Plumer Earns It the Old-Fashioned Way : Women’s mile: Winner has to avoid pole after Ivan slips, then drops out with foot injury.

PattiSue Plumer called it an old-fashioned indoor mile. She also referred to it as a mess.

Same thing.

It started too fast. Not the pace. The race. Plumer said the gun went off before any of the runners were ready, sending them off pushing, shoving and cursing.

Then, the race was too slow. Plumer said she had been told before the race that Romanian Violeta Beclea would be the pacemaker. But Beclea didn’t think much of the idea when she was told about it earlier in the week and decided that she would go out to win, same as the other eight runners.

That left the favorites, Romanian Paula Ivan and Plumer, to set the pace. Plumer doesn’t particularly relish that role, but it suits Ivan fine. When she won the 1,500 at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, she took the lead from the start and never looked back until she crossed the finish line.

Except on this particular Friday night, Ivan was slipping as if she were on ice.

Skates probably would have served her as well as the track shoes she was wearing. They were supposed to be worn on Tartan surfaces, which are common on outdoor tracks and European indoor tracks, but not on wooden tracks such as the one at the Sports Arena.

She took the lead, but her footing seemed unsure from the beginning. On the third lap of the 11-lap race, she straddled the railing between the inside line and the infield for several steps before regaining her balance. But on the next lap, she dropped out because of a foot injury. Plumer took over the lead from there. But anyone who thought she would have a clear path to the finish line doesn’t know indoor track.

About halfway through the race, while Plumer was running comfortably in front, one of the pole vaulters let his pole get away from him on his descent. It bounced onto the track and into Plumer’s lane. She stopped momentarily and almost quit until she heard her coach, Brooks Johnson, encourage her to continue.

She quickly regained the lead and won in 4:33:01. That was considerably slower than the 4:18.86 that she needed to break Romanian Doina Melinte’s world record of 4:18.86 and earn the $100,000 bonus that promoter Al Franken had promised, but she was glad simply to survive.

“This is an old track, real slippery,” said Plumer, who graduated last June from Stanford’s law school. “That’s one of the reasons that indoor track is exciting. This was a good, old-fashioned indoor race.”

Dr. Tony Daly described Ivan’s injury as a sprain in an unusual place on her foot. He said it didn’t appear as though she would be able to run the mile tonight in a meet in Portland, Ore.

Ivan seemed on the verge of tears when she came to the interview room. Perhaps it was because of the injury, but it seemed she was more upset about losing. A world record-holder in the outdoor mile, she is not used to it.

“I was slipping, but I was never afraid of losing the race because of that,” she said through an interpreter. “I had to overcome that. I was concentrating on racing.”

Plumer, who really didn’t expect to win because she has been spending more time studying for her February bar exam than she has been training, said that when Ivan stepped off the track, she was dismayed.

“Part of you, as a competitor, says, ‘Dang, I wish that didn’t happen,’ ” she said. “So I have to be disappointed. I’d rather beat her legitimately.”

After the race, Ivan was sitting in the middle of the infield, surrounded by sympathizers while waiting for a pair of crutches to arrive. Plumer broke through the crowd, extended her hand and a piece of advice.

“Don’t ever wear those shoes indoors again,” Plumer told her.

Ivan shook her head, but didn’t answer.