<st week of the season and the Carleton women’s track and field team holds steady, ranked 25th in the nation. Most of the team finished competing at the conference championships, but two hardworking athletes are continuing on to the national championships, contested this weekend at Ohio Wesleyan University.
Kelly Lovett ’11 currently has the third-best javelin throw in the nation at 149 feet, 5 inches. The javelin will be contested on Saturday and Lovett will be looking to earn her third All-American citation. She placed seventh at the national competition two years ago and last year improved to fourth. She’s throwing better than ever and will be quite the contender at the meet tomorrow.
Simone Childs-Walker ’12 will be returning to Nationals in the 10k and 5k after winning both events at the conference meet. Unfortunately, teammate Alison Smyth ’12, who hit a provisional qualifying mark in the 10000 meter race, just missed a nationals bid and will not be joining her. Childs-Walker holds the 12th-fastest time entered in the 5k and the sixth-fastest in the 10k. Last year she placed third in the longer race and fourth in the shorter one. She also placed third in the 5000 at the 2011 indoor national meet. Basically, she knows how to compete at the highest level.
The 10000 was held last night and the 5000 will be contested tomorrow. They like to give those long distance runners a little bit of a break between races.
Unfortunately, Ohio is a little too far for most of us to travel to watch, but the competition will be streamed live online at NCAA.com. On Saturday, the javelin will be held at 11:00 a.m. and the 5k will be at 3:40 p.m. local time. If you’ve never watched these women compete at this level, you are missing out. I wish I could do everything like Simone runs a 10k.
Alison Smyth is a member of the women’s track team.