Burmeister running through the NMU record books

MARQUETTE — This week, the Lady Wildcats are getting set for the GLIAC Outdoor Track and Field Championships, looking to improve on their 7th place finish last season.

“Coming off a really good indoor season with some great results. Some kids going to nationals, and now the outdoor kind of followed over into that. Definitely have had some good results all through. Some school records, some provisional marks. Just a great group of young women that are working hard and definitely having a successful season so far,” head coach Jenny Ryan said.

One of those athletes is Menominee–native Kameron Burmeister, who is coming off a great performance at the prestigious Mount SAC Relays, where she set a school record and NCAA provisional mark in the 10,000 meter run.

“I feel so blessed to have done that. I had a really good result there, taking almost a minute off my time in my 10,000. I’m really excited going into conferences this week, and hopefully I can take off a little bit more time so I can get myself down on the provisional list and hopefully qualify for nationals in the 10,000,” said Burmeister.

Burmeister also runs cross country and back in November, she became the first Wildcat in 11 years to capture All–American accolades, a feat that takes a lot of work to get.

“The biggest thing is that she does a lot of the stuff behind the scenes like eating right, sleeping right, foam rolling, stretching, doing all those things that makes her at that level,” Ryan said.

“Just remaining positive and realizing that this is something that I love to do, and competing is something that I love to do. And doing it well is awesome, but at the same token, not having pressure or expectation. Just going in and doing what I know how to do and what I’ve trained for,” said Burmeister.

Burmeister says she never had aspirations to become a runner but several people steered her in that direction, who are some of the same people who cheered her on when she was running for the Maroons.

“It’s really awesome to be from the Upper Peninsula from such a small area. I think that especially running in the smaller sports, we don’t even get a chance to compete downstate in high school, or get to see competition other than the people that we run against every single race for four years. I hope it’s a tribute to just working hard and if you push yourself, you can achieve your dreams. It doesn’t matter if you’re from Menominee, Marquette, Escanaba or Stephenson. You can still do big things being from a small area so that’s really cool,” Burmeister said.

The GLIAC Championships begin tomorrow in Grand Rapids.