Well Worth a Wait

“The force that through the green fuse drives the flower drives my green age.... The force that drives the water through the rocks drives my red blood.”   —DYLAN THOMAS

If you have ever had to let go of a dream, you will like this story. In 2015, I wrote Nell Rojas’ athletic obituary. Boy, has she proved me wrong.

Training in the

 Colorado Rockies

An athlete dies twice, the second the most permanent but the first often the most painful. It is the great paradox - should we hold out hope against hope, chasing a noble dream?  Or, should we find victory in acceptance of our human body’s fallible state? Dreams: when does hope transcend to foolhardiness? Realty: when does acceptance become negativity? The agonizing decision is often the makings for a great Greek tragedy, smudging the line between courageous and quixotic.

In 2015, Rojas was retiring as an elite triathlete - a sport that combines running, cycling and swimming. She had never gotten over the sport’s financial hump. Five years later, on February 29 in Atlanta, GA, Nell Rojas will compete in the Women’s Olympic Marathon Trials with a legit, but long shot, at finishing in the top three and making the 2020 USA Olympic team.

I first met Rojas in 2013. She was working the retail floor at the Boulder (Colorado) Running Company. On a rainy fall afternoon, she was hustling to meet the busy demands of a store full of clients. Boulder and its high altitude is a mecca for endurance athletes. Singlets and spandex are the honor vestments of Boulder; six pack abs and well defined claves are fashion statements.

I had stopped by the store on a whim looking for material for a book I was writing, Take the High Road. I asked store manager, Trent Briney, if he employed any athletes a step below Olympic-caliber, any who were desperately fighting both the competition and the calendar, stubbornly refusing to let go of their athletic dreams? “That’s my whole staff,” Briney said with a laugh. “How many do you want to talk to?” He suggested a shy 26 year old Boulder native named Nell Rojas.

As a Pro Triathlete, Rojas was teasingly on the fringes of the nation’s elite. Close, but yet so far.

Rojas comes with a gold standard blood line for distance runners. Her father is Ric Rojas, former national and world road racing record holder and today one of the leading track and field coaches in the nation. He owns and conducts Rojas Running out of Boulder, CO. Rojas was part of the golden age of American distance runners, rubbing elbows down the nation’s straightaways with, and often beating,  such 1970’s legends  as Frank Shorter, Jim Ryun and Marty Liguori.

Nell and Ric Rojas

After a solid, but not well decorated career at Boulder High School, Nell Rojas agreed after her 2006 high school graduation to walk on to the cross country and track teams at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, AZ. “I was a good high school runner, but there were many in the area better than me,” she readily admits. “But you have to also remember that I was not a runner who had been overtrained like so many highly successful high school runners have been. My dad was really good about not pushing me harder than I wanted to be pushed. I played basketball, I had other activities. I had a lot of room for improvement with my running, but I was also not worn out from overtraining. When I got to Flagstaff, my freshman year, I made the varsity cross country travel squad. I was the 7th or 8th runner that year and we finished 7th in the nation, so it was a very strong team and I was able to crack the top 7.”

To sum up her college career, Rojas wasn't that fast, but she was" strong", a track term for a dependable runner who can simply last. As she departed the mountain campus after graduation in 2010, Rojas was viewed as a runner with modest talent, but one respected for willing herself through sheer hard work into a valued team member. She moved on with her legacy of high character intact.

Rojas truly believed her athletic career was over with the completion of the NAU 2010 Outdoor track season. “I won the Big Sky Conference in the steeplechase that year and qualified for the Regional Meet. I thought I was satisfied,” she states, her running career in the rearview mirror. “I was done. I had agreed to teach English at a school in Spain for the upcoming school year. I came home to Boulder for the summer and was helping my dad coach his club team when he suggested I try the triathlon. From the start, I loved the event. It reinvigorated me, but I kept my commitment and went to Spain in the fall. Everyone in Spain eats big carb loaded lunch and then takes an afternoon siesta. I came home for that summer in really bad shape.”

The summer of 2011 found Rojas back in Boulder and under her dad’s training wing. “That summer I bought in,” she says in describing her commitment to her new love. “The triathlon was something I wanted to pursue and I wanted to be good at. I was now ‘all in’ and we got serious with my training.

A Relentless Work Ethic

It took a big financial commitment to train and compete, but I got myself back in shape and could see I was getting better. I went back to Spain for the 2011-12 school year, but this time I joined a track club and stayed in shape. When I got back to Boulder in the summer of 2012, the triathlon was now my life. I trained hard and in 2013 I earned my Pro Card, which was a big step. It meant now I could compete in the elite meets without paying an entry fee and I was eligible to compete for the purse (prize money).”

While winning $5,000 on 2014’s summer pro circuit, Rojas estimated she incurred $30,000 worth of training expenses.

Having lived on the economic margins long enough, surviving on macaroni and cheese and tuna most every day, living at home with her mom at 27 years of age, in 2015 Rojas made what she thought at the time was a mature decision, she pulled the plug on her Olympic dreams.

Rojas’ triathlon coach told me she had an incredible ability to tolerate pain. But, in October, 2015, her spirit was broken, she was done. She told me then, “I am just tired of always being tired, tired of always being broke and tired of the pressure to push even harder. I am still running and don’t ever see that changing. I have run a few road races since quitting the Tri and have done pretty well. There is a big part of me that says to keep on running, just not on as intense level as I was. I love the competition; I love the support you get here from the running community. I will never give that up.”

Olympic Champ 

Frank Shorter

Turns out, she has not at all had to give up running. Despite her best intent in 2015, she was not ready to step away. Four years later, having stormed onto the national marathon scène, Rojas now feels a  mastery over her body, a keen awareness of her vast physical potential as a marathon runner  and a profound sense that it would have been an affront not to have had the opportunity to explore them.

It happened by accident. “In 2017, I had decided to move on from the Olympic triathlon events to Ironman competitions,” Rojas says. “The Ironman structure is much longer. I was starting to coach and train Ironmen and felt I needed to have some personal experience in the event. I really had no intention of reviving my competitive career with the Ironman. The running portion is a marathon (26.1 miles). The Triathlons I did, the running was a five kilometer (3.1 miles). I decided I needed to run a marathon before entering an Ironman. My main road race had been the 10K (6.2 miles). In December of 2018, I entered my first ever marathon in Sacramento, (CA). I had trained with a goal of breaking 2 hours and 40 minutes. I ran 2:31:20 and finished 7^th. I couldn’t believe it. I found out my time qualified me for the Olympic trials.” The triathlon was now forgotten. “From that day 18 months ago, I have been training full time for the marathon.”

After six months of preparation specifically to marathon running, Rojas, in June of 2019, entered the prestigious Grandma Marathon in Duluth, MN. “I hoped to improve my time and hopefully win some prize money. No one, including me, felt I was one of the runners who would challenge to win, nobody knew who I was. I won the race. I felt so strong throughout the course. My confidence shot sky high. I improved my time over three minutes and at that point had the 5^th fastest qualifying time for the Olympic Trials.” 

Emerging from total obscurity in the world of the marathon, Rojas saw she had a legitimate chance to make the US Olympic team. She was now, for the first time in her competitive life, running on air, in the clouds with pride buoyed by an intoxicating personal confidence that she had long sought.

Rojas is soft spoken. But, I notice during our most recent talk a change from five years ago. She is focused, with flint in her tone I had not heard before. When a well-tuned athlete hones in, not a whole lot gets in their way. There is a word in Spanish—correoso—which means the power to withstand hard times. On morning runs through the mountain snow, correoso builds up. Over and over, before sunup every day, the callousing builds up—the conviction that you are strong and the conviction that you are going to succeed. That is Rojas’ mind set today.

Olympic Dreams

Rojas appreciates the new lease of life she now has on her running career. “I wake up every day now excited. The marathon is an event where you hit your peak years later, late 30’s. I am getting such a late start; my body has not had the pounding that most elite marathoners have by 32 years of age. I really think I can run at an elite level for at least the next ten years. This happened so fast, it has just not sunk in yet, I am so new to this sport. Someone asked me (recently) ‘what is my best type of course - flat and fast or hilly and challenging.’  I really don’t know. I have only run two marathons. I do know though, that I am blessed to do what I love for a living. I had given up on that dream.”

A world-class marathoner makes it look easy. But it is not. The nation’s best runners, like Rojas, are efficient even in deep distress. Their stoic presence lulls us into forgetting how difficult it is to run so far so fast. To make the Olympic team, Rojas estimates she will need to run the hilly Atlanta course in a time of around 2 hours and 27 minutes, a pace of 5:35 per mile, for over 26 consecutive miles. I sense the force in her, and I make a note to myself on the transformation of confidence I now hear in her voice: how did she get here so fast, so green yet with so much fire?

A Role Model to
Girls With a Dream

The afternoon that we spoke, Rojas had just finished a 20 mile run in the south Arizona desert.  “Since I won the Grandma Marathon in Duluth, six months ago; I have been averaging 70 miles a week. Today was my last long run (before the Trials). Now, we take the next couple of weeks to taper."  But, she refuses to look that far ahead. “I am running in 19 days with the lead pack at the Olympic marathon trials. I am so thankful and this has happened so fast. So, I am really going to enjoy the preparation and the race and try and continue to improve.” Who knows, Rojas says, “maybe my lack of experience will come through once more."

" I feel good. I am a little nervous, I will admit, but incredibly excited. Realistically, making the team this year (finishing in the top three at the Trials) is a long shot. By 2024, I should be in a better position.” Rojas will in four years be more mature, stronger and deeply tested.

Current Team Nell has a small membership. “My dad is the only coach I have right now,” Rojas shared. “We work together well and he takes my input and structures the workouts. He is the best coach in Boulder and has been so for years. Right now,” with the Olympic trials only weeks away, “every day is just so important. We have moved our (training) camp to Tucson (AZ). There is just too much snow on the ground right now in Boulder to get the quality miles I need."

Five years ago, Rojas was very sensitive about her lack of self-sufficiency. “I am 27 years of age,” she said in 2015. “And I live with my mom, come on. Triathlon is such an expensive sport. It costs as much to fly my bike to a competition as it does to fly (myself). To make a living, I need to be in the nation’s top ten and I just can’t seem to get to that level.”

Today, Rojas’ personal finances, thanks to the marathon, are much more solid. “A top sponsored marathon, like Boston or New York City, can pay the winner in the range of $100,000. I got a check for $20,000 for winning at Duluth. Sponsorship money can be very (lucrative). I am hoping that if I can do well at the Trials, I will start getting some sponsorship(s). A big help has been that I now qualify for training expenses from the USA Olympic Committee. I am now a pro runner in more than name alone. I can now support myself by running and I feel my earnings potential in the future is very promising.”

Five years ago I asked the introspective (brooding, a friend of Rojas called her) athlete if she was happy with her life? Rojas, in 2015, was a determined but increasingly frustrated triathlete. “Happy,” she said then, “I am not sure what happy is. It is really hard for me to be happy. I am never satisfied. I always think I can do better.” When she did not succeed at a high level she told me then, she felt she was letting down those who supported her dreams, in particular, her dad.

Five years later, I asked Rojas the same question “are you happy?” Without hesitation, she answers, “absolutely.” She likes the direction marathon training has brought to her ultra-competitive nature. “It is not just about how I do in Atlanta in a few weeks. It’s more enjoying the experience. I like the training. I like how well my dad and I work together. I like the support I get from my mom and my running family in Boulder. I like being a role model for young girls who dream of being a long distance runner. I feel I am doing what I have always dreamed of doing, making a living running. Am I happy? I am, for sure.”