Bickler's back-to-back school records leads to back-to-back Heart honors

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - So nice she did it twice, well actually Clarke University women's cross country's Rory Bickler did a lot of things twice over the last two weeks culminating in the senior earning Heart of America Athletic Conference Women's Runner of the Week honor on Monday.

Bickler capped off a nine-day span where she broke two school records and earned two Runner of the Week honors dating back to Saturday, Oct. 7. 

Her most recent accomplishment is credit to the 6K school record that Bickler just set last Friday at the Bradley Pink Invite where the Rose Creek, Minn. native ran a 23:33.80 to finish in 33rd place out of 181 total runners in a field of majority NCAA Division I competition.

Bickler's new school record time was just under 13 seconds faster than the previous record set and held by Lauren Block in 2015 as Bickler now boasts both women's cross country distance records of 5K and 6K after also breaking the 5K record on Oct. 7 at the Brian T. Simpson Invite. 

She also has a stake to the claim of best distance runner in Clarke history, also currently holding the indoor track and field 5K record and the records for both the 5K and 10K races for outdoor track and field.

Pride cross country is done with all non-championship competition as Bickler and the Clarke squads will now train for the Heart Championship race on Nov. 4 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.