“I actually threw myself full throttle again into operating after I was going by means of that point in my life,” she recalled.
By 2010, Wodak had proven sufficient promise to make her first nationwide crew, becoming a member of a Canadian contingent in Japan for a mixed-gender highway racing occasion referred to as the Chiba Ekiden Relay. Elmore was considered one of her teammates. It was a reunion years within the making that cast a good nearer bond between them.
“I at all times seemed as much as her,” Wodak mentioned.
But as Wodak continued to enhance, happening to compete within the 10,000 meters on the 2016 Olympic Video games, Elmore took her personal hiatus. In 2012, after falling bitterly wanting operating the Olympic customary within the 1,500 meters that may have allowed her to compete in London, she introduced her retirement. “I used to be fairly heartbroken, truthfully,” she mentioned.
She additionally needed to begin a household together with her husband, the Olympic runner Graham Hood. After giving beginning to their first little one in 2014, she started coaching once more and even competed as an expert triathlete for a couple of years. However after the beginning of her second little one in 2018, she discovered that her time was extra restricted: How was she supposed to coach for triathlons whereas elevating two sons? So, in 2019, after a seven-year absence from aggressive operating, she returned — as a marathoner.
“I actually simply acquired again into operating for the enjoyable of it, and to do it with associates,” Elmore mentioned.
Final summer time, at the beginning line in Sapporo, she reconnected with considered one of them.
“In case you’d advised us once we have been in highschool 25 years in the past that we’d be operating the Olympic marathon collectively, I’d’ve thought you have been loopy,” Wodak mentioned.
They lately spent a couple of week coaching collectively in Southern California. Wodak mentioned her preparation for Boston had gone nicely, or about in addition to any marathon preparation can go. The miles are lengthy and typically solitary. And in Vancouver, the place she lives, the climate is usually unpredictable. (She ran by means of a snowstorm final week.)