As she always does, Koons says a prayer before every race, and as always, she says at Millrose, \"a calm came over me right at the line.\"
\"I was really pleased overall. The atmosphere there was pretty cool. I drove in with my mom, dad, brother and sister. When we got there, my dad took me to the warm-up area right away because I have this nervous thing about soaking in the atmosphere and everything a good two hours beforehand. The warm-up area was on the third floor-it was pretty small, and carpeted but I did what I needed to in order to prepare. Its nice too because they have TV monitors in this area and a guy announcing when we had to report to the track. When they called us down, because they were on such a tight time schedule, you had to be ready with spikes on and sweats off. There is no place or time for striders, so we just all kind of were in a group at the foot of the stairs until the college men\'s 4x800m was finished. My uncle said he could see me from the stands dancing around in place with the other girls, we were all pretty excited/nervous. The announcer read off all of our names and I started on the outside, even though there were only 9 girls, there are still only 4 lanes. I prayed and like it always does, a calm came over me right at the line. We were allowed to cut in at the first turn though, so it was fine. I got out well, cut into the first lane right when I got the chance, and stayed there the whole time. I really never got sucked onto the pack, which was good, but they were right there the entire time. The only people I saw during the race (besides Nicole Blood!) were Sarah Bowman at the very beginning, Amy (Kelly) a couple times during the middle, and Heather Iatauro at the very end. Amy and I really pushed each other, it was great. She is just such a great competitor (and really nice too) and I was honored to be racing alongside her, representing PA. The bank was so steep, unlike any banked tracks I had run before and at one point, I was looking at the rail on the inside and how steep it was and I clumsily lost my balance on a curve. Thankfully, I did not fall or cause anyone else to, but it was a close one!! The crowd during the race was awesome. The announcer would say a bunch of stuff. I wasn\'t really paying attention to the crowd, but they would intermittently go wild at points, it was such a lift. Afterwards, they gave us a t-shirt and medal and took some pictures in front of a Millrose backdrop. We had to stand around and wait awhile until they were ready, so all of us talked a little about how we were currently managing the running with the good old northeast weather and other stuff. There was a section that high school athletes and their coaches could sit but we had skybox seats (thanks to my aunt who works for Sport Illustrated!!) which were very nice by the way. My family was so funny, they were all very impressed with everything and are looking forward to returning in a few years). I had a really great time.\"
Hope you get to experience the Garden again, Frances!