Catching Up with Laura Roesler

If you’ve been around the sport for at least the past decade, Laura Roesler might very well be a household name for you. The winner of multiple indoor and outdoor NCAA championships, named an All-American over ten times, a member of record-setting relay teams, and a podium finisher on a few national and international circuits as a professional, she certainly deserves to be a name you hear often in the track & field world.  

But maybe, since her last few races in the beginning of 2019, you haven’t seen too many updates. 

The updates since 2019, of which there are many, involve less point-hundredths of a second on a clock and maybe more counting in weeks and months since a baby is born, inches and feet that they have grown. Year anniversaries of a wedding. The updates from Laura Roesler are a perfect example of a really great runner transitioning out of competing in the sport and into all of the other things waiting for them in all that makes up a really great life. 

I spoke with Roesler in early January while she was home in Florida. She took the call in the closet because she said the baby would follow her around if he saw her. Roesler’s mom was over keeping the baby occupied. It’d been a busy December. Not only after the rush of the holidays with a crawling baby to keep up with, but also after a weekend spent in Denver attending the Bowerman Awards––an award Roesler won in 2014. Past winners are invited to each following year’s award show, but because of a whirlwind of life changes, Roesler hadn’t been back in a few years. 

Hannah: How was the weekend in Denver?

Laura: The Bowerman was awesome. Denver was a bit cold, but I got to see my coach, Rose. I hadn’t seen her since our wedding, which was last October. So it’d been over a year. That’s the longest I’ve gone without seeing her since we met. So it was really good to see her. I got to see a lot of familiar faces, like past winners I usually see when I go back. So it’s always fun to catch up with them. Everyone’s lives are the same but different.

Hannah: It seems nice to have the offer of at least one weekend where you can go and reconnect with people.

Laura: Yeah. It was cool to be around track people again, be a little bit in that world. It wasn’t like going to a track meet, but. You know, I’ve been removed from the track stuff for a bit and I don’t have, obviously, as many opportunities to go to track meets or see track people. Like you said, it was cool to be able to connect with them even if it’s just once a year. It felt good to be back in my old element.

H: Right, yeah. How much would you say you are connected to the running and track world now?

L: Well, my best friend [Jillian Weir] still competes; she throws for Canada. And we talk every day. So there’s always some element of talking about track there. She’s still in the midst of the whole training thing. And I got Andrew [Roesler’s husband] into watching track in the spring. We watch every meet we can that’s televised: the Diamond Leagues, the domestic meets, of course, like the US Champs, Worlds, the Olympics, whatever’s that year. So I’ve gotten him into that. I read articles or whatever my friend sends me or my mom and dad. They keep up with it as well. But with me not having social media, I don’t see much past any articles or results or watching track meets. I don’t see any other content. 

But I think it’s a good balance. At first, after I retired, it was quite hard to see any of that stuff. When I retired, the Olympic trials were a couple months later. So that of course was a bummer. And then the Olympics, you know. But after all that passed, I still watched everything. Now I’m enjoying it and not feeling the, you know. I was jealous and upset that I couldn’t be there. But now it’s just enjoyable and I’m kind of more like, ‘Man, you suckers.’ Like I know how hard the work is to be there. And I don’t have to do that anymore.

H: It’s just something that you can just like, enjoy watching and feel excited about. Yeah.

L: I’m happy with my spot. My friend jokes all the time. Like, ‘So when are you gonna come back? Are you gonna move up to 5k? Are you gonna do the marathon?’ And I’m like, in my mind, the amount of work required for any event, field or track. There’s no way. I don’t know how people do it. I don’t know how I did it, how you do it. I don’t know how we ever did it. Like truly, I mean it’s–

H: It’s a lot. Yeah.

L: And then, people with kids. I don’t know how moms and dads do it. Cause now I can barely get us out the door to walk a couple miles.

H: Do you feel like there’s anything that helped make that transition from like, not really wanting to watch or having negative feelings around watching to being able to enjoy it? Other than just with time, maybe.

L: You know, I hate to say it, and it sounds so generic, but time really heals all. I’ve been through things with the sport, injuries and stuff. And time really is the ultimate healer. I knew I would enjoy watching. I’d be glad that I watched. It is entertaining and I love the sport. You can watch other people be successful and find joy in watching amazing performances. Just great competition. What originally drew me into track is the competition of it all, the beauty of competition. 

Then of course I had a lot going on in my life, too, when I retired. I was planning our wedding and then we got married and I was pregnant. So it definitely helped to have other things. I started to shift––going from, ‘I’m an athlete’ to ‘I’m gonna have to shift; I’m gonna be a mom.’ I dove into that kind of stuff, too. So a little bit of distraction, a little bit of time and a little bit of just finding a different avenue to love the sport again, as a spectator versus an athlete.”

H: I’ve always found it helpful to dive into other things that I love and remember like, ‘I’m an athlete, but I’m also a lot of other things. There are a lot of things that I love and can fill my day with.’

L: My mom always said that to me. What you just said, she’s like, ‘Running is what you do, it’s not who you are.’ There’s a lot of other ways to define you. That’s not the first thing.

H: I feel like there’s always a moment for runners where, up to a point it [running] is their entire identity and then they have a moment where it’s like, ‘Oh, I really have to figure out something else.’ Do you feel like you had that, your ‘moment’?

L: I don’t think it was one specific moment. I think my body and even my mind were telling me for quite some time that I was done. It was a matter of me finally accepting it. There were parts of me that accepted it, but there are other parts of me thinking, ‘The dreams you have, you’ve always wanted to accomplish A, B, C, D, and E.’ Because I know physically I’m capable of that, but these injuries or whatever it may be are the things stopping me. And so in my head it was a matter of, ‘If I can get healthy, I can do this.’

But that just never materialized. I’ve been running for so long and I think my body was telling me for a long time it was done and there was honestly quite a bit of freedom in actually accepting and observing that information for real. There was a lot of freedom in knowing those first few months: ‘I don’t have to do anything. My body hurts still. I can let my body heal.’ There was huge freedom in knowing that after putting my body through all that was done. So, for me, having the injuries was almost probably a blessing in disguise in helping me decide to be done. 

H: Yeah. Knowing that, you can be a runner. And that means so many different things than training for the Olympics. You can still have it in so many different ways, which I think is really cool about our sport. With running,  there are so many different options of how to keep it in your life if you want to.

L: I just had a friend text me a couple days ago and she’s like, ‘Do you wanna run a marathon with me?’ Like early in 2024. So basically a year from now. And I was like, ‘Oh, I’ll have to get back to you on that.’ Because now when I run, it looks a lot different. I’m pushing a stroller and running 9 or 10 minute mile pace. I’m dragging the dog. It’s a mess. So, I’m like, ‘Oh, I don’t know. Are you gonna run 10 minute pace? Are you going to run four hours with me?’ 

The other part of me is like, being able to compete and say I finished a marathon and like, just to do it. That’s the fun part about it. I’m not going to the Olympics for this, but it’d be cool to feel that sense of accomplishment again, the endorphins crossing the finish line. It feels the same no matter what the level, crossing the finish line. In a road race or the World Champs.

H: I’m interested in the balance of following the sport and what feels good, outside of it. What keeps you connected to the running world and what keeps you anchored in the other stuff, which is what we’ve been talking about, but if there are any specific things. I know you said your best friend is still training, so that’s a huge plug-in to the running world.

L: Huge, yeah. She throws the hammer. Most people don’t understand––and unfortunately, don’t really watch––that event because they don’t do the hammer in the Diamond leagues. Don’t get me started on that. They had the hammer in the stadium at Worlds this year in Eugene, but they already ripped the hammer circle out and put it back outside the stadium. So usually when you throw at Hayward Field, you’re throwing outside the stadium.

I feel like I know more and I’m more versed in a niche event. We’ve known each other for, I mean, at least a decade. I may not have known so much about it [without her]. So it’s cool to be able to feel like I’m following all the events, not just the running events. Because I do enjoy even watching the 10K and the multis. I do really enjoy all of it. But honestly, when you talk about balance, I think there were a lot of times I didn’t have the best balance. I don’t know if most people run into this, maybe since you’re transitioning out of being in school. Like it’s a totally different balance being in college and high school, like they’re very similar. You’re in school all day and then you have all these activities and go home, go to sleep and do it all over again. And that’s how college was.

But then outside of that, when I was just running, there were a lot of times, especially when I was hurt, I’d just be sitting, not finding something to, like you said, not finding something else to focus on. And now, having a baby, my whole purpose and focus and life has shifted. And it’s funny because I think about it a lot while I’m running. Running is like church, running’s that safe space. And I think about it, I’m like, ‘Man, I’m glad I waited to have kids, but on the other side of it, I’m like, why did I ever wait? Like, this is awesome.’ It’s so awesome to watch him discover new things. I can’t wait to watch him discover that he can run. 

Once he came along, obviously, I got a lot busier. My whole focus and perspective has shifted, too. So when I have time to sit down and watch a track meet or talk to my friend about it or feel connected in that way, I appreciate it a lot more. So that also helps me enjoy all of it a lot more. Or being able to even go out and run even though it’s like I’ve got the whole kitchen sink with me. I appreciate it; like, we made it out the door by 10:00 AM and we’re all benefiting from it in some way. The dog’s getting exercise, I’m getting exercise, the baby gets vitamin D. So I think I appreciate this work in different ways that I never would’ve been able to see had I not had him.

H: Is there any news or person or event in the running world that inspires you or feels really interesting to you right now? Anything that happened last year, with Worlds or anything like that?

L: Man, Worlds was so good.

H: It was.

L: That’s such a hard meet to pick from because we watched all of it. Obviously Team USA did extremely well and we were at home, which was all just really cool. I’m extremely and heavily biased but I gotta say my best friend, just watching her. She’s struggled like I have, we’ve struggled at the same time, but seeing that she’s stuck with it. She went to Tokyo and was in the top 20, but was disappointed. She went into Worlds having thrown a personal best and was like, the 10th best throw. And people, I don’t think, counted her in for being in the top 10. She ended up fifth in the world. Oh my gosh. And another Canadian, the number one Canadian girl, Cameron Rogers, was–

H: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

L: She was second at Worlds. And Jillian was fifth. And so, just to watch her do the long grind and see the end game and stick to that path. I know her goals and her personal things she wants to achieve and to see her clicking along and doing it. Yeah, because I never did that myself. So to get to live through her and watch her go through struggles, overcome them, and year after year steadily get better and then be top five in the world. That was very inspiring to me.

At the end of the call, Roesler stood up out of the closet she’d been in for the past hour. She walked to the room where her baby and mom were playing. The baby smiled and cooed when he saw his mother. He was in a baby walker, one of these chairs that moves with the baby, and once the camera was directed at him, he took no time showing off his speed, darting towards the living room. He’s not walking yet, but he’s close. Nonetheless, he’s tough to keep up with. It’s not hard to imagine where he gets that from.

A brief recap of Laura’s running accomplishments: 

Laura first made her mark at Fargo South High School in North Dakota. She was a 22-time state champion and was an Olympic Trials semi finalist. 

Laura was a two-time NCAA 800m champion, plus has a 4×4 relay gold. She was named the top female collegiate track athlete and awarded the 2014 Bowerman Trophy. This race electrified Hayward Field:

Laura’s pro career was hindered and shortened by chronic Achilles tendon injuries but still managed to be runner-up twice in the USA Championships, finished fourth in ‘16 World Indoor Champs, and got her PR down to 1:59.04.