Fast Women: Krissy Gear's kick strikes again

Val Constien, Jess McClain, Sifan Hassan, and Nikki Hiltz also pick up wins in LA.

May 13, 2024

Val Constien wins the steeplechase at the Sound Running Track Fest. *(Photo by Gregorio Denny)*

Krissy Gear’s sneak attack, Jess McClain and Val Constien return, and Sifan Hassan’s tuneup

The pro season is still getting going, and what stood out to me at the Sound Running Track Fest wasn’t so much the times as how some of the athletes raced. Krissy Gear won the 1500m in 4:03.65, a 5.35-second PR in her season opener. But more impressive was her kick. She was in sixth place with one lap remaining, and she ran a fantastic final 150m to edge out Canada’s Lucia Stafford, 4:03.65 to 4:03.87. When Gear is on, she’s tough to beat.

After watching Emma Coburn get injured in her first steeplechase back after injury, I was a little nervous to see how things would go for Val Constien, who was running her first steeple after having ACL surgery a year ago. Flat races are one thing, but the steeple puts an entirely different level of stress on the body. But there was nothing to worry about.

Constien looked very comfortable floating over the barriers. She took the lead from Kaylee Mitchell coming off the last water jump and put on the jets after the final barrier, winning 9:27.22 to 9:29.26. Both athletes will steeple at the Prefontaine Classic in two weeks, as will Gear, Courtney Frerichs, and Courtney Wayment, so that will be an interesting Trials preview.

Adams State’s Gracie Hyde, who has been on a new level this season, took third in 9:31.07. Allie Ostrander took fourth in a season’s best of 9:32.87, and Judi Jones Spinks finished fifth in 9:41.00, hitting the Olympic Trials qualifying time on the nose and guaranteeing her spot on the starting line.

There was originally talk of the 10,000m being another opportunity for athletes to take a crack at the Olympic standard of 30:40.00. But two of the bigger names on the start list, Keira D’Amato and Elly Henes, didn’t end up racing. Emily Infeld started the race but dropped out around 11 minutes in, and she does not have a Trials qualifier.

From the start, it was clear that the Olympic Trials auto qualifying time of 31:30 would be a better target. The race came down to a great battle between Jess McClain and Katrina Coogan, with McClain taking the win, 31:35.28 to 31:37.85. They didn’t quite hit the auto qualifier, but the Trials 10,000m will have a minimum of 24 athletes, and McClain and Coogan are currently ranked 15th and 16th and not everyone ahead of them will run the race.

McClain was running her first track race in more than four years, and she PRed by 19 seconds. And Coogan ran her best race in years, with an 18-second PR. Third-place finisher Maggie Montoya took about 10 seconds off her PR, running 31:54.34, and she’ll also have a good shot at getting into the Trials.

Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands ran alone for almost all of the 5,000m and won in 14:58.83. She appeared to be using the race as a rust buster, and I’m not going to read anything into the time, because she has a history of doing nothing special in her season openers and then holding her own with the world’s best later in the season. (Plus Ramadan, which was in March and April, limits her training.) Elise Cranny was briefly on the start lists for this event, but she did not compete.

And World Indoor medalists Nikki Hiltz and Emily Mackay had a nice reunion/battle in the 800m, with Hiltz winning the featured heat, 2:00.46 to 2:00.85. But Canada’s Jazz Shukla won an earlier heat of the race by more than two seconds, in 1:59.94. (Results)

Arkansas’ Nickisha Pryce and Georgia’s Aaliyah Butler race at the NCAA Indoor Championships.

Michaela Rose, Arkansas’ 400m runners, and Parker Valby impress at SECs

The collegiate season is in full swing, and most schools had their conference meets this past weekend. And as usual, the SEC Championships did not disappoint.

Michaela Rose won the 800m title in 1:58.89, setting a meet record for the second year in a row. Rose is clearly the one to beat in the NCAA this season, but Arkansas’ Sanu Jallow was impressive. She followed Rose to a breakthrough performance, taking 2.48 seconds off her PR and finishing second in 1:59.29. They are the only two NCAA athletes to break 2:00 so far during the outdoor season and also the only two American women to do so thus far. (Results)

The 400m final had incredible depth, and for the first time, four runners broke 50 seconds in a collegiate race. Arkansas swept the top three spots with Jamaica’s Nickisha Pryce winning in 49.32 seconds (No. 3 NCAA all time), Kaylyn Brown taking second in 49.47 (No. 4 NCAA all time), and Great Britain’s Amber Anning in third in 49.51 (No. 5 NCAA all time). And Georgia’s Aaliyah Butler was fourth in 49.79 (No. 8 NCAA all time). Last year at SECs, Britton Wilson set the collegiate record of 49.13 seconds, and Pryce wasn’t far off. (Results)

Florida’s Parker Valby won her final SEC title on her home track, taking the 5,000m in a meet record of 15:07.86. She took it easy, by her standards, for the first 2600m before picking up the pace. After going through 3,000m in 9:13 (3:04/K), she ran the last two kilometers in roughly 3:00 and 2:54. Her time was an outdoor PR, but I don’t expect it to last long.

Valby hadn’t yet run a 5,000m this season, so she also picked up a qualifier for the regional meet. She’ll have the option of running the 5,000m and/or the 10,000m for the remainder of the collegiate season. But given that she has a legitimate shot at making the Olympic team at the U.S. Trials, which start two weeks after the NCAA Championships, I’ll be surprised if she expends extra energy by doubling at NCAAs. (Results)

Betsy Saina repeats as USATF 25K champion, in record time

Two months after finishing fifth at the Tokyo Marathon in 2:19:17, Betsy Saina repeated as the USATF 25K Champion. Her winning time was a women’s-only American record of 1:22:32, exactly two minutes faster than she ran a year ago. (That’s 5:18/mile for 15.53 miles.) It looks like her win and record, plus winning the equalizer bonus, earned her $17,500.

Annie Frisbie led most of the way, with Saina tucked in behind her. When Saina made her move late in the race, she opened a gap pretty quickly, but Frisbie closed it down a little in the end and finished only five seconds back. There was a big prize money difference, with Frisbie earning $5,000, but it was one of the best races she has run. And I appreciate that Frisbie’s last race before this was the USATF 1 Mile Road Championships; she’s not afraid to go a little out of her comfort zone.

After finishing fourth at this race a year ago, Dakotah Lindwurm improved to third this year (1:23:08), running two minutes, 50 seconds faster. And Emily Durgin finished right behind her, in 1:23:09.

After the race, Saina said she wanted to tell other mothers: “When you have a child, it’s not the end of the career, it is the beginning of it.” (Results)

Additional Results

Great Britain’s Phoebe Gill, who turned 17 two weeks ago, was already really fast for her age, having run 2:01.50 for 800m last year and 4:05.87 for 1500m in a mixed gender race on May 1. But on Saturday, Gill made a huge leap, running 1:57.86 for 800m, breaking the European U18 record and PRing by 3.64 seconds. It’s not easy to make Great Britain’s Olympic team in the middle distances, but now she might have a real shot. (More on Gill | Race replay)
The Big Sky Track & Field Championships, hosted by Montana State, started off with some winter-like conditions. The heptathletes who competed during a snowstorm will have a good story to tell their grandkids. Idaho’s Hanna Tait won the competition. Some pretty dramatic photos of the steeplechase pit circulated (put that event in the winter Olympics), but by the time the steeple rolled around two days later, much of the snow and ice was gone. Maybe the Big Sky will think twice before holding the meet in Bozeman again, but what a beautiful setting for a track meet.
The 1500m at the Big 12 Championships was a good race, with four women breaking 4:10 and finishing within less than half a second of one another. The top two runners, Texas Tech’s Juliet Cherubet (4:09.33) and BYU’s Sadie Sargent (4:09.65), PRed by seven seconds. Texas’ Olivia Howell was third (4:09.70, a PR by 0.01 seconds), and Oklahoma State’s Billah Jepkirui was fourth (4:09.75). And Oklahoma State’s Gabija Galvydyte impressed in the 800m, winning in 2:00.42, a PR. (Results)
Georgetown’s Melissa Riggins won the Big East 1500m title in an impressive 4:08.82. Providence’s Kimberley May ran the last 3K of the 5,000m solo and won by 28 seconds, in 15:26.60. (Results)
Notre Dame’s Sophie Novak won the ACC steeplechase title in 9:48.00 and her teammate, Olivia Markezich, won the 5,000m in 15:23.14, by starting conservatively and finishing faster. (Results)
Stanford’s Roisin Willis won the Pac-12 800m title in 2:01.00, her fastest time so far this year. (Results)
There used to be more high quality outdoor track meets in Massachusetts, but there aren’t many left. So I was happy to see that B.A.A. teammates Annie Rodenfels (4:09.28) and Bethany Hasz (4:09.58) ran 1500m PRs at the Battle Road Track Club Twilight Meet on Saturday night. Hasz took more than eight seconds off her previous PR. (Results)

Podcast Highlights

Speaking of Annie Rodenfels, it was nice to get an update from her on DIII Glory Days. She discussed having her race at Drake rescheduled due to a tornado, working with a sports psychologist specifically to help her with the steeplechase, and said she’ll race at the LA Grand Prix Distance Classic this weekend, probably in the 5,000m.
It was great to hear Megan Connolly Morant discuss running 2:45, a massive PR, at the Eugene Marathon on C Tolle Run. And I loved hearing her tell her kidney donation story as well.
Katie Schide discussed her Canyons 100K win, and more, on Trail Society. (She comes on around the 21:50 mark.)
I’ve linked to so many Amelia Boone podcasts over the years, but I continue to enjoy them, partially because the subjects are always evolving. She was on The Lane 9 Podcast last week.
Des Linden was on the Unfiltered Waters podcast, and I appreciated her description of elite marathoning as “combat without the contact.”
On Keeping Track, it was interesting to hear Johanna Garton and Elvin Kibet say that they held some things about Kibet’s experience in the Army back when writing All in Stride. Kibet said she might have more to share once she’s out.

Additional Episodes: Carrie Verdon on Female Athlete Nutrition | Alysia Montaño on I’ll Have Another | Iowa 800m specialist Alli Bookin-Nosbisch on The Run Around Iowa (It was fun to hear that she played a basketball game against Caitlin Clark in high school.)

This week’s newsletter is intentionally shorter, so I can conserve energy for later in the season. Thanks to everyone who helps keep Fast Women going with your support on Patreon and Venmo. I hope you all have a good week.

Alison