In Wake of Northville Controversy, Judy Pendergast & Naperville North Train and Wait

Detweiller Park's Greatest Of All Time

Like most runners, Pendergast is usually deaf to the calls and chants of the crowd.

Except on Saturday, Nov. 7 - the date of the Illinois state championship.

She already had a nation-leading 16:05 three mile under her belt. Iverson dropped hints that she was ready to go after Perez's record. 

"I was always a little skeptical," Pendergast said. "Like, 'okay, Iverson, whatever you say.'"

But at the Illinois state championship, she was firing on all cylinders.

"That day, I was hitting splits I had never hit before for the mile and two mile," she said.

Pendergast's splits were a smoldering sub-2:30 for the opening 800m and 5:08 first mile. The Harvard commit then ran 10:26 through the two mile split, a new personal best.

"People were saying, 'go for it, you can get it,'" she recounted.

She didn't just go for the record, she demolished it by eight seconds. Pendergast crossed the line in 15:53.8 to beat the prior time by eight seconds.

"I usually zone out, but I was pretty attentive to what people were saying... I just remember running up the straightaway and it was really, I was like, 'I feel so lucky.' It was such a cool thing to be a part of and to see progress pay off was really exciting."

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