A new running star

Hannah Lutzker is my adorable 7-year old neighbor.  She's a sweetheart and always greats Julie and I with enthusiasm and love. This was a photo I took a while ago for her family Christmas cards.

It turns out that Hannah may be a running prodigy.  Last year she ran a 5k race for the first time and finished in about 33 minutes.  Not bad! As a six year old, she beat a lot of other finishers.

Yesterday she ran the July 4th 5k.  There are about 1,000 entrants, doing this rolling course at about 7,000 feet in elevation. Jasper got to ride in the car, but did not get to run.

Her time for this 5k was an amazing 25:37, or 8:16 per mile!  In one year, without serious training, she cut 8 minutes off her 5k time.

• She won the age 1-8 Girls group, beating her 20 competitors by a minimum of 8 minutes
• She beat all 25 girls in the 9-11 age group
• She beat all 25 boys in the 1-8 age group
• She came in the top 10% of all 400+ women finishers. This is in a town full of athletic crazies.

I will be expecting to see her start pulling in the cross country scholarship offers pretty soon.

As for the rest of us, I was running with Jim Covaleski.  In the last half mile, he started outrunning me, so I just slipped in quietly behind Hannah. I could have past her in the last few feet, but I figured I should go ahead and give in to the inevitable. She beat me, so now I no longer need to try to bother keeping up.

Julie and her training partner Sally (Hannah's mom) did a great race.  This was Julie's first 5k in over a decade.  For whatever reason, her back problems have subsided and she is able to run again.  Yeah Julie!