PhotoNews Wire

Hellings, Hajny champions at Allerton Half Marathon

HApril 6, 2013 - Monticello, IL - Over 220 half marathoners gathered just outside of Monticello, IL, on April 6 to compete in the inaugural Allerton Trail race on a beautiful spring morning.

Mingled in with 10K runners at the starting line, their race would take them through winding trails on the 1,517 picturesque acres of Robert Allerton Park. Up steep hills, around statues and through the various gardens of the grand estate billed as one of the Seven Wonders of Illinois by the Illinois Bureau of Tourism, runners from as far away as Winnebago, IL and Perrysville, IN.

Read full story here

Posted 1 month ago

Running, distance running, Allerton Trail Run, endurance running, Robert Allerton Park,

Newest PhotoNews publication

This issue of the Big Picture features coverage from the 2012 IHSA state cross-country meet held at Detweiller Park. Inside Illinois high school cross-country fans and runners will find lots of … and we mean lots of photos, individual race results as well as race summaries and recaps from all six races on November 2. Preview the entire issue on the other end of the link. Check out the Big Picture 2012 cross-country edition

(Source: iphotonews.com)

Posted 6 months ago

Cross-Country, XC, Sports, Running, High School, Prep, distance running, Magazine, Publication, Sports News,

August 11, 2012 - St. Joseph, IL - Improving on last year’s second place finish, Ryan Root runs to a first place finish at the 2012 SJO 5K. It took Root just 15:19 to complete the course for the overall title. A little more than a month earlier, the former Champaign Centennial standout won this year’s Freedom 5K overall champion title. To see more photos from this race click on the photo above or here: 2012 SJO 5k race pictures

Posted 9 months ago

Running, 5K run, Sports, Endurance, College Runner, community celebration, St. Joseph-Ogden, Champaign Centennial, Running Star, distance running,

Root, Brewer Win 2012 Freedom 5K's Top Spots

Former Champaign Centennial High School distance running star Ryan Root won his second consecutive Freedom 5K Run title on a typical hot and sunny Fourth of July. Root, a member of Naperville’s North Central College track and cross country program, completed the course in 15 minutes, 29 and half seconds for back-to-back overall titles.

Tuscola native Rachael Brewer finished 18th overall and led all female competitors to the finish line with a time 22:33.5. Like Root, Brewer was a back-to-back winner. Finishing 22nd overall with a time of 18:34.8 in 2011, this year she made a modest 14 second improvement turning in a 18:22.4.

Root, who averaged a five minute mile pace, finished more than a minute ahead of his nearest competitor, 17-year-old Jesse Hahne from Danville. Hahne ran a 16:35.7 to finish second overall and former two-time champion Andy Eheart took the third-place honors.

Meanwhile on the ladies’ side, Julia Williams finished about 49 seconds behind Brewer at 19:11.1. The third-place overall woman to finish was very recent St. Jospeh-Ogden alum and four-year varsity distance runner Jolee Paden at 20:18.4.

Official overall race results .::. PhotoNews Freedom 5K race photo gallery

Posted 10 months ago

Freedom 5K, PhotoNews Photos, Ryan Root, Rachel Brewer, Running, Distance Running, Community Celebration, Champaign-Urbana, Sports,

PhotoNews Gifford 5K Race Photo Gallery

We posted 313 photos from June 23 Gifford 5k. It was the fourth installment of the race featured at the annual Gifford Community Celebration. Matt Hazel, from Rantoul, was the overall winner and Urbana’s Jeff Kelly finished second. The women’s top finisher was Josie Walsh from Canton, MO, who was followed in by future Mahomet-Seymour distance specialist Lauren Whitehouse.

Posted 10 months ago

Gifford 5k, Running, Distance Running, Athlete, Summer, Distance runner, Photo gallery,

Gifford Community Celebration 5K this Saturday

June 19, 2012 - Saturday morning distance runners will gather once again at Werner Roessler Park in Gifford for the fourth installment of the Gifford Community Celebration 5K Run/Walk. The race starts at 7am with race day registration opens at 6:30 am. ’ This year, race organizers increased the age divisions from three to seven. Awards will be given to the top three male and female runners in each category plus a trophy to the first and second place male and female finishers. The age groups are 0-13, 14-19, 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59 and60 and over.

Click here to read more about the GCC 5K …

Posted 11 months ago

running, distance running, 5K Run, Sports, Festival Activity,

Google and Yahoo! think highly of our Illinois Marathon coverage

One search engine thinks our coverage of the 2012 Illinois Marathon is the best, the other the greatest!

Both the Google and Yahoo! search engines index our website on a regular basis. It is fun to ask both questions to see where the PhotoNews site ranks periodically or after we have added new content. Both respond by listing web sites in a specific order based on relevancy programmed into the the search engine’s search algorithm. Where a site sits on the list is known as the search engine return position (SERP).

For grins and giggles after doing a search for this year’s race photos to see what was available, we tried a search using “best Illinois Marathon photos” with both Yahoo! and Google. The PhotoNews website was at the top of the list! Certainly both search engines have excellent photographic taste.

When we substituted the word ‘greatest’ for best, the PhotoNews ranked #8 in Yahoo! SERP. Above PN, there were three sites that were not about last weekend’s huge running event that brought close to 20,000 runners to Champaign-Urbana. Google, of course, still ranked us #1 - good for them.

But, search engines can be fickle. SERPs can change daily - sometimes hourly - and with the smallest of changes to the search string. Add the word ‘the’, for example, and on both search engine giants’ sites, the SERP for the PhotoNews as well as all other related Illinois Marathon sites and blog post shuffles. While “the greatest Illinois Marathon photos” search returned our site one step down with Google, Yahoo! didn’t think that highly of us as “the greatest” and displayed a link to our site at #30.

Changing the word photo to pictures, Google still lists the PhotoNews as the place for the “greatest illinois marathon pictures”, but add the word “the” again and the SERP drops to #4. With Yahoo!, PN doesn’t even ranked in the first 50 sites for “the greatest illinois marathon pictures” and 49th if you remove the word ‘the’. Apparently, Yahoo! likes our photos but hates our pictures.

There is a lesson here for both website owners as well as for those searching the web for specific information.

For website owners and bloggers who use search engine optimization to make their content findable, using keywords, tags and phrases that describe their content is crucial. For example, we know we rarely use the word “picture” to describe the content on the PhotoNews site. With Google, it is not so much an issue, but with Yahoo! the sparing use has a big impact on PhotoNews’ SERP.

For surfers using search engines, it is important to note that if you can’t find the info you are looking for in the first pass, try again adding or removing or using alternate words to describe what you are looking for. You might even want to come back and try again a few hours later.

Remember above where we said SERP can change hourly? After typing this post we checked Google again for “the best illinois marathon photos”. PN moved down to #4, but that’s okay as long as you find us in the top ten.

Posted 1 year ago

Illinois Marathon, Christie Clinic Illinois Marathon, Distance Running, Endurance running, Sports,

Kibler finishes in top 50 at Christie Clinic’s Illinois Marathon

April 28, 2012 - Champaign, IL - Passing the halfway mark on the course, Levi Kibler, from Bloomington, IL, runs during the 2012 Illinois Marathon. He finished 26.2 mile course at 3:03:07 to place 41st out of the 1,149 men who ran this year’s race. Kibler was #45 overall. Follow this link to see more Illinois Marathon photos on the PhotoNews website.

Posted 1 year ago

Christie Clinic Marathon, Champaign Marathon, Illnois Marathon, Distance Running, Endurance Running, Running, Marathoning,

Posts tagged with "Distance Running"