Ruck & Root Place Well in Charlotte

ASICS GTC-ELITE'S Ruck (#11) during Women's 1500

ASICS Greenville Track Club-ELITE athletes Kimberly Ruck and Ryan Root both ran to third place finishes in their respective events at the 49er Classic hosted by UNC-Charlotte on Friday evening. Ruck, a former All American at Clemson University, stepped down in distance to run the 1500 meters and clocked 4:30.7 to finish behind three-time NCAA 800-meter champion Natoya Goule's 4:26.89 and Clemson's Ursula Farrow (4:29.91).

Later in the evening, Root also stepped down in distance and off the roads and onto the track to take third in the men's 5,000 meters. He was very consistent in covering the first 11.5 400-meter laps between 1:11.41 and 1:09.77 and the final 400 in 1:05.8. His finish time was 14:37.62. Ryan's last competition was a second place finish in the GHS Half Marathon (1:07:03) three weeks ago. Former ASICS GTC-ELITE athlete Adam Freudenthal, now living back in his hometown of Spartanburg, SC, won the event with a time of 14:26.84. 

In other ASICS GTC-ELITE action, Austin Steagall returned home to his alma mater to place second in the 1500 at the inaugural Trojan Invitational hosted by North Carolina's Mt. Olive University. After a brisk first 1000 meters he finished with a time of 3:52.57. 

​GTC-ELITE produced four qualifiers for the 2016 USA Olympic Trials Marathon in Los Angeles and is sponsored by ASICS, the 45-year-old Greenville Track Club, Greenville Health System, ScanSource, Joy Real Estate, the Bare Minimum Track Club,  generous individual contributors and partnerships with Performance Therapy, Carolina Spine and Rehab, Soleus Running Watches, Boston Bill Sunglasses, Roll Recovery, FinalSurge, The ATI Running Academy, ElliptiGO, and NormaTec Recovery Boots. ​​​​​​ ​​​