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University of Idaho graduate students will hit the pavement this weekend for the fifth annual WSU 100k Relay and Solo race sponsored by the Palouse Road Runners.
Cornelia Sawatzky, a graduate student in accounting, will run the 10th leg of the race for UI’s graduate students’ team on Sunday.
“We’re a relay team and our main goal is to have fun,” Sawatzky said.
The team, comprised of 10 graduate students at UI, is sponsored by the Graduate and Professional Student Association on campus. Each member will run a portion of the 10-leg race. The course is a circle, beginning at the WSU field house. The team will run southwest to Wawawai, then south into the Snake River Canyon and finally through Colton, Wash., as they make their way back to Beasley Coliseum. Each leg of the race ranges from four to eight miles.
The GPSA team is competing as a 10-man team but competitors can also compete with teams of less than 10 or do the race alone.
“Some people run the whole thing solo too. That’s pretty crazy,” Sawatzky said.
Sawatzky said the hardest leg is the 6.3 mile sixth leg. The runners will ascend 1,720 feet out of the Snake River Canyon.
“That’s the hardest leg, the one that’s all up hill,” Sawatzky said. “You kind of need a mountain goat for that.”
The team will also have a support vehicle to transport runners to different checkpoints and pick up runners after they complete their portions of the race. They will be out of range for cell phones from legs three to seven, so the support vehicles will be important for the team’s performance.
The graduate students have been training for this event as a team throughout the spring.
“We’ve been getting together as many people as possible and going for runs,” Sawatzky said, “and a lot of training on our own, too.”
Sawatzky said the team hopes to average about eight minute miles throughout the course. At that pace, the team would hopefully finish in a range of seven hours.
“The race starts fairly early,” Sawatzky said.
The solo runners will start the race at 6 a.m. The teams will have staggered starts at 7:30 and 8:30 a.m.
“It’s a fun event,” Sawatzky said.
She said she heard about the team sponsored by the GPSA at orientation for teaching assistants at the beginning of the semester. She was also a member of a team at the event a couple of years ago and enjoyed the experience.
“It’s really for graduate students to get together and have fun,” Sawatzky said.
GPSA supports and promotes the education and life of graduate students on the UI campus.
“We also want people to know there are organizations for graduate students to take part in,” Sawatkzy said.
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