IN HER SHORT TIME on the national scene, Elizabeth Leachman (Champion, Boerne, Texas) has earned a reputation as a front-runner who likes to hammer the pace early. But coming into the Nike Indoor Nationals in early March, Leachman’s coach had been preaching the power of patience.
“She likes to lead, she likes to drop everybody because it’s stressful to have the uncertainty of racing,” says Jenny Breuer, who stepped down as Champion’s distance coach after the cross country season but continues to work with Leachman. “We talked about how if she goes into the race and does exactly what she’s been doing that she’s going to play right into the hand of the field.”
The 16-year-old soph had already won the Foot Locker XC title in the fall and run a trio of outdoor 3200s under 9:50 in February, “lapping multiple people multiple times and running in lane 2 for half of the races,” Breuer says. Her fastest 8-lapper, 9:43.74 on February 15, was worth No. 3 all-time on the absolute prep 2M list at the time. So while her front-running tactics have certainly produced outstanding results, she arrived at the Armory open to trying this new strategy.
“My main goal, especially in the 2-mile, was to be ready to run the race however the competition was presenting instead of just trying to go out hard like I usually do,” says Leachman.
Though she did take the lead early in the 2-mile, she followed a cautious pace, coming through the first mile in a conservative — for her — 5:03.40. From there, with rival Jane Hedengren on her heels, Leachman slowly increased the tempo and blasted a massive negative split (4:40.76, faster than her outright mile PR), winning the race by 5 seconds in 9:44.16, No. 2 all-time indoors or out.
As planned, the strategy allowed her to produce an impressive finishing sprint, opening up most of her margin on Hedengren over the final two laps. “That surprised me,” admits Leachman. “I’ve never been able to really close that fast. I usually burn myself up a little on the front end and so it was nice to know that I could do that if I saved a little something for the end.”
She came back the next day and smashed Katelyn Tuohy’s HSR in the 5000 by more than 8 seconds, running 15:28.90 after lapping the entire field. That time would have qualified Leachman for…
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