I won!

Well, that might not be the most intelligent blogpost-title ever, but it pretty much sums up my race yesterday. I had to wait for this win a long time, almost 4 years, but better late then never. It's kind of funny that when I raced back in the Netherlands, I never cared about winning, because I won so often. Here, it is a different story. There are a lot, A LOT, of good collegiate and professional runners in the USA, and it is not as easy as in the Netherlands to cross that finish-line first!
After not racing in the Portland-jersey for 10 months (because NCAA-regulations only allow you to compete for 4 years, and I want to stay in Portland and run for a 5th year) I was very excited to be back traveling with the team and running in purple. I knew beforehand that there was a chance I had to lead, because I wasn’t put in the fast heat, even though I think I belonged there. They make the heats based on indoor times, and although my outdoor time for the 1500m is 4:22 (which translates to a mile in the low 4.40s), my indoortime in the mile was only 4:51. So I had 2 choices: go for the win, which would mean sit-back-and-kick, or go for a fast time. I choose for the last one, and went for it (Ironically, I ended up without that fast time but with the win). My start was terrible, and I was locked in on the inside in last place. After I heard someone scream ‘73’ when we passed 400m, I knew we were running way too slow. I made a weird move to get myself out of the crowd of girls I was running in, and moved up. With 3 laps to go (this track is 300-and-something-meters long), I had taken over the lead, and did everything I could to keep the pace up so that no one would pass me. I wish I had heard the 800m split (2:28) so that I would have heard we were still running slow, but I didn’t, and it was hard to judge if I was running the right pace. I was able to keep the other girls off and cross the finish-line in first, which was pretty exciting. I was less excited about the time (4:49), but I think I can run much faster in my next mile, which will be a month from now.
A few hours later, I came back for a leg in the 4x800m, which I ran in around 2:14. Not bad after the mile in my legs. I’ll be back for a 3000m on this same track in 2 weeks!

You can see the race here (at this moment unfortunately a flotrackpro video, so only accessible with code): http://www.flotrack.org/video/900643-womens-mile-heat-3