Ryan Root to Join ASICS Greenville Track Club-ELITE

Ryan Root

ASICS Greenville Track Club-ELITE is happy to announce that Ryan Root will be joining the post-collegiate, Olympic development program in July. Root graduated from North Central College in Illinois, where he competed for the DIII distance powerhouse under legendary coach Al Carius. He recently worked with the University of Illinois Track & Field program as a volunteer assistant. Ryan is currently a resident of Champaign, IL, where he was raised after being born in Riverside, CA. 

During his collegiate career, Ryan placed as high as 5th at the NCAA DIII national championships in the 3,000 meter Steeplechase and earned All American honors. His personal best in that event is 9:03. He also ran 14:34 for 5,000 meters indoors and placed 10th at the national championships. In cross country, Root ran 24:05 for 8,000 meters. 

"Ryan has a real passion for distance running and comes from one of the stronger DIII programs," states ASICS GTC-ELITE director and coach Mike Caldwell. "When we established our program less than four years ago, one of our objectives was to provide a unique environment for young, aspiring athletes to develop their distance running talents. We are happy to be able to provide such an environment for young men like Ryan. We believe he can become an asset to the program in the future and add to the 'power of the group' philosophy that we continue to develop. We plan to work with Ryan to improve over the 10,000 and half-marathon distances and eventually the marathon."

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, 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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