Carrie Tollefson: A Daughter of Title IX Grows Up

In January of 1977, a life as a world-class runner was probably the last thing she or her parents could envision.

Instead, she became one of the first residents of her small town of Dawson (population 1,600) to ride in an air ambulance, a pulmonary aneurysm necessitating an airlift to the University of Minnesota hospital in the Twin Cities. "They never thought I’d be an athlete," she says now, laughing with the perspective of 30 years of proving that assessment about as wrong as it could be.

When I tell people I film C Tolle Run, the immediate follow-up question is: "Who is Carrie Tollefson?" This article is for those people. I've been working with Carrie for more than a year now and I have to admit that I'm pretty embarrassed that I didn't read this article about her sooner. She really is a phenomenal athlete and, in a culture where everybody seems to overcome adversity, she really has triumphed over a lot in her career. I'm very proud to tell people I work on her show.