Shalane Flanagan Prepares Herself For Worlds

The American 10,000m record holder is confident of her chances.

Shalane Flanagan is preparing herself for one of the biggest races of her career, the 10,000 meters at the IAAF World Track & Field Championships in Daegu, South Korea later this month. The Olympic bronze medalist and American record-holder in the event sat down recently with Peter Gambaccini of Runner’s World to talk about her prospects there.

She will most likely be squaring off against Ethiopian Meseret Defar and Kenyans Linet Masai, and Vivian Cheruiyot–some of the best 10,000m runners in the world. When reflecting on this tough field, Flanagan had this to say: “I think about it, but if I were to come out on top and beat one of those women, how much more meaningful that would be to me, knowing that I can compete with the best.”

Flanagan is currently training in Boulder, Colorado. She says her coach, Jerry Schumacher, has “the master plan”. “He’ll give us a heads up if it’s a really key workout, to be on our “A” game  and be prepared mentally and physically,” she noted. “But in general, he said once we got here [to Boulder], we’d only have two workouts, one of which we’ve already done, and the other is probably about ten days out [from her 10,000 in Daegu].”

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