A Busy Week on the Roads

Kimberly Ruck

ASICS Greenville Track Club-ELITE runners were busy over the last week with athletes running in various holiday road races in South Carolina, Ohio and Illinois. 

Austin Steagall donned the ASICS GTC-ELITE singlet for the initial time as he won the Peach Festival 5K in his hometown of Gaffney, SC. The recent graduate of Mt. Olive University won for the fourth consecutive year, running 14:45.

On July 4th, Mark Leininger won the Red, White & Blue Shoes 5K at Furman University in Greenville, SC with a time of 14:50. It was his first competition since taking a break from running following the Portland Track Festival in mid-June. His teammates, Kate Dodds and Alison Paris placed second and third in the women's division with times of 17:25 and 18:10, respectively on a hot and humid holiday morning.

Meanwhile down on the coast, Kimberly Ruck won the 4th annual Firecracker 4-Mile over the trails of Laurel Hill Country Park in Mt. Pleasant, SC. For her efforts she took home a very large set of fireworks. She ran 23:11 for the 2 x 2-mile-loop in hot and humid conditions. Carolyn Watson was in her home state of Ohio and ran 17:18 to win the Aurora 4th 5K. 

Also, running in his home state of Illinois, Ryan Root won a 5K in 15:06 in his last competition before relocating to Greenville.

GTC-ELITE produced four qualifiers for the 2016 USA Olympic Trials Marathon in Los Angeles and is sponsored by ASICS, the Greenville Track Club, Performance Therapy, Greenville Health System's North Greenville Hospital, ScanSource, Soleus Running Watches, Boston Bill Sunglasses, Roll Recovery, FinalSurge, Joy Realty, The TD Bank Foundation, The Kroc Center, Carolina Spine and Rehab, The ATI Running Academy, ElliptiGO, the Bare Minimum Track Club and generous individual contributors. ​​​​​​​ 

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