She was one of athletics' best-performing females in 2010 but Nikki Hamblin started 2011 lining up against the blokes.The double Common wealth Games silver medallist was a late entry into Saturday's Tauranga Twilight meet at the Tauranga Domain, skipping her expert 800m and 1500m and moving up a distance in its place. The English-born, Cambridge-based 22-year-old took on a quality line-up in the feature race, the Waikato-Bay of Plenty competition 3000m, and ran gamely to finish 10th in the 23-strong field in 9m 18.41s."This time of year is very much an injury risk for me because I am running the long miles and to come and run around the track is always a bit chancey but I'm glad I came because now I've got a gauge as to where my fitness is," Hamblin said.
"I'm about where I thought I'd be so it's onwards and upwards. I haven't done any specific training, just concentrating on mileage and not doing any fast stuff, so it could have been anywhere between 9min and 10min."I tried to find a guy running about 9.15 pace which worked pretty well."She might have been a relative unknown 12 months ago but Hamblin's presentation in Delhi put paid to that.Within four days, her silvers in over 1500m and 800m - behind Kenyan Olympic champion Nancy Langat - reignited female track running in this country.It was the first time a New Zealand woman had won a Games track medal since Barbara Moore 20 years ago and Hamblin connected Lorraine Moller as the only other woman - and fifth runner overall - to have won two persons track medals at one occasion.
The only downside to Delhi was her 1500m time, which was an agonising 0.07secs short of a qualifying mark for this year's world championships in Korea, but Hamblin isn't letting that affect her plans."I'm sure I'll be able to run my qualifying time when I go to Europe in June and July so I'm not going to chase it in Australia or New Zealand just so I can get that solid base built up."I need a lot of power so I can last until August because it's a long term and ideally I only want to peak once."Auckland's Jonathan Jackson chased down American Cory Chaffee to win the 3000m title in 8m 31.02s, while Hamilton Hawks runner Mohamed Ali was the first WBOP athlete in fourth, clocking 8m 46.03s.Organisers of the annual meet attracted nearly 300 junior and senior entries, including decathletes Brent Newdick - who also won silver in Delhi - and Scott McLaren.
"I'm about where I thought I'd be so it's onwards and upwards. I haven't done any specific training, just concentrating on mileage and not doing any fast stuff, so it could have been anywhere between 9min and 10min."I tried to find a guy running about 9.15 pace which worked pretty well."She might have been a relative unknown 12 months ago but Hamblin's presentation in Delhi put paid to that.Within four days, her silvers in over 1500m and 800m - behind Kenyan Olympic champion Nancy Langat - reignited female track running in this country.It was the first time a New Zealand woman had won a Games track medal since Barbara Moore 20 years ago and Hamblin connected Lorraine Moller as the only other woman - and fifth runner overall - to have won two persons track medals at one occasion.
The only downside to Delhi was her 1500m time, which was an agonising 0.07secs short of a qualifying mark for this year's world championships in Korea, but Hamblin isn't letting that affect her plans."I'm sure I'll be able to run my qualifying time when I go to Europe in June and July so I'm not going to chase it in Australia or New Zealand just so I can get that solid base built up."I need a lot of power so I can last until August because it's a long term and ideally I only want to peak once."Auckland's Jonathan Jackson chased down American Cory Chaffee to win the 3000m title in 8m 31.02s, while Hamilton Hawks runner Mohamed Ali was the first WBOP athlete in fourth, clocking 8m 46.03s.Organisers of the annual meet attracted nearly 300 junior and senior entries, including decathletes Brent Newdick - who also won silver in Delhi - and Scott McLaren.
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