Santa Rosa runner Kim Conley ready to break through in Rio

Right now she’s training at high altitude. Next she’ll work out in high humidity. Then, finally, she’ll get to Rio de Janeiro and test her limits for the biggest prize of all: a gold medal in the Olympics.

Santa Rosa’s Kim Conley will represent the United States in the 5,000-meter run, which wasn’t the race she’d hoped to run.

Conley, 30, who grew up in Santa Rosa, had her eye on the 10,000 - the distance at which she won a national championship two years ago.

She had been training for the 10,000, had the mental focus on it. But a shoe problem at the Olympic Trials earlier this month in Oregon scuttled that plan and forced Conley to restructure her mindset and her training regimen.

But after that disappointment, she said she’s turned the page.

During a break in training in the mountains of Flagstaff, Ariz., she said she feels comfortable at her speed and fitness right now. She said she’s already adjusted to the shorter race.

“I’ve run right around my PR (personal record) several times this spring,” she said. “I feel like I’m ready to break through.”

After London and her steady improvement in the 10,000 in the past several years, Conley was shooting for Olympic glory in the longer event.

Her 12th place finish in a London preliminary heat was a PR at 15:14.48, but well off the finals pace.

Conley said it humbled her, but also made her hungry.

She worked hard at improving her speed in the 10,000, building lower body strength, improving endurance and working on shorter speed bursts for the final kick.

In 2014, she set her personal best of 31:48.71 in the 10,000 - more than 90 seconds better than she’d run four years prior - and beat the Olympic standard time by 17 seconds. She also won the U.S. national championship in Sacramento that year, finishing in 32:02.07.

She was focused on adding another honor in that race earlier this month at the Olympic trials in Eugene. Conley was considered a favorite to make the team at that distance, but she and another runner tangled and Conley lost a shoe. By the time she was able to recover, she was well behind. She realized it was a lost cause and dropped out.

Though she said her “heart was set on it,” she feels like she’s changed gears to the 5,000 smoothly.

“One of my strengths is just that I’m strong,” she said. “I bring that whether it’s the 10 or the five.”

“We were getting prepared for championship pacing anyway, getting ready to close fast at the end of the race, so it’s honestly not that different,” she said.

The 5,000 has two rounds, Aug. 16 and 19, so she may run the race twice.

“I’m still getting ready to run 10,000 in a sense. That was lucky for me that we’d approached the training that way going into trials,” she said. “The fitness I brought to the 10,000 paid off.”

While there are competing theories on how best to run the 5,000 - setting a fast past, the “sit-and-kick” finish, sudden surges or making a mid-race break - Conley said she’s not overthinking that part yet.

“Early in the season, a lot of times races are set up to run fast times and your approach may be different. You may be setting an even pace throughout,” she said. “But when you get to Olympic Trials or the Olympics, then people are really only concerned about how they place. So a lot of times, it’s tactical. You could control early, getting ready to go for a fast finish.”

Having been to the Olympics four years ago may give her an advantage.

“I bring that experience,” she said. “I didn’t make the finals, but from that experience I think I have a good chance of what it takes to make the finals. I should get some of the nerves out of the way, stepping into the stadium for the first time.”

Conley likes to think of her career as a ladder.

After not making the Olympic finals in 2012, she set her sights on making the final in the world championships in 2013. She did, but also finished out of the top 10, leaving her wanting more.

She won her first national title in the 10,000 in 2014, in her adopted home of Sacramento.

She’s climbed rung after rung, improving her times every year. Her career times show her on an upward trajectory. Her time in the 5,000 is nearly 2 minutes faster than the year after she graduated from Montgomery High School. And age 30 is still youthful for a female distance runner.

“They say you peak in your early 30s,” Conley said. “I absolutely have my eyes set on a full Olympic cycle beyond this one. Then we’ll see from there. I’ll be 38 for the next one.”

Although Conley said she hates “chasing times,” the next rung on her ladder might be breaking the 15-minute mark.

“My best races happen when I stop chasing times and just compete,” she said. “I would like to just focus on beating people I haven’t beaten before and hopefully fast times will happen also.”

You can reach Lori A. Carter at 707-521-5470 or lori.carter@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @loriacarter.