Tell us about the race today…
I talked to my coaches a lot. We just thought, “no one’s going to PR today.” Kellyn Taylor would have to PR, they’d all have to be in PR shape on this day. I promised that I wouldn’t go with any move until the 20 mile mark, and I thought, maybe I’ll regret it, but… I ran out of gas too. This past week, my family got sick. We all got sick, but honestly, I have a hard time tapering, so it probably helped me.
I fumbled my second bottle. We were running high 5:30’s which is well within my comfort zone, but I could tell it was a tad harder than it should be. But it was hard for everybody. I don’t care how well you prepared for this, it’s hard for your body. It sucks for everybody. I just kept holding out hope that more people would come back to me. I knew… I don’t have to win, I just have to be top three. I pretty much knew at 22 that it wasn’t going to happen.
I was hoping someone would break in the race. That sounds awful, but there’s a dream on the line. I was hoping that I would be there, they’d be in over their heads. I was still fighting. But they were all composed until the end. They ran really great.
Being behind Desi, it gave me comfort that she was back there, but I had a race strategy and my race strategy was to run between 5:35-5:40 and don’t go too fast. I felt like Kellyn pushed it early on and it was too early to run that kind of a pace, and I thought there’s no way all those women are going to be able to maintain that. And none of them did, except for Amy, Desi and Shalane.
The team? It’s an awesome team. They’re all great women, who I’ve run with for years. There’s not a bad person among them. They’ve worked really hard, they deserve to go.
Any chance you’ll go for the 10,000m?
Yeah. I’ll be trying to make the 10K team. I didn’t work hard for nothing.
What’s your training and racing meant these past two years?
I’ve always been a dreamer. And this is the way I’m wired. And I love it still. I love racing. I love training. I feel alive when I’m preparing for something. I feel happy. And sometimes it doesn’t go the way you hope, but I have such a good life.
Mark and Heather have taken me back and turned my life around. Before, I was just depressed and disillusioned with the sport, and they gave me my life back. And I would do it again in a heartbeat, even with the same result.
I’ve been reborn.
