“Well, we knew [we broke the record] as soon as Tina crossed the finish line. We smashed the record; it was beyond exciting for our entire team,” junior runner Shelby Janutol described.
Excitement was an understatement as the Ferris State University women’s track and field team set a new school record in the distance relay at The NCAA Division II Indoor Championships on March 9 held in Mankato, Minn. in the Myers Field House.
The previous record was recorded in 2006 with a time of 11:43.53, but the quartet of juniors Janutol, Zoey Hohmann, Alyssa Osika along with senior Tina Muir not only beat the record, but did so convincingly.
Finishing the race with a time of 11:36.37, the Lady Bulldogs topped the previous record by more than seven seconds.
“The feeling was really amazing; we were all really excited. We’ve been aiming at this record for a long time, and we knew we could do it but everyone needed to run their best race. It was an outstanding race for all four of us,” senior standout Muir stated.
Along with the feat, Muir also had an amazing individual accomplishment on that day in the 5k race as she beat another school record of 16.52.91. Muir finished the race in a time of 16:25.42, besting the school record she already set in 2010.
However, the fantastic four person race amazingly enough wasn’t good enough for first place overall, as Grand Valley State University took gold in the race with a time of 11:23.35.
“We can only control ourselves. We may be running faster than we ever have before, but there could be other people running even faster. We strive to work hard and we prepared well enough to best a record that hasn’t been beaten in a long time,” Muir said.
The record was an outstanding achievement for the Bulldogs, as that was one of the team’s goals going into the season, and it won’t be touched for at least another year.
The next chance the Bulldogs have to compete with the record will be in January 2013 and they will be without two members of the record-breaking quartet due to graduation and transfers.
Even with this achievement, the Bulldogs are not backing down in their quest to get even better, as Janutol said, “There is definitely room for improvement, just have to keep working hard and the next step is to beat some personal records.”
Earning All-American honors with the performance, the Bulldogs now look toward the outdoor portion of their season.
Janutol, who hails from Troy, went on to say, “Even though [beating the record] was one of our main goals this season, everyone’s goal is to improve on their personal times and have as many people qualify for Nationals as possible.”
Next up for the record breaking team is the North Carolina State Raleigh Relays on March 30. By the way the girls are running, there might be some more changes coming to the FSU record book soon.