COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — After setting the school record in the 1,0000-meter run Friday, New Mexico track & field redshirt junior Alice Wright was named Tuesday as Mountain West Women’s Outdoor Track Athlete of the Week for meets contested from May 5-6.
Wright, the only collegian running in the women’s 10,000 at the Payton Jordan Invitational, raced to a time of 32 minutes, 29.28 seconds in her first competitive 10K since claiming runner-up honors in the event at the 2016 NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships.
Against a field that included seven Olympians, three athletes that had competed in the World Cross Country Championship, an NCAA All-American and a World University Games medalist, Wright shined on Cobb Track in Stanford.
She set a new school record in the 10K, eclipsing Sarah Waldron’s five-year-old school record (32:36.07) set on the same track in 2012. Wright now has five of the seven fastest 10K times in New Mexico history.
Wright also moves to second in Mountain West history in the event, behind only Emma Bates (32:13.28).
Wright currently ranks No. 3 in the NCAA in 2017 and is one of just three collegiate runners to break the 33-minute mark in the 10K this season.
Additionally, she ranks 28th in the world in 2017 and has run four times under 33 minutes in her last five 10Ks dating back to the 2015 European Athletics U23 Championships.
Wright’s selection is her first weekly MW honor in outdoor track, but her third overall between indoor track (February 2015) and cross country (October 2016).
Her selection is also the New Mexico cross country/track & field program’s fourth this season. Josh Kerr claimed the men’s track honor on April 18, while Sam Trigg and Jannell Hadnot swept the men’s and women’s field honors on May 2.
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