Follett Goes Out For A Day At The Park

It was a beautiful day for a photo op at Seattle's picturesque Gasworks Park on Friday, but senior Katie Follett was tucked away among the heavy machinery along with Seattle Pacific's Jessica Pixler, rather than soaking up the sun.

The Seattle Times will be featuring the two local stars sometime in the next two weeks, and brought them together at Gasworks, a nice middle ground between the two campuses. Check out a couple behind-the-scenes shots with Follett and Pixler taking direction from Times photographer John Lok

Follett and Pixler have been blazing separate record-setting careers in Seattle over the past few years, with Follett leading the emergence of Washington's outstanding women's distance program, and Pixler collecting an armfull of national titles at the Division-II level. Recently, their paths have begun to cross more, and the last two times have resulted for school records for both in the mile and 1,500-meters.

Follett was able to get the better of Pixler at the Mt. SAC Relays and posted an NCAA-leading time of 4:10.66 that broke the UW school record and ranks fourth in Pac-10 history. Pixler meanwhile leads D-II in the 800m, 1,500m, and 5,000m. After Mt. SAC, the two ran a cool down together and started talking for really the first time, despite Pixler being a frequent competitor at the Dempsey during the indoor season.

Now the two will focus on going after conference and national titles at their own level, and won't see each other on the starting line again until possibly the USA Championships in July. But each are hoping they could be friendly rivals at the professional level soon.

GoHuskies will keep you updated on the status of the feature.