Boise State redshirt sophomore Allie Ostrander blew away the competition, and the current world’s best time of the year, Friday at the Stanford Invitational at Cobb Track and Angell Field in California.
“I was really surprised,” Ostrander told FloTrack.org. “I didn’t think I would PR today so I was happy.”
Ostrander, a 2015 Kenai Central grad, won the women’s 3,000-meter steeplechase, an event she holds a national championship in, in a staggering time of 9 minutes, 38.57 seconds, to set the current fastest time in the world in 2018. Her previous best time in the event was a 9:41.31, which she ran last June at the Division I outdoor championships.
The time also is the 14th-fastest in NCAA history. It moves her to the second-fastest in Boise State history, behind the 9:37.84 of Marisa Howard, and the third-fastest in Mountain West Conference history.
Ostrander was last in action March 9 and 10 at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships, where she finished second at 3,000 meters and helped the distance medley relay team to fifth place.
“I kind of went in (to today) with no expectations,” Ostrander told FloTrack. “I took two weeks off after indoor so I’ve only been on like three runs and so I was just like I’m going to go out there and see what happens, but I think just having good people to race against really helped me today.”
Ostrander controlled the race and beat Marie Bouchard of the University of San Francisco by 8.46 seconds.
“I think it’s good to take a break after indoor just because outdoor season is so long even if I don’t run well here I want to run well later, so hopefully that will translate,” Ostrander told FloTrack.
Ostrander said she only did one running workout since NCAA Indoors, but cross-trained a lot on the elliptical.
“I do the elliptical a lot and I think it’s the cross training that works best for me,” Ostrander said. “It gets my heart rate up and it more closely mimics running than biking or swimming.”
