With the Olympics now slated for 2021, she has also reset her goals. She’s pivoted from marathon to shorter distance events. Fully healed from her heel injury, she’s joined a small bubble of 14 other self-quarantining Bowerman Track Club teammates for a short altitude camp in Park City, Utah as they get back to small group running. Her Olympic dream was deferred, but it’s still very much alive. “I was still training hard at home in Portland, but It was hard to remain focused,” she says. “I had to teach myself to push harder without others around, which has been different. Now, we can run together as a team and to be honest, I’m just happy now to be able to run healthy.”
Her Olympic dream was deferred, but it’s still very much alive. While she is afforded another chance at chasing Olympic glory next summer in Tokyo, starting with Olympic Trials for the 10,000 meter and 5,000 meter events in mid-June, Jorgensen has a greater sense of her place in the grand scheme….and it’s perhaps because of her setback last year that she recognizes it.
“Things haven’t gone as smoothly as I wanted with being injured, and it hasn’t been that great performance-wise to this point,” Jorgensen admits. “But now, I’m in a great place. I love the training, I see the improvement, I know that what I’m doing is making me a better athlete and of course I really want to race. But there are way more important things going on in the world right now.”