Jackson, MS — On Saturday, January 27, the 11th Annual Mississippi Blues Marathon took place, and Jackson Preparatory School had no shortage of representation. The day began with very dark skies and rain showers, but the runners didn’t let the weather conditions slow them down, in fact, they embraced them. It also came as a relief to many that the weather held up enough for the race to even take place because the 2017 Blues Marathon was a last minute cancellation due to weather conditions.

The Blues Marathon is not just a marathon race, but it also provides many other shorter events like the half-marathon, the quarter marathon, the 5k race and the relay marathon. Jackson Preps main representation in this race came from a group of faculty that ran in the relay marathon, and they went by the name “Team Prep”. Team Prep was made up of four teachers and one trainer/coach who works with the many different Jackson Prep athletic programs. The team members were Christina Jackson (1st leg), Kimberly Van Uden (2nd leg), Gail Derryberry (3rd leg), Benjamin Burke (4th leg), and Laura Hepner (5th leg). Each leg of the relay has a distance of five miles, however, in the fifth and final leg, the runner goes a distance of 6.2 miles. Team Prep has been going strong as a team for many years now, but this is the first year this group as a whole has run together in this race. When asked about the team Mrs. Jackson said, ”It was so much fun running in this group. It was just a great experience overall.”

However, Team Prep was not the only school representation in the marathon. There were also several students that participated in both the half-marathon and the 5k race. One Prep student who also is the opinion editor for The Sentry, Maclain Kennedy called the half-marathon, “a fun and accomplishing experience”. Maclain also had some success in the half-marathon, as she finished the race in well under two hours and had a time which was good enough to place her in the top three of her division (Female 13-19).