ASICS Greenville Track Club-ELITE Performs Well in Richmond

ASICS GTC-ELITE's Austin Steagall began the day with a new personal best of 23:34 to place fifth in the VCU Health 8K event in conjunction with the Anthem Richmond Marathon. After covering the first two miles in a rather slow 9:50, he increased his pace to chase the lead pack on a sunny, cold and brisk Saturday morning in the Virginia capital city. His final time averaged 4:44 per mile and earned him $100. The top seven runners finished between 23:09 and 23:38. 

In the women's division of the 8K, ASICS GTC-ELITE's Kate Dodds ran 27:48 (5:35 per mile) to place ninth in a very deep field that included two-time USA Olympian Desiree Linden (5th in this race). Dodd's teammate Alison Parris placed 12th wth a time of 28:48. 

ASICS GTC-ELITE's Mark Leininger paced a lead-pack of seven in the American Family Fitness Half Marathon event through 10K, passing in 31:25. The pace then increased after 8 miles and Leininger dropped back into fifth place until kicking over the final 800 meters to place third overall with a final time of 1:04:57. He covered the final 10K in 30:27 to earn $250 in another very talented field and averaged 4:57 per mile for the 13.1-mile distance. The top five finished between 1:04:41 and 1:05:03 with Ethiopian Germa Gebre winning just ahead of Morocco's Rachid Ezzounlou.

Dylan Hassett, like her teammate Leininger a 2016 USA Olympic Trials Marathon qualifier and participant, placed fourth among the women at Richmond with a time of 1:16:03. Running almost the entire distance by herself and passing 10K in 35:43 she earned $150 by averaging 5:48 per mile for the half marathon. She finished behind Kenyan women athletes. 

Mark Leininger in center.

Dylan Hassett on right.

GTC-ELITE produced four qualifiers for the 2016 USA Olympic Trials Marathon in Los Angeles and is sponsored by ASICS, the 44-year-old Greenville Track Club, Performance Therapy, Greenville Health System, ScanSource, Soleus Running Watches, Boston Bill Sunglasses, Roll Recovery, FinalSurge, Joy Real Estate, 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. ​​​​​​ ​  ​​​