By David MontiWhile distance runners have been known to step down in distance from time to time, what American Desiree Davila will be attempting at this weekend's IAAF World Indoor Championships in Doha has to be considered more of a plunge.
Davila, who finished 11th at the IAAF World Championships Marathon last summer in Berlin in a personal best 2:27:53, will be running less than one-tenth of that distance when she lines up for the first round of the 3000m on Friday afternoon. She may not be a favorite for a medal, but Davila hopes that her willingness to shake up her training and try something different will make her a better competitor and a faster marathoner.
"We were hoping that we would be able to get some speed and focus on something new," explained Kevin Hanson in an e-mail message who, along with his brother Keith, coaches Davila. "The indoor season provided both of those."
Hanson huddled with Davila after her four-minute personal best in Berlin last summer, and they mapped out a plan for the next 12 months. Going indoors, especially since Davila lives and trains in Michigan which has harsh winters, made sense.
"We sat down after the World Championships and started working out my race schedule for the next year," Davila wrote in an e-mail from Doha. "We decided it would be best to skip a spring marathon, and so I pitched the idea of an indoor season. Last year I hopped in an indoor 3-K, just to have a tune-up race before the Yokohama Ekiden, and I ran 9:07. I thought I could run a bit quicker if I spent a little more time focusing on the event, so the goal for this segment was to find out how much quicker I could go."
Davila got an invitation to compete in the Reebok Boston Indoor Games last month, and found herself surrounded by track athletes like Shannon Rowbury, Hannah England and Kalkidan Gezahegn in the 3-K. She came home seventh amongst 11 finishers in a personal best 9:00.73, scoring a qualifying time for the IAAF World Championships.
"Honestly, it wasn't a big surprise for me," Davila said of her performance. "I went into the race knowing that the standard for the World Championships was 9:03 and my initial goal for the season was to get under nine minutes, so it was about what I was looking for."
But to guarantee her spot on the USA team for Doha, Davila had to finish in the top-2 at the USA Indoor Championships in Albuquerque two weekends ago. Running in an unusual race where eventual champion Renee Metivier Baillie ran alone with a huge lead before nearly being caught by both Sara Hall and Shannon Rowbury in the final 50 meters, Davila managed to finish fourth. Metivier Baillie, who clocked 9:14.90, didn't have a Doha qualifying time, so couldn't be selected for the team. Hall, who finished second, claimed her team spot, but third place Rowbury, last summer's bronze medallist at 1500m at the World Championships, did not, preferring instead to go to Mexico to train for her outdoor season. That put Davila next in line for the team.
"Heading into the race, I knew I had a decent shot to make the team," Davila continued. "Because of the altitude I knew it would be difficult for anyone else to run the time standard that day. "I put myself in position to finish as high as possible amongst the people who could possibly take the team."
Rowbury didn't inform officials of her decision to decline her team spot right away, and Davila found out she had been selected just as she was leaving Albuquerque.
"I got the word that I was in when we were boarding the flight back to Michigan on Sunday night," Davila recounted. "There was no hesitation at all; I was pretty excited to get another shot at a fast 3-K and World Championship experience."
Davila, 26, ran for Arizona State University and graduated in 2005 after a solid, but not stellar, college career. She left the NCAA ranks with modest 3000m and 5000m personal bests of 9:34.81 and 16:17.45, but the Hansons saw her potential at longer distances. Under their coaching, she dropped her 10,000m best from 34:35.48 in 2006 to 32:25.78 last year.
But the Hansons realized that Davila's compact stride, physical and mental strength, and excellent endurance signaled her destiny would be in the marathon. In 2006 she qualified for her first global meet, the IAAF World Road Running Championships, and made the same team in 2007, running a personal best 1:12:54 for the half-marathon in Udine, Italy. That was the same year she tried her first marathon, finishing 18th at the rainy and cold Boston Marathon in 2:44:56.
Eighteen months later, Davila had her big breakthrough, finishing fifth at the LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon and dropping her personal best by 13 minutes to 2:31:33. That performance put her on the U.S. team for Berlin, where she ran most of the race alone, nearly catching teammate Kara Goucher at the finish who only finished five seconds ahead of her. That race whetted her appetite for more high-level competition.
"In Doha I'm really just looking forward to competing," Davila said. "Hopefully, I can knock a few seconds off my PR and get myself into the final."
Kevin Hanson thinks that Davila's best bet is to be aggressive, and leave the tactics to others.
"We will run the prelim heat as if it is a final," Hanson reasoned. "After all, if we don't attack it that way, it most certainly will be the final."
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