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Recap of Women's Races at Reebok Boston Games
January 29, 2006
LetsRun.com

*Men's Recaps Here

Once again, the meet had top notch distance fields and was sold-out.  It was one tv one day late on ESPN2. And our coverage is a day late as well. We apologize for the inconvenience. We've got women's distance recaps below. The race recaps appear in the following order - women's mile, women's 3k, women's 5k and highschool mile.

Women's mile
The women's mile got going from the get go as the rabbitt toed the field through 64.9 and 2:14.4 for the 1/4 and 1/2 splits. Traditional front-runner Tiffany McWilliams was in 2nd throughout and when the rabbit stopped at 850, McWilliams had the lead. Three-quarters was reached in (3:22.9), and at the bell it was a fiver person race. It was McWilliams, Jen Toomey, Carmen Douma-Hussar, Melindi Elmore and Treniere Clement in positions one through five. Those top three ended up being the only ones that went for the win. With just more than 100 meters to go, Douma-Hussar took the lead on the inside and never relinquised it as she pulled away to win convincingly in a meet record time of 4:29.52. Clement would move up late to grab second in 4:29.52, with McWilliams third in 4:30.03 and Toomey fourth in 4:31.27. Fine performances were also turned in by Elmore (4:31.27) and Mestawot Tadesse (4:33.44) as the top 6 all broke the previous meet record of 4:34.26.

Event 12  Women 1 Mile Run
===============================================================
 Alley Start, Pos 1-6 on back row, 7-10 on front row           
    Name                    Year Team                    Finals
===============================================================
Finals                                                         
  1 Carmen Douma-Hussar          CAN                    4:29.52
  2 Treniere Clement             USA                    4:29.93
  3 Tiffany McWilliams           USA                    4:30.03
  4 Jen Toomey                   USA                    4:30.39
  5 Malindi Elmore               CAN                    4:31.27
  6 Mestawot Tadesse             ETH                    4:33.44
  7 Christin Wurth-Thomas        USA                    4:36.08
  8 Jenelle Deatherage           USA                    4:37.86
  9 Anne Shadle                  USA                    4:38.15
 10 Sinead Delahunty-Evans       IRE                    4:39.26
 11 Lindsey Gallo                USA                    4:40.35
 12 Meskerem Legesse             ETH                    4:45.05
 -- Colleen Kelly                USA                        DNF
 -- Kate Vermeulen               CAN                        DNF

Women's 3k
Meseret Defar put on a quite a show as she went after Berhane Adere's world record of 8:29.15.  The rabbit went out a little too fast the first 200 (31) but Defar was right with her, signalling she was here ready to run and ready to get after it. 400 was hit in 66:48, 800 in 2:17.56, and the 1600 was 4:34.52. Crazy fast. To put that in perspective, one needs only to realize that prior to last night the women's mile record at this meet was 4:34.26.

Defar reached 2k in 5:44.80 and with 800 to go it appeared the record was almost certainly out of reach as she hit 2200 in 6:20.22, meaning she'd have to close in a ridiculous 2:08.9 to get the record. However, Defar didn't let the record attempt go without putting on a hell of a show.  After a 68 second lap, she hit 2600 in 7:28.1 meaning she'd need to close in 61. Impossible? Seemingly so, but she almost pulled it off. 8:00.79 for 2800 and then a smoking fast 30.15 last lap didn't get her the record but it did get her a huge ovation from the crowd. She had to settle for their appreciation, a huge smile on her own face, and the third fastest time ever indoors.

Behind Defar, compatriot Sentayehu Ejigu was clearly the 2nd best runner. She was with Defar at 800 and then basically jogged it in for 2nd if you want a call a woman running 8:57 a jog.  Behind Ejigu there was a race within a race as all the non-Africans battled it out for third.  2005 US 10k champion Katie McGregor ended up the 'victor' in 9:01.79, edging out Carrie Tollefson by .01, Sarah Hall (formely Bei) by .16, and Canada's Megan Metcalfe by .25. The splits for the main pack were 4:54 for 1600 and 6:09 for 2k.

Event 13  Women 3000 Meter Run
===============================================================
 Alley Start, Pos 1-5 on back row, 6-10 on front row           
    Name                    Year Team                    Finals
===============================================================
Finals                                                         
  1 Meseret Defar                ETH                    8:30.94
  2 Sentayehu Ejigu              ETH                    8:57.79
  3 Katie McGregor               USA                    9:01.79
  4 Carrie Tollefson             USA                    9:01.80
  5 Sarah Hall                   USA                    9:01.95
  6 Megan Metcalfe               CAN                    9:02.04
  7 Roisin McGettigan            IRL                    9:03.11
  8 Courtney Babcock             CAN                    9:03.48
  9 Korene Hinds                 JAM                    9:10.06
 10 Tara-Quinn Smith             CAN                    9:13.48
 11 Amy Mortimer                 USA                    9:13.61
 -- Kenia Sinclair               JAM                        DNF

Women's 5k
Could Tirunesh Dibaba top herself and break the world record (14:32.93) she set here last year? That was the story line in the women's 5k and it proved to be a great one.

This year, we obviously had another record attempt. We also had a lot of lapped runners but unlike last year, where a world record attempt in the 3k came up short by the slimmest of margins mainly possibly because lapped runners were in the way in lane 1, the lapped runners did a much better job of doing the right thing and getting the hell out of lane 1. Of course, it didn't hurt that the meet management this year yelled at them when they were about to be lapped.

Dibbaba's early splits were very close to her splits in the world record. The only problem is that when she ran the record last year, she ran a big negative split. Dibaba hit 1600 in 4:41.97 (versus 4:42.2). At half-way Dibbaba was roughly 7:22 and started tightened the screws and picked it just like she did in her record run. 3k was hit in 8:51.32 (versus 8:51.2 in the world record). 4k was 11:46.51 versus 11:45.2. So she's had a chance. The biggest problem was she ran a ridculous 2:47.7 on her last kilometer last year, after averaging roughly 2:56.6 for the first four kilometers.

With 400 to go, Dibbaba was less than a second off the world record split (13:31.24 versus 13:30.4), but she still faced the same problem.  In her world record, she ran a sick last 400 of 62.5. Dibbaba last 400 wasn't too shabby (64.22) but she didn't get the record. She did end up with a fine 14:35.46 - 2nd fastest ever indoors. Bravo.

Event 14  Women 5000 Meter Run
===============================================================
    Name                    Year Team                    Finals
===============================================================
Finals                                                         
  1 Tirunesh Dibaba              ETH                   14:35.46
  2 Ejegayehu Dibaba             ETH                   15:18.97
  3 Sarah Slattery               USA                   15:37.68
  4 Sharon Dickie-Thompson       USA                   15:46.11
  5 Missy Buttry                 USA                   16:37.55
  6 Zoila Gomez                  USA                   16:52.39
 -- Iryna Vaschuk                RUS                        DNF
 -- Mardrea Hyman                JAM                        DNF

(HS) Girls 1 Mile -
After opening splits of 73.5, and 2:27.1, Nicole Blood decided to put on a show and gapped the field. She reached three-quarters of a mile in 3:37.6 and had 15 meters on the field. A fast charging Aislinn Ryan made things interesting over the final 200 but Blood had enough to hang on for the win.

Event 17  Girls 1 Mile Run Jr. Invit.
===============================================================
 Alley Start, Pos 1-7 on back row, 8-12 on front row           
    Name                    Year Team                    Finals
===============================================================
Finals                                                         
  1 Nicole Blood                 USA                    4:51.30
  2 Aislinn Ryan                 USA                    4:51.91
  3 Lindsay Ferguson             USA                    4:52.58
  4 Jennifer Biewald             CAN                    4:56.13
  5 Hannah Davidson              USA                    4:57.73
  6 Lindsay Carson               CAN                    4:57.84
  7 Jacqueline Areson            USA                    5:00.04
  8 Samantha Gawrych             USA                    5:00.07
  9 Cara McKenna                 USA                    5:04.73

 

*Men's Recaps Here


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