race both years in the overall and mixed gender division.

In addition to the relay, freshman mechanical engineering major Peter Hansen will compete as an individual in the full marathon. Hansen previously ran Peoria’s Whiskeydaddle Marathon in October 2017 and has been training for this race since mid-January.

“I plan to start out pacing myself with the relay [teams], then it will kind of just depend on how fast they end up being,” Hansen said. “Probably by the end I’ll end up being 5-10 minutes behind them. I’m shooting [to finish in] 2:57:00.”

The running club was first started at Bradley in 2011 in an effort to cater to all runners, from the casual to the more competitive.

“We have a wide range of abilities and interests within the club and there is a place for everyone,” junior sports communication major Weisman said. “We have a lot of active underclassmen running, specifically freshmen, in the club and see outstanding growth potential for the future.”

The club competes in a variety of races throughout the year including traditional cross-country races such as the Bradley Classic & Intercollegiate, Illinois Club Relays and road races like the Jingle Bell Run and Hilltop Trot.

“I really like the community of the club and having people to train with that know a lot about running,” Hansen said.

For more information about the Bradley Running Club please contact club president Cal Weisman or visit http://runningbraves.weebly.com/.

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