Distance runner Butler tries to maintain healthy season

Bob Shaughnessy/Staff Report

Eastern senior distance runner Brad Butler is returning to running after an injury during the fall cross country season. (Karolina Strack/The Daily Eastern News)

Senior Brad Butler wants to be healthy for the entire season.

Butler, a distance runner, was set to be the top cross country runner in the fall. He was actually healthy for the majority of the season until injuring himself right before the Ohio Valley Conference meet.

Butler will try to lead the Eastern track and field teams this weekend. The Panthers are competing at the Memphis Tiger Invitational in Memphis, Tenn., today and Saturday the Mid-Season Invite at Olivet Nazarene in Bourbonnais Saturday and the Rose Hulman Twilight in Terre Haute, Ind., today.

Butler won the 10,000-meter run last Friday at the Lee Calhoun Invitational in Macomb. He won the event in a career best time of 31 minutes, 11.24 seconds. Although Butler would love to hit his best times, he is more concerned about the team finishing first.

"My main goal is to win conference, but I just want a lot of guys to qualify for Regionals and to continue to get better," Butler said.

With a stress fracture in his foot during the cross country season, Butler was forced to miss both conference and Regionals.

But with his foot healthy this year he can be one of the top performers in the OVC.

"It was real tough on me because I red-shirted on purpose so I could come back and have a good fifth year and then finish strong and then I got injured, and I did not want to finish my Eastern career like that," he said.

Butler is a two-time All-OVC performer in cross country. He won the 10,000-meter run at the outdoor conference meet in 2006.

Butler, who also has a brother on the team, junior Keith Butler, said it is nice to be able to run with a sibling, something not too many people get to do. With Keith being more of a mid-distance runner, running 800 meters, the brothers are able to stay away from sibling competition.

"It's pretty cool (being on the same team)," Brad said. "We get to hang out and spend more time together something than some other brothers may not get to do. We're pretty close. The competition) is usually not too heated. It's pretty friendly."

Even with his dominant performances in the track season, Brad said he still prefers cross country.


Notes: Other teams at Memphis:

Memphis (M&W)

Eastern (M&W)

Middle Tennessee State (M&W)

Western Illinois (M&W)

Rhodes College (M&W)

Lindenwood (M&W)

Southern Illinois Edwardsville (M&W)

Harding (M&W)

Hendrix College (M&W)

Lipscomb (M&W)

Rust College (M&W)

Christian Brothers (M)

Belmont (W)

Murray State (W)

Jacksonville State (W)


Runners expected to compete at Rose-Hulman:

Women: Meghan Kennedy, Katie O'Brien, Martha Pedziwiatr

Men: Eric Pederson, Mike Connolly, Nic Atkinson, Kyle Swynenberg, Connor Kustief


Bob Shaughnessy can be reached at 581-7944 or at rrshaughnessy@eiu.edu.