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One Orange athlete is setting personal bests and earning first place finishes in competitive running.

Not bad for a road runner who is competing in her sixth decade.

Lori Northcutt Frederick, of Orange, at the age of 61, is still hitting her personal best marks in the 5K, logging at 28:32 and recently earning the first place Great Grand Masters award.

She is one of many First Response Urgent Care in Port Arthur-sponsored athletes from across Southeast Texas who are making waves and earning major accolades in the runner’s world.

Numerous team members ran marathons recently with Chevron Houston Marathon and Louisiana Marathon.

“What a demonstration of impressive physical and mental endurance combined with goals and determination,” said Jennie Le of First Response Urgent Care. “What an amazing group of athletes to represent our local communities.”

Two of the athletes finished with extremely fast times and qualified to run the prestigious Chicago and Boston Marathons in 2025.

Qualifying to run one of the World Marathon Majors is a dream come true for most marathoners.

Crystal Moore from Port Neches represented the area and also raced against the best triathletes in the world at the Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii on Oct 14.

She raced at the Louisiana Marathon Jan 14 and finished with a time of 3:28:15 and qualified to run in the Chicago and Boston.

Kendal Pike Batuyong from Groves also raced at the Louisiana Marathon and finished with a time of 3:16:39, placing first in the age group and qualified to run in Chicago and Boston.

Batuyong doesn’t have to wait until 2025 is helping represent Southeast Texas in the prestigious 128th Boston Marathon on April 15.

The next team race will be at the Ironman Texas North American Championship in the Woodlands on April 27.

First Response Urgent Care-sponsored athletes include Dr. Thi Nguyen, Kento Anjima, Jenny Rawls, David Dang and Amanda Fernando. They are supported by coach Crystal Moore.

Also, congratulations go out to hometown Dr. Minh Tran of Port Arthur on completing 26.2 miles and officially becoming a marathoner, a feat less than 1 percent of the global population has achieved.

Kento Anjima of Nederland completed a second marathon and has many more to go in the future.

The trio of Shay Fontenot of Lumberton, Frederick, and Jenny Rawls of Lumberton completed another half marathon, calling it another fun training run for bigger goals.