The night before their 1500-meter race at the Mid-American Conference Outdoor Track and Field Championships on May 12, University of Toledo senior distance runners Janelle Noe and Petronela Simiuc came to coach Linh Nguyen with a plan.
“The night before, [Noe] and Petronela came to me to talk race strategy,” Nguyen said. “They said, ‘We want to make this a good, hard race.’
“I wasn’t really on board with it at first. I thought you kind of sacrifice yourself sometimes when you do that. But I finally said, ‘I trust you and you can do what you want to do.