Kelati Named MW Cross Country Peak Athlete of the Week

MW RELEASE
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.— A day after junior Weini Kelati was named the USTFCCCA NCAA Division I National Athlete of the Week, the Virginia native has added another accolade after being named the Mountain West Women’s Cross Country Peak Athlete of the Week by the conference on Tuesday.

Tuesday’s announcement marks the first weekly conference honor of the season for Kelati and the third in her career after earning two in 2018.

In her first race of the season at the Joe Piane – Notre Dame Invitational, Kelati won the Blue Division race, completing the 5,000-meter course at the Burke Golf Course in 16:01.61. Her time was faster than any other athlete has recorded in the past seven years. Additionally, she won by over 12 seconds and led at the mile and the 4K split en route to the win.

Running against 186 runners and 10 ranked teams, including four ranked in the top-10, Kelati ran the first mile in 5:11.60 and led at the 4K split of the race by 12.9 seconds over Anna Rohrer of Notre Dame, clocking 12:52.6, and was averaging a mile time of 5:10.3. By the time she claimed the win, she had trimmed her average mile time to 5:09.2.

Kelati and the Lobos are off until Friday, Oct. 18, where they will run at the Wisconsin Nuttycombe Invitational in Madison, Wis., and the Thomas Zimmer Championship Course, where UNM raced three times in 2018. Last year in Madison, Kelati won the Wisconsin Pre-Nationals and finished runner-up at the Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational and the NCAA Cross Country Championships.