Aug. 11, 2008

ATHENS, Ohio-Ohio University alum and former Bobcat track and cross country athlete, Karen Bleigh Seiferth, recently competed in the Tennessee State Senior Olympics. Karen competed in seven events during the six day competition. She not only won all seven events in her age group, but she also now holds the records in all seven events.

Karen won the 100 meter title with a time of 15.41 seconds, which is just shy of her record time of 15.12 set last year. She also proceeded to win the 200 meter dash in 31.94 seconds, again just short of her record of 31.18 set in 2007. Next on her list was the 400 meter dash. She has now won that race two years in a row also with times and record of 1:11.62 and 1:11.69, respectively. 

Karen continued her dominance by winning the 800 meters and 1500 meters with new records of 2:47.99 and 5:46.54 respectively. Just when you would thought she might be tired, she went out and won both the 5k run and 10k run in times of 21:17 and 43:34, respectively. She holds records in those events as well.

During her time at Ohio, she competed in the pentathlon and also ran cross country for the Bobcats.  Karen competed for Ohio from 1977 through 1980. She was a member of the first indoor track team and the first cross country team at Ohio. She was coached in those days by Miss DeVries and Diane Stamm. 

Karen has now qualified for next year's National Senior Olympics which will be held at Stanford University in August of 2009. So she will continue to work hard, usually training six to seven days per week. Her workouts include running short and long intervals, logging 4-13 mile runs, and throwing in some cross training. 

Karen will be training hard and we will try to keep everyone up to date on her path to the National Meet next August. Go Bobcats!