Last night at the Peyton Jordan Cardinal Invitational, held at Stanford University's Cobb Track and Angell Field, Shalane Flanagan, a native of Marblehead, Mass. and a UNC-Chapel Hill graduate, and New Zealand's Kimberly Smith put on a marvelous show in the marquee event, the women's 10,000 meters. It was Flanagan's first attempt at the distance; to date she has focused on the 1,500m, the 5,000m, and cross-country.

On Christmas night, I sat down with Flanagan's coach, John Cook, at the home of a mutual friend, and discussed Flanagan's inevitable move to the longest track distance. John asked me what I thought Shalane could run the 10,000 in. I said close to 30:30. He said, "That's what I think. 30:30, maybe 30:32."

That's cutting it close, but this is a guy who has forgotten more track than I and most observers will ever know.

At the gun, Flanagan and Smith, who headed into the affair as the Kiwi record-holder (31:20), wasted no time in establishing that the chase for Deena Kastor's American record of 30:50 was on. Led by pacesetter Rose Koskei of Kenya, Flanagan passed the halfway point in about 15:16, with Smith several meters in arrears and the rest of the field -- hardly a slouchy group -- strung out far behind.

By the 8K mark it was clear that Kastor's record would fall and fall hard, but Smith and Flanagan were engaged in a classic footrace. Smith generously took the point and kept the pair on 73-second laps, and with 200 meters left the outcome was nowhere near settled.

In the end Flanagan eased ahead and prevailed by just over a second, 30:34.49 - 30:35.52. In notching the fastest time in the word this year, she lopped a jaw-dropping 16 seconds off the standard Kastor set two years ago at the same meet; Smith lopped an improbable 45 seconds of her own New Zealand record and also nabbed the Oceania record, previously held by Benita Johnson of Australia (30:37.68).

Among many other great performances doomed to be forgotten from the start, Sally KIpyego of Texas Tech, the 2007 NCAA cross-country champion, destroyed her own NCAA record by 30 seconds by running 31:25.45.

Here are the last two laps of the race, courtesy of RunnerSPACE.