Machine-translated from Faroese and not yet reviewed. Read the original.
Bjørk Herup Olsen has now started her third year at East Carolina University, where she has been given a scholarship as a talented runner. Over there the year starts with cross-country races, which run from September to November. The previous two years did not go as well as hoped. In her first year she had a foot injury and was slow to get going, while in her second year she struggled to hit form on the day and get good results, even though training went rather well.
Despite the setbacks, Bjørk has shown great mental strength. This summer we saw a well-tuned Bjørk set two strong Faroese records in Gothenburg, and since then things have only moved forward. A little over a week ago she won her first race in the States. This was a 5 km cross-country race at Lake Kristi, where Bjørk clocked an excellent 17:44. Just a week earlier there were already signs that Bjørk was approaching top form, as she also ran a 5 km cross-country race in 17:49 and finished 14th (2nd on her team)
Bjørk made her mark again this past weekend. This time it was a 6 km cross-country race at the Charlotte Invitationals, which is an even bigger and stronger competition. Here Bjørk managed to finish 8th out of 233 women in a time of 21:38. That works out at an average pace of 3:36 per km, and don’t forget that this is cross-country running with hills and bends! Bjørk has been the best woman on her team in both of these last two races, which says a lot about her progress, because in the previous two years she was mostly 4th or 5th on her team. As further proof of Bjørk’s strength, it is worth mentioning that she was a full minute ahead of her best teammate, and that girl usually beat Bjørk in the previous two years.
The good results have been covered on ecupirates.com, the university’s website, and it has not gone unnoticed by Dansk Atletik Forbund either, as their website, www.dansk-atletik.dk, has also written about Bjørk.
There is no race next weekend, but on 13 October the spikes go back on. That will be the Pre-Nationals in Louisville, Kentucky, where they will run 6 km. Now it will be exciting to see whether Bjørk can hold her form until the Island Games in 9–10 months’ time, because then it will be fun for us Faroese to follow.
Bjørk with her teammates, who would probably all have met the Faroese Island Games qualification standards. But Bjørk is the fittest!
