58 year old Pennsylvania grandma Michelle Rohl was quite the athlete in her youth. Her favorite sport was distance race running. She made Team USA in the ‘92, ‘96, and 2000 Olympic Games! Her best performance was 1996 when she placed 14th in the Olympic 10K. She officially retired over 20 years ago to focus on raising and homeschooling her 5 children.
When she heard that Springfield Oregon was going to be one of the cities to host an Olympic trial to see who would make the 2024 USA Olympic Team she decided to dust off the sneakers and start practicing again. She began 3 months ago which was a few days before her first grandchild was born. She trained as hard as she could for the 20K which is about 12 miles. She trains walking at an 8-minute-per-mile pace. If you walk at slightly above average pace it should take about 20 minutes to walk a mile. Most jogger's average around 10 minute miles. So her walk is much faster than most people jog and to keep it up for 20 K is amazing.
She fell on one of her training sessions and busted her chin. She told friends "if you think a few stiches are going to slow me down then you don't really even know me".
At the Olympic tryout Michelle posted a very impressive time of 1:42:27 for the 20K. She ended up 3rd out of 100 plus walkers. The winner was 41 year old Robyn Stevens who beat Michelle by almost 5 minutes at 1:37:38. Robyn fought back tears because she said this was probably her last go around and despite winning the local race was not fast enough to qualify for the team which was 1:20:10. "I'm just too old now to be competitive she told the local paper". But Michelle who was walking by blurted out "I don't buy it, I bet you make the team again in 2028."
I wouldn't be surprised if Michelle did too.