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All the effort UCLA’s Monique Henderson has exerted this season to put herself in position to capture her first NCAA title almost went to waste.

With the crowd at the Spanos Sports Complex in Sacramento roaring as she neared the halfway point in her final collegiate race, Henderson felt a twinge in her left hamstring.

But instead of easing up, the UCLA senior sped up. Powering through the curve and down the final straightaway, she pulled away from the rest of the field, forever scratching her name off the list of 400 meter runners to never have won a national title.

Her time of 50.10 seconds set a new NCAA meet record in the 400m and shattered her old lifetime best of 50.53 seconds set at the U.S. Olympic trials last summer.

“I made a decision to suck it up and run through it,” Henderson said. “If I hurt myself, I’m going to hurt myself running fast.”

For Henderson, there was no other choice but to keep right on running. This was the one title that has eluded her since she arrived at UCLA in 2001 as the most heralded recruit in the nation, and she wasn’t about to let her last chance to win it slip away.

“This is what I was recruited for, and this is what I came to UCLA to do,” Henderson said.

“I’m happy with the way it happened. I wouldn’t change a thing.”

Henderson, a gold medalist on the U.S. Olympic 4x400-meter relay team last summer, opted not to turn pro after returning from Greece in part so that she could take aim at the NCAA title in the 400m. She finished a disappointing seventh at the NCAA championship her freshman and sophomore years before taking second place last season, crossing the finish line just behind Olympic teammate DeeDee Trotter of Tennessee.

This year, however, Henderson was the prohibitive favorite, and her confidence reflected that.

She visualized the race in her head every day for weeks, and besides the hamstring flare-up, it played out almost exactly as she expected.

Henderson took it out of the blocks quickly, easily making up the stagger on South Carolina’s Stephanie Smith and moving into the lead. Holding her ground over the middle of the race, she opened up a big lead on the final straightaway to hold off Smith and Florida’s Tiandra Ponteen by almost a second.

“She ran an incredible race,” UCLA coach Jeanette Bolden said “That was the end of the collegiate chapter of her career, and she did it with an exclamation point.”

Henderson, who bowed her head and raised her arms in victory immediately after crossing the finish line, was simply relieved to have won.

Though her time was the fifth-fastest ever by a collegiate woman and the fastest ever run in a collegiate meet, first place was the only place that mattered to Henderson.

“I put a lot of pressure on myself before the race,” she said. “It feels really good to win.”