Nell Rojas might be a household name in the Boulder running community. Yet back in 2019, when Molly Grabill competed in the Bolder Boulder of the first time, Rojas was a complete stranger.
Rojas won the women’s citizen’s race in 2019, and since then has twice posted the top time by an American woman at the Boston Marathon, including last month. Yet that rise to national prominence still was in the future for Rojas on that day four years ago, and Grabill was unfamiliar with the woman who eventually crossed the finish line first.
“I’d never heard of Nell before and I was just like, ‘Who’s this chick?’” Grabill recalled with a laugh. “Now we’re training partners.”
Rojas did not compete at the 43rd Bolder Boulder on Monday, but she returned to her hometown race as the official starter alongside her father Ric, the winner of the inaugural Bolder Boulder in 1979. Rojas made no misgivings about her allegiances at Monday’s race when she declared to the masses before they set off from the starting line “Molly’s going to win.”
Grabill made a prophet out of her training partner, winning the women’s citizen’s race in Boulder’s 10-kilometer festival.
A former distance standout at Oregon, Grabill was a five-time All-American for the Ducks. Grabill was training in Colorado when she first ran the Bolder Boulder in 2019, when Nell Rojas won the citizen’s race 40 years after her father won the inaugural race. Since then, Grabill began training with the Boulder-based Rojas Running, and she credits her work with one of Boulder’s foremost running families for taking her skills to a new level.
“I was a little embarrassed,” Grabill said of her training partner’s pre-race announcement. “But having her and Ric has really made me such a better runner. I was so embarrassed about it, but I’m glad I could back it up.”
Grabill also hinted that she would like to follow the path set during the past year by former CU runner Laura Thweatt, who won last year’s citizen’s race but was part of Team USA in the pro field on Monday. Thweatt finished 12th on Monday in the pro race.
“I wanted a hard effort,” Grabill said. “I ran a marathon (in Hamburg) in April and I felt like I had some big goals but I fell a little short. So I’ve just been taking some down time and haven’t really run a ton. So I was just looking for a hard effort. I was happy with it.
“Itap really special being here now that I’m part of the running community year-round. Throughout that entire race I had people cheering me on. They knew my name. Itap just such a fun environment. Itap really special. I’d love to do the pro event one year. That would be really awesome. Maybe in the future. The start is so huge, so you get a little bit more connected, I guess.”
