It's got to be the magic pig tails. How else to explain Front Runner Audra Farrell's explosion of excellent running in recent months, beating one PR after another?
Audra has set new personal bests at every distance she has run this year, most recently at the 5-mile Gay Pride Run last weekend, which she ran in 37:16 minutes. She has also PR'ed in a 5k, a 4-miler, a 10k, a 10k, a 10-miler, a half marathon, and a full marathon. And we are only halfway through the year.
As anyone who follows her every move on Facebook knows, Audra credits wearing her hair in pigtails to explain some of those explosive performances. But more probably, her secret sauce is quite simple: "Just running and more of it," Audra said, and watch your times melt away. (It probably doesn't hurt that her girlfriend with whom she shares an apartment and some pets, and sometime coach, Loren, is an accomplished runner herself. See October 2008 profile )
Her Gay Pride PR came just over 10 years to the day after her first ever NYRR race, the 1999 Gay Pride run, which she ran 8 minutes slower. That summer, Audra joined the club to have people to run with, and to train for her first marathon. "I hadn't run since high school and had no idea how to get going again," said the South Bend, Indiana native, who spent most of her childhood in Philadelphia's South Jersey suburbs. But because her high school did not have a soccer team and would not allow her to play with on the boys' team --"I have three brothers, boys have never scared me", she says -- she ran track, but eventually gave that up after tiring of "running in circles."
Audra, now a 38 year-old graphic designer, stopped running in her early 20's to move to New York to attend the School of Visual Arts, and be an agent provocateur with ACT UP! and Queer Nation, among other groups. But though she has since mellowed (a little), Audra still has a fire in her belly -- she became obsessed in recent years with qualifying for the Boston Marathon (needing a 3:45 time to qualify), reaching her goal this year at the New Jersey marathon -- "Much to the relief of Loren who doesn't think she would have been able to live with me through another miss," she said.
In her time with FRNY, Audra has been an active leader. In 2008, she served as women's Vice President and had an active role in helping to design the Pride program and has always been an advocate of the club's training programs. Always a serious athlete, she won two honors at the last awards dinner -- the points award for her age group and the inaugural Sue Foster Distance Runner of the Year.
Of course, many in the club know Audra first and foremost as a triathlete; she has helped to promote the visibility of Tritons over the last decade. Many probably did not know that Audra chose to put cycling and swimming aside in the pursuit of that Boston qualifying team. "I realized after a failed attempt in October of 2008 (Steamtown Marathon, in Pennsylvania) that if I was going to do that, I was going to have to run more. Actually, only run," Audra said. In fact she hasn't ridden her road bike or swum since the Keuka Lake triathlon on just over a year ago. "I put triathlons and cycling on hold to just run and just qualify for Boston," she said.
Like many of our athletes who have seen tremendous improvements in their performance, Audra credits the club workouts for much of her progress. "Kelsey's outdoor workouts are great. It's a great way to meet and run with other Front Runners who run different paces and allows us all to run together," Audra said. We can look forward to seeing Audra at FRNY into the fall. Her running goal for the next year? "I'd like to go sub 3:40 in NY."
