A fan of Rebecca, Brian S., had a few questions for her after the US Championships on Kimbia.net. View all the responses from the Kimbia athletes.
Excerpted from Kimbia.Net
Rebecca, 2 questions. 1-Do you regret at all leading early on in the race seeing that you faded a little bit at the end? Did you do that because you were going for the B standard? And 2-What are your plans for Europe and possibly chasing a spot on the world’s team? Do you have specific races lined up yet? –Brian
Rebecca: I do and I don’t regret leading for almost half the race. Typically I tend to be a front runner, I’ve always felt quite comfortable leading races. I sat in second for the first four laps which were pretty slow. Then the woman leading dropped back and I was next in line. It was pretty windy but I didn’t think it was too bad at the time. I slowed the pace a little more thinking someone else would lead for a while; I even swung wide in Lane 2 figuring someone would take it. No one did, so I just continued, but my workouts indicated that I’d be able to really switch gears when necessary, so I was confident. However, fighting the wind for so many laps proved to take its toll on me and I didn’t have quite enough left at the end to place higher. I was still able to close with about a 4:50 which I was pleased with, but had I not led for so much laps I’m confident that a top 3 finish would have been realistic.
As for your second questions, this is my first time racing in Europe and I’m very excited to have this opportunity. Right now I’m in Holland getting ready for a 1500m in Belgium tomorrow night. I ran a 4:13 1500m at a New Balance Twilight meet in Boston a couple weeks before nationals which was a big pr and feeling really strong the entire way. So I’m looking forward to trying it again. I’m also scheduled to run a 5000m next week and possibly another 1500m and 5000m. The goal is to take advantage of my track speed right now and post some fast times. If I hit a time as fast as the World standard for the 5000m that would obviously be a huge plus. [Ed. Note – Rebecca ran 4:14.76 in Kortrijk. She will run the 5000m in Liege on July 15th.]
