Tayla Kavanagh celebrates near miss in 5000m national record

Kavanagh ran a 14:58:52 PB on Thursday at Coetzenburg Stadium, just 14.5 seconds short of the national record of 14:44:05 set by Elana Meyer back in 1995. 

She has, however, still etched her name into the history books by becoming only the second South African woman ever to go sub-15:00. 

"Yeah, I mean the plan was to go out pretty hard and run as fast as I can over the 5k. As this is probably like one of my last 5k’s on the track for the season," said Kavanagh.

"I was just like let’s give it a good go today and see how the body responded. As I was running the laps, and as each lap went by, I kind of heard like ‘Oh, there she’s pretty much on like record.'

"And I was pretty surprised. I kept hearing it and I was like, 'Okay, just block it out. Like just run as fast as you can.'

“I was pretty much giving it my all and obviously like I heard that, but at the same time I tried to really focus on the process and not really the outcome. 

"So even today I was like just run as fast as you can. So obviously, I heard that in the back of my head and I was like ‘Just focus Tayla! Just focus.' So I mean it would’ve been cool if I got it but I ran a really big PB.” 

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The 24-year-old says knowing how close she came to breaking that 31-year-old record, it has now become her next goal. 

“Yeah, I’m going to try not to be too upset about that but rather celebrate how close I was and see how close we can get. 

"Maybe that’s the next goal. So I’m always going to keep that in sight and just be proud of what I did,” she concluded.