All the effort UCLA’s Monique Henderson has exerted this
season to put herself in position to capture her first NCAA title
almost went to waste.
With the crowd at the Spanos Sports Complex in Sacramento
roaring as she neared the halfway point in her final collegiate
race, Henderson felt a twinge in her left hamstring.
But instead of easing up, the UCLA senior sped up. Powering
through the curve and down the final straightaway, she pulled away
from the rest of the field, forever scratching her name off the
list of 400 meter runners to never have won a national title.
Her time of 50.10 seconds set a new NCAA meet record in the 400m
and shattered her old lifetime best of 50.53 seconds set at the
U.S. Olympic trials last summer.
“I made a decision to suck it up and run through
it,” Henderson said. “If I hurt myself, I’m going
to hurt myself running fast.”
For Henderson, there was no other choice but to keep right on
running. This was the one title that has eluded her since she
arrived at UCLA in 2001 as the most heralded recruit in the nation,
and she wasn’t about to let her last chance to win it slip
away.
“This is what I was recruited for, and this is what I came
to UCLA to do,” Henderson said.
“I’m happy with the way it happened. I
wouldn’t change a thing.”
Henderson, a gold medalist on the U.S. Olympic 4×400-meter relay
team last summer, opted not to turn pro after returning from Greece
in part so that she could take aim at the NCAA title in the 400m.
She finished a disappointing seventh at the NCAA championship her
freshman and sophomore years before taking second place last
season, crossing the finish line just behind Olympic teammate
DeeDee Trotter of Tennessee.
This year, however, Henderson was the prohibitive favorite, and
her confidence reflected that.
She visualized the race in her head every day for weeks, and
besides the hamstring flare-up, it played out almost exactly as she
expected.
Henderson took it out of the blocks quickly, easily making up
the stagger on South Carolina’s Stephanie Smith and moving
into the lead. Holding her ground over the middle of the race, she
opened up a big lead on the final straightaway to hold off Smith
and Florida’s Tiandra Ponteen by almost a second.
“She ran an incredible race,” UCLA coach Jeanette
Bolden said “That was the end of the collegiate chapter of
her career, and she did it with an exclamation point.”
Henderson, who bowed her head and raised her arms in victory
immediately after crossing the finish line, was simply relieved to
have won.
Though her time was the fifth-fastest ever by a collegiate woman
and the fastest ever run in a collegiate meet, first place was the
only place that mattered to Henderson.
“I put a lot of pressure on myself before the race,”
she said. “It feels really good to win.”