Despite a top-5 finish at the IHSAA cross country state meet for both the boys and girls cross country teams, some runners craved for yet another race to add onto an already long season. This race, however, was even lengthier than their regular-season 5K. On November 9th, several North runners participated in the Indianapolis Monumental Half Marathon, a 13.1-mile race, just a week after the State Meet. Freshman Claire Wisler ran the Monumental as her third half marathon.

“I ran the Seymour half marathon in 2015 and 2016. I think it was really tough because I was so young mentally so it was a lot harder than the Monumental,” Wisler said.

Although Wisler and her running group set no particular time goal, they were still happy with their performance.

“Our biggest goal going into the half was to run the whole thing without stopping, and we did! We were all very excited to run together and it was so much fun,” Wisler said.

Sophomore Reese Kilbarger-Stumpff came into the race with a different objective.

“I did have the tentative goal of running 1:12 or 1:11, and I didn’t meet that, I ran around 1:15,” Kilbarger-Stumpff said. “However, with no specific training, I didn’t have many expectations, so I felt like I pushed myself pretty hard and that’s all I really wanted to do.”

Kilbarger-Stumpff was one of seven boys who participated in the State meet for cross country the week before, but he doesn’t believe the recent race had much of an impact on him.

“I don’t think state affected me that much, because we had been training for 5Ks for months, so my body is in the best shape to recover from them very quickly. I was ready to go just a few days after the state meet,” Kilbarger-Stumpff said.

Along with Kilbarger-Stumpff, junior Collin Pruitt ran the Monumental just after having been in the State meet. However, his goals for the race were less intense than last year’s.

“My goals this year were light compared to the last two years.  Last year my goal was to break my age group’s course record for the Indy Monumental, and I achieved it, but I just ran this race looking to have fun,” Pruitt said.

Overall, the runners felt that the Monumental was just an extension of their regular season and a way to continue using their built-up strength.

“We just continued our 5K training from the season out and raced the half as best we could,” Kilbarger-Stumpff.