B.A.A. High Performance Team member and newly crowned National 5K Road Champion Annie Rodenfels sits down with Unicorn Monthly to fill us in on a fast and furious 12 months.
Growing up in Dayton, Ohio, Annie played a bit of basketball, some tennis, and was an avid soccer player (who always loved the running part), but she was not a runner.
“I only started running in my junior year of high school when I was 17. I didn’t ever run cross-country – that clashed with soccer, so I joined track.”
She always wanted to be a college athlete and her initial plan was to get a soccer scholarship, but when she started running well, her coach suggested she should try that route.
“My school was very small, but I was lucky that my track coach had run in college, so she knew how to train me as a new runner. I managed to produce some good times even with no training behind me.”
To put her new-found talent into context, by 17 Annie could run two miles in 11:33 (the furthest distance run in high school track) and the mile in 5 minutes, 22 seconds.
“Ohio is a very competitive state, so I came third to last in the state championships, in the worst division. But I always had a bit of confidence in myself and when I looked at the team rosters at colleges, I knew that I could be on those teams, and I hadn’t really tried that hard so far.”
By the time Annie got to senior year of high school she decided to put herself out there and see which Division III schools would take her, prioritizing her education alongside her running ambitions.
She settled on Centre College in Kentucky - where her oldest sister had also gone – to study psychology and gender studies. She knew it was very good academically and she felt her coach, Lisa Owens, was really invested in her.
As she had done in high school, Annie stayed busy in college not just with her running, but she was also the vice president of her sign language club and did a lot of voluntary work too. This varied workload ultimately led her to being nominated in the top 30 for the NCAA Woman of the Year award – one of her proudest achievements - showcasing her talent and commitment to athletics, academia and volunteerism.
“My story is definitely unique. There are not a lot of professional runners that have come from DIII Schools. But I didn’t have the pressure of whether I’d lose my scholarship if I didn’t perform. I genuinely just learned to love running for what it was and was still able to do lots of other things at the same time
“I came into college, and I was fine at running but I wasn’t amazing. I didn’t break 20 minutes in cross-country [5K] in my first year. I just didn’t know how to train. I’d skip sessions each week and I'd take a break when I came home for the holidays.
“By my second year I had learned a lot and had some good mentorship from a girl in the year above. I slowly started to get better and better and by the time I left I had multiple All-American titles, I had three national titles and I still hold the Division III record in the steeplechase [9:58].”
Graduating in the spring of 2019, Annie avoided any interruptions to her education from the COVID-19 Pandemic. The same couldn’t be said for her first few years finding her way as a professional athlete.
As she considered her work or further study options, running kept coming back into the frame as she continued to make strides in her performance. Worried she’d regret not giving it a go, and encouraged by one of her professors, she reached out to a few teams and after hearing nothing back, a friend told her about a semi-professional team in South Carolina that provided housing and some gear.
“I felt I wasn’t good enough to run professionally. I knew there wasn’t a lot of options, basically none.”
She took a leap of faith but after navigating two challenging years with limited races and resources, Annie’s confidence was low. It was time to move on, this time with a boyfriend [now husband] and dog in tow.
They left South Carolina in September of 2021, Annie feeling frustrated and holding a 5K personal best of 15:35.
Hello Boston and a new PB of 15:08 by December.
“The B.A.A. offered me a salary to do what I love! It was wild to arrive in Boston and suddenly run as quickly as I did and get rewarded monetarily. I had never imagined that was possible, but I felt comfortable, and it all clicked.”
Coach Mark Carroll of the B.A.A. High Performance Team was one of the few that responded to Annie’s enquiries. He saw her appetite to perform and her ‘go-getter’ attitude that gave him confidence in her work ethic.
Annie knew enough about running to know some of the B.A.A.’s history but not of her coach. She had yet to learn about Mark’s Olympic accolades or his US college coaching pedigree. But friends quickly filled her in, and the partnership has been an easy one to settle into for both.
“Coach focuses on quality over quantity. I started training at faster paces, which I then carried over into races. But without the over-training of before. I found my confidence and an ability to run faster.”
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“The team atmosphere has been awesome. We have been really solid on the women's side this year. We all have our good and bad days, but we can all train together and we have created a really great environment. We all know how each of us likes to work out, and we can do it together and respect what each other needs to be at their best. I've never been in a team like that before.”
After some stand-out performances over the last two years, Annie’s focus is on her golden goal – making the USA Olympic team for Paris 2024.
“The goal is to make an Olympic team. The 5K is very competitive but I am going to try and get an Olympic standard. When it comes to the Trials [in Oregon, June 2024] I am probably going to add in the steeplechase too. I’ll debut a 10K on the track early in the new year, see how that goes then we will decide on what to really focus on off the back of that.”
Inspired by the women she sees running beyond and alongside motherhood and life commitments, Annie no longer sees her running career as a short-term plan.
“I plan to do marathons at some point. Will it be my best event? Probably not, but anyone who knows me knows that I am stronger than a lot of people and I thrive off that. I think I would be good at it, and I would like to have a long career in running cause it’s what I love to do. I want to see how good I can be at each distance. Some people run really fast in the 5K when they get older, but most don’t, so I want to experience all that I can across my career and give it my best.”
Taking a step back and remembering the younger Annie who had just started to run, the pathway to success has been incredible.
“It is crazy, this is actually my job. 17-year-old Annie would not have wanted to run forever and ever thought she would have loved that. It hasn’t all been perfect. I felt frustrated this spring and didn’t feel like I did what I was capable of but having a break and coming back into it with good results again feels great.
“I understand that constant improvement is a privilege that I have had, but I also pride myself in being very consistent and doing the work every day to make sure that when I have a ‘bad race’, it’s never really that bad.”
Her advice for those who think they don’t have what it takes to achieve their dreams?
“Believe in yourself. People aren’t always going to give you opportunities but the value of creating those opportunities – in whatever you choose – is so important.
“Things might not be handed to you but go and make it happen for yourself. That is how I have made it to where I am. I made the effort to contact my college coach, I made the effort to make myself as good as possible and I reached out to the coaches, and took rejection, to finally find Mark and the B.A.A.”
Look out for Annie at the Sharon Colyear-Danville Season Opener at the Boston University indoor track this Saturday (Dec. 2), and of course at our very own B.A.A. 5K on April 13.