By Chuck Reherman
Sports Editor
In her second All-Star meet, Yukon’s Avery Stanley turned in another solid performance.
Stanley ran to an 11th place finish at the Oklahoma-Arkansas All-Star Dual held at Shiloh Christian School in Rogers, AR.
Stanley ran a time of 20 minutes and 25.66 seconds over a hilly course in northwest Arkansas.
“I feel like I ran pretty well considering the course and how hilly it was,” Stanly said. “I didn’t run my best time but with a lot of hills it was expected.
“It was probably one of the more tougher course that I have had to run on this year just because it had a lot of hills,” she said. “Most courses I ran on were decently flat with maybe like two or three hills, but I expected it the course to be harder since Arkansas is more hilly than Oklahoma is.”
Stanley was the fourth member of the Oklahoma team to finish and was just five seconds out of top 10 finish.
“A top 10 finish would have been good but getting 11th is still pretty good,” Stanley said. “With about 200 meters to go I was in 13th so within that time I caught two people but the 10th place finisher was to far ahead to try and catch.
“My race was pretty good overall,” Stanley said. “I think, leading up to the first mile everyone was still close to each other and I felt pretty good, every time that a hill would come on the course I would just drive my knees and try to pass people on the way up because that’s when most people start giving up.
But, from the mile to the three-mile mark I stayed within the range of 11th place to 15th place but when the last 200 meters came I just tried to push more than I had been because I knew I was almost done and that every point mattered,” she said. “Overall I finished in 11th place with a time of 20:25.”
Stanley looks at these two races as experience for in the future.
“These last two races have been such a fun experience to be able to participate in because I know that not a lot of people get the chance to compete in them,” she said. “I think that for this season they were just kinda like rewards for how good my season went to be able to go to them, next year if I run in them again I’m going to try and place higher than I did the year before and have a better time.”
