Carrie Tollefson (@CTolleRun) was a distance runner for the U.S. at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. Earlier, she was a 13-time Minnesota state champion in track and field and cross country. At Villanova University, she was a 5-time NCAA Champion and the 1998 NCAA Indoor Track Athlete of the year.

Here, Tollefson says that her youth sports experience shaped her entire life. From her very first race, she recalls, she began learning life lessons, such as the need to really extend yourself in order to succeed: "You have to put yourself in it; you have to go for it." Now, as a mother of three children, she is proud of who she has become and how sports helped shape her life.