The Final Spot

My First Experience at the Olympic Trials 5000m

(Trails Recap Part 1)

There’s nothing like coming to terms with the possibility of not reaching the goal you’ve been working so hard for over the last three years to make you realize just HOW MUCH you want it. Making the Olympic Trials has been my goal ever since 2021, when it first occurred to me that I might have what it takes to get there. Earlier this season, I had run personal bests in both my events, the 5k and 1500m multiple times. I had done everything I could to put myself in the best spot to make the trials.

It looked like I was solidly “on the bubble”, in that spot where you have not secured the automatic qualifying time, and may or may not make it into the Olympic Trials via the descending order list.  Peter, my coach, had been repeatedly calculating where I was on the list for weeks, researching athletes who could possibly impact my spot on the lists. I, however, had not even looked at this, and didn’t let him tell me until the qualifying window closed.  I just knew going into each race this season that I needed to run faster than previously to give myself a shot. I knew I was better off competing as hard as I could rather than worrying about lists and times.

As the qualifying window closed, and it got closer and closer to the fields coming out, I feared I would find myself on the outside of the “bubble”.  I panicked that I hadn’t bought a single ticket nor signed up to volunteer and would be spending the entire 10 days of the Olympic Trials outside the halo of excitement and Hayward Field Magic encircling the stadium. I wanted so badly to experience these Olympic Trials from down on the track. But, every other American woman I’d been racing  in my events the past few years wanted it just as badly. Unlike most of them, I might not have a professional contract on the line, but every time I laced up for a hard workout, ventured out for a run after a hard work day, or peeled myself off the couch to lift weights, the Olympic trials were in the back of my mind, fueling me forward.

The Olympic Trail declaration window ended Thursday at midnight. I had been refreshing the list ALL DAY. It looked like I would be a few spots off the list in the 1500m, and was holding onto the second to last position in the 5k. I ran a workout to distract myself, then rechecked my phone: one more woman had “entered the chat” declaring their intention to run  in the 5k, bumping me down to spot 30. 30 athletes get accepted, and there were still 5 hours left for athletes to enter the field. As the night progressed, I seemed to be holding on to spot 30. First, the east coast fell asleep without any new entrants.  Hopefully, east coast 5k women had already declared their spot and gone to bed. It was time for me to go to bed as well. Peter, my coach (and husband) on the other hand, declared he would not be able to sleep until he knew for sure whether I’d made it in. Only wake me up to tell me if I made it, I said, and closed my eyes, hoping with all my might that Peter would be waking me up in a few hours with good news.

Sure enough, come 12pm I was woken up by shouts of “YOU GOT IN!!” “YOU’RE GOING TO THE OLYMPIC TRIALS!” I had snagged spot 30 out of 30 in the Womens’ 5,000m field. It was time to prepare for my first ever Olympic Trials.

As the day of my 5000 meter race drew nearer, my nerves grew, and grew. This would be, by far, the biggest stage I had ever competed on. I had run at the USA national championships a few times, but the competition here would be much steeper. This would be my first time racing this long of a distance event in a high stakes situation. My coach was tapering my workouts, and I was going a little stir crazy with the extra downtime and decreased training workload. Yet, it seemed to be working. The day before the race, I laced up and ran a few quick strides on Hayward Field. My legs felt poppy and light.  It was almost GO time. Everything felt ready.  

RACE DAY

Race Day had finally arrived. It was a balmy day, with relentless, beating sun cooking the U of O track and field complex. In my warm up I had already dumped a full plastic bottle’s worth of water on my head and top in an effort to keep cool as I waited to be escorted to the pre-competition zone.

After fifteen tense minutes of waiting underneath the stadium, one of my favorite meet officials ushered us onto the field. We walked out of the cool, quiet call room into an explosion of bright sunlight, heat, and roaring noise. As the athletes single file stepped onto the track, I recognized the cheers of various friends, former athletes, former patients, and running community members cheering me on. A wave of excitement went through me, this is actually happening. As I looked around the stands, I reflected on how being a Eugenian racing at Hayward Field is pretty darn cool. 

When the announcer says my name and the camera operator angles the camera to my position on the starting line, I crack the goofiest over-exaggerated, double chinned smile I can muster. There are times to be serious and there are times to be fun. For me, this was a time for both. I preach to my athletes that running and racing should be fun, and this was my way of diffusing some of the pre-race inner tension that was palpable on that starting line. I worked really damn hard to get here, and I needed to find a balance of racing my hardest while also looking around and soaking up this rare experience. 

Once the women around me had all been introduced, complete with their lists of athletic accolades, we were called to the starting line position. The crack of the gun signaled the start, and all at once 15 bodies were hurdling forward, around the curve, jockeying for position. 

My explicit instruction for this race was to learn from the mistake I’ve made multiple times in championship races: “don’t lead”. With this in mind, I quickly tucked behind a handful of runners on the inside aspect of lane 1 as the race started to unfold. 

Unfortunately, it started to unfold very, very slowly. At times, 12.5 laps around a track can seem to last forever. When you are tightly situated in a dense pack of runners like a chaotic school of darting minnows clumped together, inching along at a very pedestrian place, it feels like time is standing still. 

My main focus in these very slow, opening laps was to dodge spikes, bodies, and the inner guide rail of the track to avoid a fall. As a result, my stride felt unnaturally short and choppy. I kept wondering in my head:  when will we change gears? Will we ever change gears? How are we only 2 laps in? I even started committing the racing faux paw of glancing at my watch 1, 2, 3 times to check just how slow we were moving.

Half of the track was still in the beating sun, and it was the warmest it had been in Eugene in weeks. Despite the pedestrian pace, every time we circled on the sunny side of the track, my feet would start to burn. Was it the hot track? Or the fact that the new spikes I had chosen today to break in are too small? 

All this shuffle-shuffle pack running was giving me WAY too much time to check in with my body, and to  second guess myself, and my ability to go with the group when the pace would inevitably pick up.

With about 6 laps to go, the pace finally started to quicken. Intuitively, I tried to open up my stride and respond as the pack of runners lurched forward, but my legs felt heavy and stiff. I willed my legs to turnover faster, but they just weren't responding as I’d hoped. A herd of women moved around me at once, and soon it was just me and open track. Dang, this was not the day I had been hoping for. 

One step at a time, I kept moving forward. When I heard the bell, I looked up and tried to zero in on the next runner in front of me. To my surprise, I started to close in on her. I thought I was spent, but somehow I found an extra drop of energy in the final lap and caught one woman, then refocused my sights up the track, and caught the next racer as well. In the final straight away, I picked off one more runner  as I accelerated past her to cross the finish line. 

I was NOT headed to the 5k final, and that stung.  Yet again, I had underperformed in a tactical championship race. I wanted, and believed, I could do more today. Both times I ran the 5k this year I ran personal bests, and finished feeling like I had more left to give at this race distance. I still feel like the 5k is a race I haven’t quite figured out how to crack. 

The beauty of falling short of your goals is that it provides the fuel to keep pushing. I walked off the track disappointed, but knowing that I had unfinished business in the track 5k. In recent years, the 1500m has been my favorite race, but I had started to accept that my running potential may lay in this longer distance race. My 5k Olympic Trials race may have ended in a strange, disjointed conglomerate of jogging and sprinting, but the final pages of my 5k journey haven’t been written. 

As I dizzily untied the plethora of knots to remove my spikes, I discovered the giant blister consuming the entire bottom and outside surface of my big toe. My old spikes had been shot, but man, new spikes on Trials race day, what a rookie move. As I made my way out through the underbelly of the track stadium, and back to the pre-competition field, I found Peter waiting for me with a hug and encouragement. Time to rest up, refocus and  move on to the next race.