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While most students at Ohio State spent their rainy Friday indoors preparing for Halloween, seven players from the Ohio State Women's Club Hockey team participated in The NIKE Human Race 10K/5K.The race, a sponsored event by NIKE and meant to raise money for college scholarships, was held on Friday, October 23rd and led runners on a course through the Ohio State University campus. Not only was the race meant to raise money, it was also a way for Ohio State students to compete against rivals at USC in a race-off to see how many participants each school could bring to the race. Participants had the option of running the 10K or the 5K; Junior Amanda Robinson and sophomore Lis Thomas ran the 10K, while Juniors Jenni Brannon and Allie Mackerty, Sophomore Amanda Damrath, and freshmen Kelsey Bisson and Amanda Schneider ran the 5K.
Although the race day weather wasn't as nice as the team anticipated, the actual race itself was still fun and enjoyable for the team. "It was really fun and a lot easier than I anticipated," said Kelsey Bisson. "I think the
combination of rain and so many people running made it easy to have fun
and keep the momentum up."
Junior Jenni Brannon agreed. "[It was] easier than I thought because of everyone keeping everyone else going."
Besides being able to participate in a race that involved over 2,000 runners, players from the team also liked the chance to participate in the race with their fellow teammates. Juniors Allie Mackerty and Jenni Brannon, along sophomore Amanda Damrath, stuck together through the 5K race, pushing each other on through the more difficult and trying parts of the course, as did freshmen Kelsey Bisson and Amanda Schneider. "It was great to be able to run the it with the team," Mackerty said of the race. "We could push each other along and get a good workout, and still have fun doing it."
" [It was a] great team bonding experience and I think that we should get more of our team involved next year," said sophomore Lis Thomas. "I definitely liked the 20 minutes before the race when it was just our
team pumping each other up, like bouncing and taking pictures and
such. We were just having fun fooling around."
While Ohio State didn't beat USC in the race-off, runners still celebrated the race with an after-race party on the South Oval, with a free concert and beverages waiting to congratulate those who participated. While the Nike Human Race only comes once a year, players who ran the race plan on participating in upcoming races throughout the year.
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