To compete on the world’s largest stage as an Olympic athlete requires extraordinary individual commitment, sacrifice and more than a little talent.
Carrie Tollefson, who dominated Minnesota high school track and cross country and continued her winning ways at the NCAA level en route to the 2004 Olympics in Greece, knows firsthand what it takes. But there’s another key to Tollefson’s success: Family.
“It was a team effort,” says the middle-distance runner, who competed for the U.S. team in the 1,500 meters. “Everyone was involved. When I made that Olympic team, it was a huge family accomplishment.”
Her parents, John and Ginger Tollefson, both 69, are inspirational athletes in their own right. The couple, both Blue Cross members, raised three daughters in the small southwest Minnesota town of Dawson before moving to Minneapolis a couple of years ago. Carrie, the youngest daughter, says her parents’ active, positive lifestyle led the way for her and her sisters, and the family is still a model of health and wellness today.
LEADING BY EXAMPLE
After crossing the finish line with husband Charlie Peterson at the rain-drenched five mile Run for the Apples in White Bear Lake last October, Carrie briskly turned and said, “I’m going back for mom and dad.” She jogged o in the opposite direction and returned about a half-hour later to finish again, with John and Ginger just behind her.
That small act offered a big glimpse into the Tollefson family, which prides itself on togetherness and living a healthy life. John and Ginger instilled those values in their daughters early, simply by choosing to be active.
“My dad didn’t do anything and I saw him going downhill after he was 50, and I didn’t want to end up like that,” John says. “That was my motivation for a long time and we’ve always had fun doing things together.”
John was involved in a wide range of sports growing up and played football in college. Later in life, he took up running, which he would do outside of his work as an attorney. Ginger, who met John in high school, didn’t have the same sports options growing up. Like many women of her generation, she had to look beyond organized sports to find ways to stay active, and continued to do so throughout her life. She likes to kid John about some success she had on the bowling lanes.
“So when I married John I had a bowling trophy,” Ginger laughs. “He had tons of trophies from football, basketball, tennis, track and all of this stuff.”
Ginger started regularly walking and occasionally running before or after shifts at her home cosmetology business. She and John maintained those exercises after the children came, in addition to taking part in other family activities, from group workouts to runs to exercises on family vacations. Lounging on the couch, watching TV, or eating junk food were never part of the family regimen. Carrie and her older sisters, Kammie Jackson and Stacey Lee, were all encouraged to be involved in sports—and were—but were never pushed.
“They just wanted us to enjoy what we were doing,” says Carrie, who had a strong interest in basketball growing up. “And they were a part of what we were doing.”
Long before she had Olympic aspirations, Carrie viewed her parents as role models. She recalls her mother getting walks in at 4:30 a.m. so she wouldn’t miss any time with her daughters, watching her dad run races and, later, running alongside him.
“When we went for our runs, we had some of the best conversations out there, and that was my favorite time with my dad,” Carrie says. “Just going on these country roads, and it wasn’t very long. We didn’t run for very long, but those runs lasted a long time because I learned so much about him. And he learned so much about me.”
CHASING A DREAM
Not long after Carrie started competing seriously as a teenager, it became clear to her parents that she had the potential to compete at a high level. In seventh grade, after just missing the cross country podium by finishing ninth in the state, she proclaimed she would never be off the box again. She never was—winning the next five consecutive years.
Carrie’s growth in running didn’t change things in the Tollefson household much, but reaching her goals would require continued commitment to an active lifestyle—and more.
“There were some differences,” Carrie says. “My dad would sit down and chat with me about strategy or things that we could work on, but always things that went well during the race. And my mom was always the best cheerleader around. She just brought that positivity to, you know, the extremes.”
John and Ginger always found time to do their own workouts, even as they began traveling the state and later the nation to watch Carrie run. When she made it to the 2004 Olympics, the entire family went to Greece.
ROLE REVERSAL
John and Ginger made the decision to move to Minneapolis so they could be closer to their family, which now includes nine grandchildren between the ages of 1 and 22. Carrie and her sisters are now the ones encouraging their parents to get involved in races and other activities, but they don’t have to push hard.
Growing older might have slowed them down in some ways—John says his one mile time has slowed from 8 minutes to 10—but their lifestyle is as active as it ever was, maybe more so now that they have the diversity of amenities available in the city. Aside from running and walking, the couple now bicycles, has taken part in kickboxing and yoga, and is always game for trying something new.
“It’s really fun. You wake up in the morning and see people on River Road already out. So it’s kind of just a good reminder to get out there and get after it,” Ginger says.
The couple has always eaten fairly balanced meals, but they’re eating smaller portions now, with fewer carbs. They have also found new doctors in the area to avoid travel, and they make a point of hitting all of their annual wellness visits. Ginger says they are typically in great health and have managed to avoid major issues, though John has had some shoulder operations and Ginger has been in talks with her doctor about knee surgery down the road.
Their primary motivation for staying active now is to be healthy for their grandchildren, who are already adopting the Tollefson way of life. Even to this day, family events often involve a workout, Carrie says, though she emphasizes that they’re not fanatics doing exercises that others can’t. John agrees.
“I think most people our age just have to get out and do something,” he says. “It doesn’t have to be running. It could be tennis, or playing golf. Just get out. Find something you like and then do it.”