The Standard At Last!

Yes, it's almost a week after I qualified for the EC<23 last Saturday, but better late then never right?

After the 3000m in Crete on Saturday, the afterparty on Sunday night, and the long travel home on Monday (which took all day), it took me half a week to fully recover. On Tuesday I cancelled my interval workout because I felt tired, on Wednesday my legs still felt weird, and on Thursday evening I had a hard time running 77-78 seconds (my 5k-pace) for 5x400m... I tried not to worry about it too much and hoped I would feel okay again on Saturday: my last attempt at the standard for the EC<23.

Fortunately this was indeed the case: I ran a great race and finally qualified by winning the race in 16:06.07! The race organizers at the Eef Kamerbeek Games in Eindhoven had established a great field containing many of the best runners in the country. There was also a pacer, who would pace us at 16:10 pace. At least... that was the plan! Right from the start I noticed the pacer, and the two women who went with her, were running too fast. I have learned from my past mistakes - particularly at the Payton Jordan Invitational, where I went too fast in the first km and had to pay for it later - and decided to let them go and run my own race. Unfortunately, this meant I basically had to run alone, 30 or so meters behind the pacer, while all the other girls tucked in behind me and used me as their pacer! The first 3k went well (9:43 at 3k) but after that it got very hard. Once again, I started to lose time, and I came through 4k above 13 minutes. I was suffering quite a bit at that point and thought ''Oh well... That was that, here I go again, I am going to miss it again!''. But shortly after one of the other girls finally passed me, and I tried to follow. Surprisingly I was able to do that relatively easy. All of a sudden I started to feel a litttle better, it felt less like a struggle. Then I think something just changed in my head: maybe it was the thought of having to miss the standard once again, of the disappointment that I was going to feel afterwards, and of realizing that if I didn't get the standard, this was going to be my last race of the season. Or maybe it was my dad screaming ''If you can win this thing you will get the standard too!'' (Of course that made no sense because he couldn't know that, but it worked!) I started to accelerate, caught the leaders with 600 to go, and gave everything I had. The entire time, I was so scared of just missing out on the standard, of finishing in 16:12 or 16:11... The only thing I could think of was ''Faster, faster, faster!'' The time stopped right when I passed the finishline.. If you want to see my reaction you should look at this clip, filmed by Jan Zuidema (starts at about 6:20): http://www.jantjoep.nl/ Be warned, it is very dramatic. I guess it was a combination of being overwhelmed and surprised that I actually got it, and being in a lot of pain! I think this was my best race ever, and I hope I will be able to push this hard and close this fast in future races too. Starting with.. the 5000m at the EC<23 next Sunday in Talllinn, Estonia!

A big thank you to everyone who sent me nice and encouraging messages before and after, and for all the people who believed (and told me!) that I could run this fast!