The Ravenscroft senior's performance was the fastest ever by a North Carolina high school girl, and 2nd-fastest ever on the WakeMed course.
First, a disclaimer: all-time rankings are much less meaningful in cross country than they are in track, due to the variance in courses and conditions that we experience (not to mention the complication caused by short courses). With that in mind, Ryen Frazier ran 16:44 at WakeMed yesterday during the NC State 3 Stripe Invitational, and that is the #1 time in North Carolina history! Frazier is the first girl from the Old North State ever to run under 17 minutes on a 5K cross country course, and her time ranks her 6th in the country right now. While it is always dicey to compare times from Alaska and Arizona to those from our state, where our courses tend to be on the faster side, her time puts her into a group of 6 girls that have run between 16:40 and 16:45.
Another disclaimer: I haven't actually confirmed with Ryen that she is planning on going to Foot Locker South to try to qualify for the national championships in San Diego. However, that seems like a pretty easy assumption to make given her success this year, and also recalling that her older sister Wesley followed the same path during her high school career. If she does, though, she has certainly established herself as a potential contender there.
More on the historical context for this performance:
-
If Ryen had run the same time on a track, it would be the 3rd-best time in state history (better than her track PR of 17:02.17)
-
Frazier is only the second HS girl to run under 17 minutes on the WakeMed course, her time trailing only Aisling Cuffe's 16:40.9 from the 2010 Great American. (Cuffe went on to run 16:53 at Balboa Park while winning Foot Locker Nationals that year.)
-
Note: prior to the 2005 Great American, WakeMed had different layouts that included a downhill finish and a stadium finish. Aislinn Ryan ran 16:56 on the stadium finish configuration in 2004.)
-
-
The time ranks 24th all-time in the MileSplit database (which admittedly is still being expanded with historical results).
Check out Ryen's interview with Rodger Shull after the big race:
