EUGENE, Ore. — Laura Thweatt was drifting, unsure of what to do with a running career that had shown such promise but instead plateaued. It was the summer of 2011, a year after she graduated from the University of Colorado.
The Durango native was running just enough to stay in shape and keep up with . It was during those hot summer days that she rediscovered the unbridled joy running had once given her. For her girls, running didn’t feel like a job or an obligation.
“Honestly, that saved me in a lot of ways,” Thweatt, 27, recalled this week at the Olympic Track and Field trials. “It all started for me at the high school level, and just remembering how much fun it was spurred me to be like, ‘You know what? I’m not quite done with this. I want to see what I can do.’ ”
Now she is racing in her first Olympic Trials. On Thursday, she makes her second and final attempt to qualify for the Rio Olympics, racing in the women’s 5,000 meter first round.
Her challenge is formidable. On Saturday, in one of the better performances of her career, though she was still 31 seconds short of a top-three placing that would have put her on Team USA. And she will not be nearly as fresh as some other women in the field, which already includes the four runners who finished ahead of her in the 10K. The top six runners in each of two heats advance to Sunday’s final, plus the next four fastest times.
Thweatt’s journey has been winding. She ran track in middle school, but didn’t enjoy it. As a freshman at Durango High School, she joined the cross country team after being cut from the volleyball team.
“I’ll never forget her first cross country meet up in Denver, at Arapahoe,” recalled her mother, Jean Thweatt. “She said, ‘Wow, this is really cool. I came in first.’ I said, ‘You came in first in what?’ She said, ‘I was first at (Durango High School).’ She had beaten all the other seniors.”
Thweatt ran four years at Colorado under coaches Mark Wetmore and Heather Burroughs, but was a self-described pack runner, working for the team but never near the leaders. She left Colorado without achieving her goals. She never qualified for an NCAA track championship.
Her rise relates to the help of one man: Lee Troop. After leaving CU, she met with the three-time Australian Olympic marathoner at a coffee shop in Boulder to figure out whether she wanted to continue running.
“She didn’t have any goals when she came to me,” Troop said. “Coming out of college, she was fairly burned out … We just talked about getting her back to running, but more importantly, getting her back to enjoying her running.”
Troop infused her with a self-confidence she never had in college.
“I loved what Lee had to say,” Thweatt said. “He was honest with me and basically told me, ‘If this is something you want to do, and you want to try to be at that Olympic level, I can help you do that. But you have to be all-in. And if you’re ready to do that, let’s get started.'”
He knows how to push, but he also knows when it’s time to hit the brakes. In 2012, Thweatt made a huge improvement in the 5K but still fell short of the trials standard by a few seconds.
“There were a number of people telling her that there were other races that she could do and that she should try to get into those races — leave no stone unturned to try to get into the trials,” Troop said. “But I just went with a different approach and said, ‘You’re not good enough. Why would you want to try to race yourself into the ground, scrape in and finish last?’ If you want to legitimately contend to make the Olympics, just accept that you’re not good enough to get in. Use this as motivation over the next four years.”
She listened and a major turning point came a year later, when she raced in the U.S. 12K road championships, finishing third behind Olympians Molly Huddle and Shalane Flanagan and edging out Kim Conley, a 2012 Olympian in the 5K.
“It was a huge field of women that I looked up to forever and respected as idols,” Thweatt said. “Itap funny how things work. I just needed a little more time to come into my own.”
In addition to the Monarch coaching job, Thweatt — a part of the 12-person elite group at Boulder Track Club, racing for Saucony — works for Troop at his Fleet Feet running store in Boulder about 15 hours per week, in charge of buying footwear and apparel. The work gives her balance to keep running in perspective.
Thweatt and went on to race on her first world team, but an injury she sustained at the U.S. meet hampered her efforts. She recovered and began training for the New York City marathon in what would be her debut at the event. She finished as the top American — seventh in 2:28:23.
“Having never run a marathon, I just didn’t really know what to expect,” Thweatt said. “It was one of those defining moments in your career. I was like, ‘I can race these women.’ ”
That result gave her momentum heading into the new year. Her focus coming to the Trials was the 10K, but she let the lead pack establish a gap during the middle laps and was forced to claw her way back up to get fifth. In Portland a few weeks ago, she qualified for the 5K after running 15:26. To make it to Rio, she’ll need to finish in the top three and run 15:24 or faster.
Four years ago, she was at home in Durango with her parents, watching the trials from her couch, watching her friends Emma Coburn, Shalaya Kipp and Jenny Simpson — all CU alums — make the London team.
“I remember thinking, ‘There’s no way in four years I’m going to be watching it,'” she said. “I’m going to be there. I’m going to be on that start line, and I’m going to have a shot to make that Olympic team.”
