Sonja Friend-Uhl makes Olympic Trials B standard at age 41
She continues: “I felt so strong and smooth — really just a great race with plenty of other fast runners with the Vandy girls and also Stephanie Garcia who is a national and world class steeplechaser. [And] I won the race, which was a bonus! I literally have not ran a time even close to that since 2000 (my Olympic Trials year). Woohoo! So excited!”
And there’s more: “It also meets (just barely!) the B standard for this summer’s Olympic Trials. I feel very blessed and very motivated, to say the least.”
The Trials will take the top 30 runners, and at the moment Sonja’s time ranks 17th in the country.
She has a great shot at Eugene!
8 Responses
peter taylor - April 24, 2012
Sensational performance by Sonja. I was proud to announce her at the Hartshorne Mile in January and hope to announce her again in the future.
Living in Virginia as I do, I just had to look up the all-time best outdoors in the 1500 for women at the University of Virginia. Turns out the record is 4:14.72, which Morgane Gay ran in 2011. What did Sonja run? 4:16.99? Just 2.27 seconds slower? Oh, is she good.
Terry Ballou - April 25, 2012
Awesome race, Sonja. That time is truly amazing. I hope you will run at the Olympic Trials, what a way to represent masters track. Great job and good luck in Eugene!!!
peter taylor - April 25, 2012
And Terry, while Sonja is out in Eugene for the Trials, why doesn’t she run in the masters exhibition 400 as well? After all, the qualifying standard is 64.50, and Sonja can crush that.
How do I know? In her 4:16.99 1500 reported here she averaged 68.53 per 400. Now that is flying. Just think what she could do for a single lap.
tOnY yOuNg - April 25, 2012
GET the Uhl OUT of HERE!! Congrats
Matt B. - April 26, 2012
4:46.29 AR mile
Might be capable of taking 10 seconds off of this!
Levasseur - April 27, 2012
Amazing congratuations Sonja.
peter taylor - April 29, 2012
At the Penn Relays this past weekend I had a bit of time to go through the program:
4 x 1500 for women
EVENT RECORD 17:08.34
Tennessee (2009)
Chanelle Price 4:19.5, Phoebe Wright 4:19.0,
Rolanda Bell 4:19.6, Sarah Bowman 4:10.2
What? At age 41, Sonja Friend-Uhl (above) ran 4:16.99. Only one woman on Tennessee’s record-breaking squad ran faster.
This is almost unreal.
barb friend - August 5, 2012
Wow u look so strong a role model for women everywhere at any age I’m so proud kepp on running and. Congrats love u mom
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