The Janes are so proud to announce that Ena qualified for the USATF Indoor Championships this past Friday night running the 600 meters at the New Mexico Indoor Classic hosted by the University of New Mexico track and field team. The meet was held at the Albuquerque Convention Center on a state of the art, mondo surfaced banked 200 meter indoor track. Ena was second running 1:32.31. Ena will race in the USATF Indoor Championships February 27 – March 1 at the Reggie Lewis Center in Boston, Mass. The first round will be at 4:21 pm (EST) on Saturday, February 28th and the final round will be at 4:31 pm (EST) on Sunday, March 1. NBCSN will be live from the event both days from 4-6pm EST and USATF.tv will be live showing some of the meet as well.
Here is Ena’s breakdown of the race:
“It’s been five years since I ran on a banked 200 meter track. The first few steps were very rocky as I almost fell. However, I managed to keep my head and focus together. I knew I needed to keep myself in the race to give myself a chance at having a good race.
I fell short of my goal for the first 200m and to make matters worse I was in fourth place. I picked up my pace for the next 200m, and coming into the turn after 400m I made an aggressive move to get into third place. With 150m to go I just opened up and went after the two girls ahead of me. Off the last turn something told me to go wide and I listened to myself even though I was not sure if I could pass them.
All I can remember after that move is finishing and realizing I had run 1:32.3 (qualifying for 2015 Indoor Nationals) and hearing the announcer say “what a great finish by Leufroy”. It wasn’t until I saw my dad taking a picture of the printed results that I realized that I was second and just missed the first place girl who posted a new meet record.
This race was a huge accomplishment for me. Indoors was never something I mastered in college. I have focused my training on the 800m all year and to switch my focus to the 600m two weeks ago so that I could reach my goal of running at National is extremely exciting.”
For complete results of the New Mexico Classic, click here.
