![]() McFarlane excelled her final two seasons at MSU as she earned second-team All-Big Ten honors her last year of cross country and advanced to the NCAA East Preliminary Round in the 5,000-meter run, posting a time of 16:44.5 During her final indoor track season, McFarlane earned All-Big Ten second-team honors and was part of the Spartans' distance medley relay team that placed second in the Big Ten Indoor Championships. I chose to keep running because I love it so much, and now I'm so glad I did." "Before my fourth year of college, I decided to trust my coaches, eat better and train harder. "My first three years of college I suffered one injury after another, and it got to the point where I was asking myself, 'Am I really cut out for this?' "My first year at State I was still getting over a stress-fracture injury and I came down with mono, so I was kind of at a disadvantage right away," she recalled. McFarlane's extraordinary accomplishment is a testament to her love for running and an exemplary display of perseverance that she used to endure a parade of injuries and a bout of mononucleosis that delayed her running career at MSU. ![]() When I crossed the finish line I hugged Sarah and said, 'We did it!' It's two days later and it still hasn't really hit me what I've done." "When I came up on the final 400 meters and I could see the clock, I knew I had a chance to get under 1:15. But I stayed with Sarah for the first nine miles or so, which helped. "It was the first half marathon I've ever tried, so I didn't know what to expect. "I've never been to Los Angeles, so this will give me a good reason to go," said McFarlane, who graduated from MSU in 2013 and Churchill in 2008. Olympic Marathon Trials that are set for Feb. Given the mountain of adversity McFarlane had to scale during her first three years of running for Michigan State University's cross-country and track-and-field teams, the incline must have seemed like nothing more than a bump in the road.Ĭompeting in her first-ever half marathon, McFarlane placed second among female runners (and ninth overall) – behind only her good friend Sarah Boyle – with a time of 1 hour, 14 minutes and 40 seconds, which eclipsed by 20 seconds the time needed to qualify for the 2016 U.S. Just over eight miles into Sunday's Detroit Free Press Talmer Bank International Half Marathon, former Livonia Churchill distance-running standout Rachel McFarlane exited the dimly-lit Detroit-Windsor Tunnel and was met by a starkly contrasting sight: bright sunshine and the steepest, most-daunting hill the 13.1-mile course had to offer.
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