by Dave Ross  The 2012 Women's Olympic Trials Marathon started with the largest and deepest field ever assembled for an Olympic Trials Marathon, with 204 confirmed entrants. The most notable runner that had scratched prior to the race was 2008 5th place finisher Tera Moody, who had to withdraw due to a nagging hamstring injury.

The early favorites included 2011 Boston Marathon runner up Desiree Davila, 2010 New York Marathon runner up Shalene Flanagan, Olympian Kara Goucher and 2011 LA Marathon runner up Amy Hastings.

Photo: Lead pack near the end.  photo by Dustin Whitlow for UjENA FIT Club

The women's race was quite the opposite of the men's with a dawdling first mile of 6:11. After miles of 5:49 and 5:34 the leaders started to emerge, but there was still a large pack in tow. Miles of 5:30 and 5:22 reduced the lead pack to 9 women:Amy Hastings, Shalane Flanagan, Kara Goucher, Olympic bronze medalist Deena Kastor, Adrianna Nelson, Janet Cherobon Bawcom, Desiree Davila, Katie McGregor and Serena Burla. It should be noted that Burla is a cancer survivor who had a golf ball sized tumor removed from one of her hamstrings.

The race started to develop a bit as the women reached the 10K mark in 35:23. Miles 7 and 8 were 5:38 and 5:22 and at this point Adrianna Nelson started to fade as Amy Hastings surged to the front. Miles of 5:42 and 5:37 changed nothing and the pack was still at 8 women as they reached 10 miles at 2:28 pace. The race started stringing out shortly thereafter, leaving Davila, Flanagan, Goucher, Kastor and Burla. A 5:32 mile put McGregor out the back, with Bawcom and Hastings fading. A 5:25 13th mile reduced the pack to 4. Hastings had rallied to join Flanagan, Goucher and Davila. The women reached the halfway split in 1:13:30, 2:27 marathon pace.

A 5:20 16th mile had appeared to drop Amy Hastings, but by mile 17 (5:28) she went hard to the front and was forcing the pace. A 5:25 18th mile changed nothing, and there was a sizeable gap back to Deena Kastor in 5th and Bawcom in 6th. A 5:33 for the 20th mile dropped Amy Hastings 12 seconds back and the pack was down to Flanagan, Davila and Goucher. After a 5:25 for the 21st mile Goucher began to drop back slightly.

The race continued this way through 24 miles (a 5:24) with Davila and Flanagan each taking turns at the front. Goucher was hanging on gamely, about 3 to 5 seconds back but never losing much ground. In the 25th mile Flanagan began to pull away, first a 3 second lead, then 5, then 8 seconds. There was no response from Davila. Goucher had dropped slightly further back, but was still within striking distance. She had Davila in her sights, but could she keep her close enough ?

The race would progress the same way, with Flanagan pulling further away while Davila maintained her slight gap over Kara Goucher. Flanagan went on to win in a personal best of 2:25:38, Desiree Davila 2nd in 2:25:55 and Kara Goucher 3rd in 2:26:06. Amy Hastings hung on for 4th in 2:27:17, with Janet Cherobon Bawcom 5th and Deena Kastor 6th.