Boilermaker: College Runners

You may see them toward the front of the pack on July 8th, but that's because many of them have been running their entire lives. And because they run in college. Utica college senior Jonathan Szczesniak has been running The Boilermaker since they introduced the 5K and he says running in college differs from running The Boilermaker. He says, "Running in college, you're running with your team so there's a little bit more competition. For the Boilermaker you're definitely competing with yourself and against the clock because you want to get the best time you possible can."

New Hartford native and Hamilton College freshman, Katie Steates says she looks forward to Boilermaker weekend well before it happens. She says, "I love always waking up and reading the newspaper and watching the news and the whole community gets involved whether it's either handing out the water or cheering the entire way or going to the part afterwards, still everyone gets really involved and it's great."

Hannah Lyons is originally from Connecticut and hadn't heard of the great race before she attended Hamilton College but that changed when she arrived on campus. She says, "I hadn't heard of it before coming here, but once I heard of it from a lot of my teammates and people who go here but don't run track. Umm it started popping up everywhere and I started noticing it in a lot of running magazines, a lot of the news so it's become more and more salient."

Those who are from the area say they feel privileged to run the course. Jonathan says, "I've been lucky enough to live in the area my entire life so whenever I train I try to run the course as much as possible." Katie added, "Honestly people always thing it would be a lot harder than it already is but once you get going and your adrenaline running and everyone's cheering for you the entire way along, it's not bad at all, I really enjoy it."