Ruck and Freudenthal Win Track 5,000s in Charlotte

Adam Freudenthal and Kimberly Ruck

Chris Caldwell

After enduring an almost 90-minute delay from the scheduled start, ASICS GTC-ELITE athlete Kimberly Ruck made the wait worthwhile as she broke the Charlotte University Belk Track and Field facility record with her winning time of 16:20.68 for 5,000 meters in the 49er Classic. The old record was 16:24.48 set in 2009 by Amanda Lorenzen. Ruck took the lead after the first of the 12.5 laps and ran solo for the remainder of the race, steadily clicking off sub-80 second 400s. The second place finisher ran 17:16.

Due to the largest number of participants in the meet's history, over 1500 athletes, the women's 5,000 was delayed from 8:15 until 9:40 pm on a near perfect evening for running. The temperature was in the high 50s and the light wind had calmed down. 

Teammate Adam Freudenthal followed Ruck's lead as he won the next event--the men's 5,000--in a personal best time of 14:26.08. Chris Caldwell, who shared the early lead, also ran a personal best with a time of 14:56. The three GTC-ELITE athletes are scheduled to compete in next week's Raleigh Relays, along with teammates Ricky Flynn and Chass Armstrong.
  

GTC-ELITE is sponsored by ASICS, the Greenville Track Club, Performance Therapy, Greenville Health System, ScanSource, Soleus Running Watches, Boston Bill Sunglasses, ElliptiGO, the Bare Minimum Track Club and generous individual contributors.