With a little over 2 months to go before the 2016 World Indoor Championships descend on Portland, Canadian 1500m ace Nicole Sifuentes will open up her indoor season in the 3000m at the Washington Preview Saturday (LIVE on FloTrack). 

Indoor is especially exciting for Sifuentes, who is the reigning world indoor 1500m bronze medalist from Sopot 2014. After finishing fourth behind Abeba Aregawi, Axumawit Embaye and Rababe Arafi in a Canadian record of 4:07.61, Sifuentes was promoted to bronze due to Arafi being disqualified. She explains the race and the feeling of earning a medal below.



The 2012 Olympian is coming off a big year in 2015, with big not necessarily translating into the success she had hoped for.

“Last year I just trained through the indoor season and I trained really hard,” Sifuentes said. “But it was more volume and because I wasn’t racing I didn’t sharpen up like I normally do. And it turned out to be harder for me to come around last year and I felt like I was a little bit behind in sharpness than I have in other years.”

Sifuentes saw success at the Canadian National Championships where she was a double gold medalist in the 1500m and 5000m. She lowered her 5000m best to 15:19 at the Stanford Invite and took home the 1500m silver medal at the Pan Am Games. Her showing in Beijing, however, put her season to an end. She finished eighth and eleventh in her 1500m and 5000m prelims, respectively. 

She noted that 2015 was the first time she did not contest in a full indoor season.

Though she’s aiming for her second Olympic team in August, she and coach Mike McGuire were both on board to do a full indoor season this time around. “We tried something different and it didn’t go better than others,” she said. “I would say it was a little harder.” After earning a medal in Sopot, Sifuentes now has her sights on returning to the World Indoor Championships in Portland.

Sifuentes has been on the scene since her University of Michigan days ended in 2008. And though this marks her eighth year on the professional circuit, the 2015 season taught Sifuentes an important lesson that even the most experienced athlete must learn at one point of their career.

“I really did have high hopes for 2015 because I was training and running more than I ever had,” Sifuentes said. “And looking back, I mean that was not a magic ticket for me. And I think this year, you know I’m happy to reduce it a little bit from last year.”

“More isn’t always better, and I could have told anyone that. But I hadn’t experienced it for myself.”

When she toes the line on Saturday, Sifuentes says she would love to run close to her 8:56 PB set in 2012, but will embrace the reality of first race circumstances. After this race she plans on competing in the Notre Dame Meyo Invitational and possibly the BU Valentine. The IAAF indoor standard for the 1500m is 4:13.00 or 4:30.00 for the full mile.