Shalane Flanagan had never run a 10,000 meters on the track before last night. Evidently, she gets the hang of these things pretty quickly. The 26-year-old North Carolina graduate broke the American 10,000-meter record Sunday night at the Payton Jordan Invitational at Stanford with a time of 30:34.49.

Already the 5000-meter American record holder, Flanagan won out in a tough battle with New Zealand's Kim Smith which went all the way to homestretch before the American won.

"Thanks to the New York Road Runners, they set me up with a rabbit and that gave me a cushion," said Flanagan after the race.  "It really worked out very well."

Right from the start, the pace was intense with the first 1000 reached in 3:03 as Rose Kosgei, who won a race in San Diego earlier in the day, assumed pacing duties. The 1600 was reached in 4:50 and Flanagan, Kosgei and Smith screamed through 5000 in 15:17.

Kosgei soon dropped out which left it up to Smith and Flanagan to share the lead. With 1000 meters left, Smith led in 27:35 and it was obvious that Deena Kastor's American record would tumble.

But Flanagan, the daughter of two top distance runners (Cheryl Bridges and Steve Flanagan), prevailed on the final lap in 30:34.49 as she finished just a few steps ahead of Smith who set an Oceana record of 30:35.54.  Sally Kipyego of Texas Tech was a distant third in 31:25.45, but the senior broke her own NCAA record of 31:56.72 set at this meet last year.  In all, 10 women got under the Olympic Games "A" standard of 31:45.00.

After the race, Flanagan said that she could see herself lowering her own American 5000-meter record of 14:44 to the 14:30 neighborhood. .