http://running.competitor.com/2011/01/news/huge-day-for-stephanie-rothstein-in-houston_21074“We had some really great performances, certainly Nick and Stephanie,” McMillan told Race Results Weekly in an exclusive interview. We had two of our debut athletes [Emily Harrison and Natasha Labeaud] get their Olympic Trials qualifying standards –that set them up for next year– and then some rough ones as well.” He continued: “Overall, I guess like the usual finish line when you bring seven or eight people… some people are going to have good days and some less good.” Arciniaga’s performance was the most surprising to McMillan, who called his athlete a “Steady-Eddy marathoner.” Arciniaga had not done a full marathon training program, and had only planned to run 25 kilometers with Gotcher.
McMillan gave Arciniaga permission to go to the finish line if he felt good, but the athlete tried to keep that out of his mind in the first half of the race. “I tried not to think about finishing until 25-K,” Arciniaga told Race Results Weekly. “It’s less pressure.” Ticking off 4:55 miles (3:03 kilometers), Arciniaga led Gotcher through half-way in 1:04:17, then continued with him until 25 km at the same pace. At that point, Arciniaga decided to pull back because the pace was just a little too fast for him. “At 25-K I let Brett go,” Arciniaga explained. “I was at my limit.” He decided to run a couple of more miles to see how he felt. He said to himself that if the next mile was 5:20 he’d drop out. Instead, it was “exactly 5:05″ and he still felt good.
The following mile was similar, and he decided to keep going. Soon he would catch Gotcher. “I ended up bringing Brett back at mile 20,” he said. Arciniaga soldiered on alone, catching the flagging Kenyan Wilfred Murgor with about 400 meters to go to pick up second place and $17,000 in prize money.