By Nate Mann
Konstanze Klosterhalfen’s coach told her not to take the lead in the Portland Track Festival’s high performance women’s 1,500-meter race on Sunday night. She had won her 800-meter heat an hour earlier and therefore had planned to trail the leader to conserve energy.
“I forgot the fast women were pacers,” said Klosterhalfen.
The German runner, who trains with the Nike Oregon Project, led for more than two laps of the race and ultimately won in 4 minutes, 3.3 seconds, which beat the Olympic qualifying standard of 4:04.20.
American Nikki Hiltz kept stride and ran the plan Klosterhalfen was supposed to, following the lead and hoping to make a final push. But as she came around the final curve, her focus wasn’t on winning the race. Her goal was to hit the world standard, which is 4:06.50.
“The last 100 I was just staring at the clock trying to close as hard as I could,” said Hiltz. Her 4:05.56 finish did the trick by roughly one second.
The women’s 1,500 marked the second time Klosterhalfen and Hiltz have faced off at that distance in the past month. At the USATF Distance Classic in May, Hiltz defeated Klosterhalfen by fewer than two seconds to win; Klosterhalfen exacted her revenge with the victory Sunday night in a much quicker race.
Hiltz attributed the faster pace of Sunday night’s competition to the rabbits.
“I think our rabbits were faster this race,” said Hiltz. “Today was just from the gun, go. If you can hang on the pain-train, you’ll run fast.”
When asked if she prefers a “pain-train” type of race, she said, “I actually hate that, but you know it’s necessary when you have to hit the standard.”
The Adidas runner plans to race another 1,500 in San Diego in July to hunt the Olympic standard time.
While Hiltz has race-by-race goals, Klosterhalfen understands that the season is young.“ We try to be patient because the season is so long,” she said. The Portland Track Festival marked her second 1,500 of the season; her next will be at the Pre Classic at Stanford in June.
“It was a good day today,” said Klosterhalfen. “The 1,500 felt really good, and I’m excited for the season.”
