Hermiston grads Sean Williams and Jen Puzey ripped through the 10K (6.2 miles) course Saturday at the 12th annual Butte Challenge race in record times.

Williams, a 1998 Hermiston graduate, covered the traditionally slow route in 33 minutes, 24 seconds. He knocked off fellow old Bulldog Terry Johnsen, who set the record in last years race.

Puzey, meanwhile, recorded a time of 34:26. To put that in perspective, the qualifying standards for the 2012 Olympic Trials for the 10K distance, which is run on a track and not the road, is 33:00.

Without the hills that make the Butte Challenge course slower than most, its safe to say that if run on a track Puzeys performance would have been close to qualifying for the Trials.

Her time shattered the course record for females, which she set in 2007, by over three minutes and she set a personal best at the distance by over two minutes.

In the mens 5K race, 14-year-old Hermiston High School freshman Jose Macias was using the event as a training run for the district and state track meets coming up, but still wasted the field by nearly 3.5 minutes. His winning time was 16:52.5 with 26-year-old Riley Smith coming in second at 19:28.9.

Macias was part of the state-title cross country team in the fall, and hes already excited for what next season might bring.

Track is almost over, so Im ready for cross country to start again, he said. This run was just to shake out my legs a bit.

Hermistons Melody Sanchez won the womens 5K with a 19:54. She was the only female 5K runner to post a time under 20 minutes.

The winner of the mens 5K walk was Lyle Ledbetter of Pendleton with a time of 40:29.9. Hermistons Alice DeJongh won the womens 5K walk with a 41:28.4.

The race is a fundraiser for the Hermiston High School cross country program, and head coach Jake Puzey said its one of the teams major fundraisers.

And a new addition to the race was the highly-technical timing system, known as chip timing, used to help curb timing errors.

Eric Jensen, founder of Eastern Oregon Sports Training and current Stanfield Secondary School track coach, provided the system to do so.

It was his first time using it, but he felt pretty confident about how it went and that it will only become better once hes able to use it more often. Hes set to manage more local races, like the Columbia River Power Marathon later this fall, to hone in the intricacies of the system and really make it top-notch for area meets.