Shalane Flanagan wins the women's 5000m in an American record of 14:44.80 - MT SAC 2007 (© Kirby Lee)
After her largely solo 14:44.80 North American record in the 5000 metres last weekend at the Mt. SAC Relays, Shalane Flanagan is certainly pleased. Not so much for the second national record she has set in her last three races on the track – though those are a major bonus - but more so for the simple fact that she’s actually fit enough to even produce the performances that have placed her firmly on the doorstep to the world’s fastest.
“The kind of state I was in last year was pretty pathetic,” the 25-year-old recalled. “I was down and in pain, and if somebody told me that I'd break the American record in a year I'd have laughed.”
On Thursday (19), Flanagan celebrated the first anniversary of a surgery to remove a bone in her foot. “I was just born with this extra bone near my navicular, and it was starting to tear on my tendon. I could barely push off for a year and could barely use my big toe. It was flat-footed running, pretty much.”
Patient return from surgery
The pain began soon after the 2004 Olympics, where she competed in the first round, and steadily grew worse from then on. She competed on a handful of occasions the following year, winning her first national title in the 5000 and qualifying for the World Championships, but with the pain persisting, surgery last year became the only option.
Flanagan, a 15-time NCAA All-American while a student at the University of North Carolina, described her two-and-a-half to three month recovery period as a “fairly quick” one, despite outward appearances.
“After surgery I would look at my foot, and it was so mangled, I wondered, ‘How am I going to be able to walk?’ I thought I might never be able to run indoors or cross country again, just because of the torque.”
National indoor record in first race back...
But with plenty of therapy and patience, Flanagan steadily resumed training, and seven months later returned to competition with a victory over a hilly 4.748 mile course at the Manchester Road Race in Massachusetts. Yet that victory on Thanksgiving Day was barely an indication of the form she would display at January’s Reebok Boston Indoor Games in her first track race since the 2005 World Championships.
In Boston, Flanagan surprised the crowd as she chased Ethiopian Meseret Defar until the final two laps en route to a runner-up 8:33.25 performance to chop nearly six seconds from the previous U.S. indoor 3000m record. A month later came an easy U.S. indoor title over the same distance, followed by a strong runner-up finish to Deena Kastor at the national cross country championships.
... and national record in first outdoor race
Then came her shocker last weekend, which lopped more than 20 seconds from her previous personal best that dated back to 2004, and well inside the previous national standard of 14:45.35 set by Regina Jacobs at the 2000 Olympic Trials.
“I had been training pretty hard, and to have it translate into a race is pretty nice,” Flanagan said. “Before the race, my coach said I was capable of running anywhere from 14:35 to 15 flat. We knew that if the weather was good, we had a chance, but it is very early in the season.”
Assisted by training partner Erin Donahue for the initial part of the race, Flanagan chose to go it alone before reaching the end of the second kilometre.
“To have it all work out was pretty nice. I thought I was going to be real close (to the record), and I usually feel I thrive off of competition. So to run fast by myself was great.”
In a strong competitive race, Flanagan believes, she could probably go significantly faster. “I like to think that by the end of the summer when I'm running with some of the top women, I'll be able to run about 10 seconds faster. That effort felt very comfortable until the last 1000.”
Planning a cautious approach
While she’s fully aware that she needs experience in fast races, Flanagan said she’s going to take a cautious road, keeping her racing to a minimum. Her next outing will come at the North Carolina Elite Meet on 11 May in Chapel Hill, primarily to return the favor and assist Donahue to a fast performance. She may contest the 1500 at the Prefontaine Classic on 10 June –“that race usually brings together an eclectic group” - but her next 5000 won’t come until the U.S. Championships in late June. After that, she’s planning just one more outing over the longer distance prior to the World Championships in Osaka.
“With the 5k, I don't believe you can run too many in one year,” Flanagan said. “I'm recovering from my last race, and it makes me realize that if you want to run quality 5ks, you can't push too many upon yourself. Given that I'm a year off my surgery, I don't want to push things too much. I want to be selective about my races.”
Flanagan took “kind of a break” after her Mt. SAC run, but it wasn’t all rest and relaxation. She traded a few days of work-outs to unpack from a move back to North Carolina, a chore Flanagan said “was pretty physical.” After a year in Portland, Oregon, Flanagan and her husband Steve Edwards chose to return to more familiar surroundings.
“We consider Carolina home, and we were both a little homesick,” she admitted. But her relocation also had a practical implication. Her coach, John Cook, is based in Florida, making that relationship a little more convenient.
As for this summer’s World Championships in Osaka, Flanagan has a realistic outlook.
“I tell my coach all the time I just want him to put me in contention. My ideal situation would be to hang with the Africans for as long as possible and just be in contention.”
Bob Ramsak for the IAAF
