June 2011

Dear Hard Core Runners Club,

I would once again like to extend a sincere thank you for helping me fund my education through your annual scholarship.

As you know I am attending Idaho State University and am competing as a cross country and track and field athlete for ISU. This past year has been awesome and has taught me more in one year than I learned over the course of high school.

While the cross country season started rough with a stress fracture I was still able to start competing half way through the season, helping my team to place third at our conference meet.

After cross country my training became more focused on speed to prepare for the indoor track season. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the indoor season. My PR’s for the season were 10:17 for the 3k and 17:54 for the 5k.

Following closely behind indoor season was outdoor season and although the weather was not the best for most of the season the season overall turned out well. I began the outdoor season by competing at the Stanford Invitational 10k race. While I did not place very well the experience was truly amazing.

After Stanford the rest of the season was committed to training to try to qualify for the 5k race at Jr. National’s, which is being held June 23-25 in Eugene, Oregon. I was able to fulfill my goal by running a 17:47 5k (I needed to run a 17:50 to qualify). The conference meet also turned out to be a personal success and my team mates also competed quite well. Overall my PR’s for the outdoor season were 17:18 for the 5k and 36:10 for the 10k.

While I was training hard I was also studying hard too. I am pursuing a nursing degree. While classes were very different than high school classes I was still able to end up with a 3.93 GPA for the year. I am also very involved with several Christian groups on campus which help to keep me grounded in my morals.

Thank you again for your support of my education, I am truly thankful!

Blessings and peace to you,

Audrey Urlacher

 

(Ms. Urlacher was our 2010-2011 scholarship recipient)