It's a muggy late-June night in Eugene, Ore., and the full house at Hayward Field is in classic staccato-clapping form as Kara Goucher, Shalane Flanagan and Amy Begley trade off the lead midway through the women's 10,000m final at the 2008 U.S. Olympic trials final. Flanagan holds multiple American records, including the 10,000m. Goucher owns a bronze medal from the previous year's world championships. But this is foreign territory for Begley, who has never finished higher than seventh in a U.S. track championship and entered the meet with a PR 22 seconds slower than the 31:45 Olympic "A" standard she's gunning hard to beat. On paper, she's a long shot. Yet as the pre-race favorites begin to pull away with three laps to go, it's Begley, who's struggling to stay on pace in third, that the country's most knowledgeable running crowd is buzzing about. Even if most don't know the long road she's had to endure just to get to this opportunity, everyone in the stands can sense her bulldog determination amid the anguish of running at the red line. Thanks to track announcer Scott Davis they know she'll have to split one of the fastest 5Ks of her life over the second half of the race to even have a chance at joining Flanagan and Goucher at the Beijing Olympics. Lap after lap she holds the line, splitting 76 seconds each time around, but with two laps to go she finds herself slightly off the pace needed to reach the Olympic standard. What unfolds over the last 800m brings goose bumps to anyone with a pulse. Part gritty determination, part Hayward magic, Begley clips off a 73-second lap and then visibly accelerates as she churns out a 67-second final lap, culminating with a hard-charging sprint down the homestretch in front of the raucous crowd to finish with 1.4 seconds to spare in 31:43.60. Looking back, it was the defining moment of her life, one that was at least 20 years in the making. After toiling with injuries, health problems, inconsistent training and occasional self-doubt, Begley, then age 30, finally felt like she belonged among the country's best runners and was ready to compete on the world stage. "That's the race that finally showed me I could run at that level," Begley says. "It was definitely a turning point for me. It showed me all of the hard work and sacrifices had paid off. The moment I finished that race I knew that was the reason I had been so dedicated and stuck with it all those years."