Track and Field Blogs - Justin Kopunek

What a difference one year makes. After the 2007 season wrapped up, I had a conversation with a friend about the strengths and weaknesses of the US track and field team. Obviously sprints, hurdles, relays, and field are all strong suits for the red, white and blue. Distance had been coming along as Lagat grabbed 5k gold in Osaka (with Tegenkamp 4th), Kara Goucher nabbed 10k bronze, we had 2 marathon medalists at the previous Olympics in Athens (and a new crop of marathoners were looking promising). Men's middle distance had everyone hopeful for the '08 Olympics with Lagat's 1,500 World Championship title, Nick Symmond's 800 win at the Pre Classic, and Webb's world leading 1,500m, AR mile and 1:43 800. Our consensus was that the weakest sector of the team was the women's middle distances. The top US times in the 1,500 and 800 were way down on the world lists and no American women were making it through the rounds at the World Champs. A high school junior was leading the US Championship 800m final with 200m to go. As good of a race as that was for Chanelle Price, it left much to be desired of the professional women in that race.

As 2008 came along, a beacon appeared for US women’s middle distance running. Shannon Rowbury had a breakout season like none other. She ran PR’s of 4:20.34 for the mile, 4:00.33 for the 1,500m and was highly competitive internationally. She won the 5^th Avenue Mile, was 2^nd in Paris, 7^th in the Olympic Final, trounced the field at the US Olympic Trials and finished the year ranked 6^th in the world over 1,500m. When all was said and done, Rowbury had knocked a dozen seconds off of her best 1,500 time. It was a huge step forward for women’s mid distance running in America. The previous few years, the top time floated between 4:04 and 4:06. Rowbury had skipped over the 4:01-4:03 range and began flirting with sub-4. After her, however, there was over a 4 second drop off to the 2^nd best time by Christin Wurth-Thomas and another 2 seconds to the third best from Goucher (a 10k runner). The super-star was there, but the depth was not. It seemed coming in to 2009 that Rowbury would be the class of the US field and continue her domestic dominance. That however, would not be the case.

On June 7^th of this year, 3 American women beat Rowbury. Did she have an off day? No. She went out hard and, as it was her outdoor debut at 1,500, she faded a bit over the last quarter. She will undoubtedly sharpen as the season progresses. What did happen is that 3 other American women caught up to Rowbury. Jenny Barringer ran an astounding 3:59.90, Anna Willard ran 4:01.44, and Wurth-Thomas clocked in at 4:01.72. All were significant personal records and Rowbury was still close with a solid 4:03.92. It is surely the deepest 1,500m race by American women in history. There are currently 4 American women who have run 4:01.72 or faster in the past year. The last time any American woman ran within 1.5 seconds of that mark was 2003 when drug cheat Regina Jacobs and Suzy Favor Hamilton ran 4:01.63 and 4:01.69 in separate races. So how have the women’s 1,500m runners come from such a slump to such an apex in one year?

There are many factors that brought us to this point. Picking one would be difficult, but if I had to then I would say Shannon Rowbury’s 2008 season is the main cause. She upped the ante and showed that 4:06 was no longer an acceptable US leading time. These other women had two choices; they could fold under the pressure, or crank up the intensity themselves. When one person is so far ahead of the curve, they either scare off competitors, or light a fire under their peers. It appears for women like Wurth-Thomas, Rowbury did the latter. This is not the only explanation, but it’s the short answer. If someone asked me, ‘why are New York State girls xc teams so good every year?’ I’d respond, ‘short answer, Saratoga.’ Their program executed high school cross country so well perennially that it raised the bar for every other girls team in the state. I know this is not the only reason, but it is a major factor. Rowbury made a statement last year which set 4:00 as the new benchmark for this generation of runners.

As I have stated, there are other reasons as well. Do I think Jenny Barringer was training up in Boulder thinking ‘I have to beat Shannon Rowbury in the 1,500 this year’? Of course not. But what Barringer has stated is that she wants to legitimize the steeplechase as an event by proving steeplers are just as fast in flat events, but choose the steeple because the event suits them. The best way to do this is to match the top women in the flat events and Rowbury happened to have made low 4 minutes the new mid-4s. One might notice that the 2 atop this year’s US leaderboards for 1,500m, Barringer and Willard, are primarily known for competing in the steeplechase. During training in the off season, the drive to be the best in the 3k Steeple most assuredly also resulted in the two dropping significant time off of their 1,500 times. Going into the US Championships and with the World Championships in Berlin around the corner, the women’s middle distance crew seems to now be one of the stronger areas of the team, and certainly the most improved. Make sure not to miss these women battle in Eugene for the US titles and World team spots, as they will produce some of the meet’s most electrifying moments.