Soldotna’s Allie Ostrander won the 10,000-meter run Thursday at the Mountain West Outdoor Track and Field Championsips on the campus of Utah State in Logan, Utah.
The Kenai Central graduate and redshirt freshman finished the first 10,000 of her college career in 35 minutes, 51.20 seconds, to top the 35:53.92 of runner-up Jaci Smith, a sophomore at Air Force.
According to Boise State sports information, the Broncos in the race stayed in the pack for the first six kilometers. Ostrander then began to track down the leaders in the last two kilometers. She was even with the leaders with 800 meters left.
“Coach (Corey) Ihmels wanted us to take out the last few miles really conservatively because of the altitude and the heat,” Ostrander said in a statement released by Boise State. “He didn’t want anyone to burn up and he wanted us to work together as a team.
“After that we were supposed to slowly build and work towards getting faster and getting into the regional qualifying time range.”
After Ostrander caught the leaders, she then steadily pulled away from them.
“I know my strength isn’t my top-end speed, it’s in my ability to maintain a pretty good speed,” she said. “I really tried to make it a longer kick to get rid of her a little bit earlier.”
Ihmhels told Boise State sports information he was happy with the way Ostrander ran.
“It was a tough environment tonight with it being a little humid and hotter that what we’re used to, but she did a good job and hopefully it didn’t take too much out of her really moving at the end like that, but it was still really good to see,” he said.
