Today was the USATF Half-Marathon Champs in Houston, Texas, and while I could talk about many different things, I noticed that there were two people listed from Fargo on the start lists, one of whom finished.
Semehar Tesfaye was originally from Fargo where she graduated from Fargo South high school after a high school career that brought her honorable-mention in cross country (18th place finish in 2008) and state indoor championships in the mile and 3200 in 2008. She spent some time at NDSU where she was first-team All-Summit League, but then she went to Iowa State where she improved quite a bit. She finished as high as 5th at the Midwest regional in cross country (all-region honors as a result), and as high as 62nd at D1 nationals. In track she was competitive in the Big-12 and made it into the national semi-finals in the West Region in the 10k.
She either didn't start this race or didn't finish, but she isn't on the final results.
Eric Loeffler I had a really hard time finding information on, and from what I could gather he was at NDSU in the late 1990s/early 2000s and competed at DII nationals in cross country and track. He doesn't hold any school or track records at NDSU, in fact he's not in the top 10 in any individual events. However, he has improved significantly since, finishing today's race in 1:04.48 for 45th place. That's a pretty impressive time to run in the half-marathon, and it will give him a 'B' standard for the Olympic Trials marathon next year.
To see people from North Dakota represented on the national running stage is pretty neat!
Results for the race: http://www.letsrun.com/news/2015/01/half-marathon-newcomers-diego-estrada-6051-kim-conley-6944-claim-titles-2015-usa-half-marathon-championships/
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