Runner's World One Top Runner’s Goal to Chase New Trails

Pin Tweet Share Share
From: Runner's World - Sunday Sep 05, 2021 04:01 pm
On February 29, 2020, YiOu Wang reached the final stretch of the 2020 Olympic Marathon Trials. After making her way through Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward neighborhood, she ran under the Olympic rings and torch structure from the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, before sprinting to the Centennial Olympic Park and crossing the finish line with joy and relief. Even though this race was not close to her best time—a calf strain took away two weeks of her training—Wang knew she had given it her all.

Having previously run the Olympic Marathons Trials in 2012, Wang knew this race was special. Also, this would likely be her last road marathon for the foreseeable future, since she was planning to transition fully to trail running.

Wang had already raked up several national titles on the trails, including winning the Lake Sonoma 50-mile race in 2016 and 2017 and The North Face 50 Mile in 2019. Now, she was chasing a bigger goal: to be one of the top 10 women at an ultramarathon on the world stage. However, little did Wang know that days after the Olympic Marathon Trials, the world would come to a pause because of the coronavirus pandemic.
© Copyright.