The Many Sides of Carrie Tollefson

by Sarah Wassner Flynn

This decorated athlete melds running, sports commentating, and modeling into one exciting career

Save for Haile Gebrsellasie, Paula Radcliffes, and a select few like them, most professional runners are only well-known within the close-knit community of long distance running. But some may argue that Carrie Tollefson is an exception to that rule, and not just because she’s a fast runner. The 31-year-old has made her face well known outside of the running world as a broadcaster, spokeswoman, and model.

It seems as though overachieving comes naturally for the Dawson, MN, native. A phenom in high school, Tollefson set a national high school record for five individual titles in cross country. She went on to Villanova University, where she collected a variety of NCAA individual wins in cross country, indoor, and outdoor track including an unprecedented double in the 5K and 3K at the 1999 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships. Post-college, she’s placed as high as second in the USA Indoor Track and Field Championships (3000 meters), won the 2004 Olympic Trials in the 1500 meters, and finished ninth in the semi-finals in that distance at the Athens Olympics. Most recently, Tollefson rebounded from a near career-ending abdominal injury to place 14th in a steep field of professionals at the NYRR Women’s Invitational 8K in March in Central Park. Now, as she continues to recover, she has her sights set on qualifying for her second Olympic team this summer at the Track and Field Trials in Eugene, OR.

Off the track, Tollefson’s career has been greeted with just as much success. She studied journalism in college, thinking she’d one day become a meteorologist. But after she told a broadcaster from Fox Sports Net who had been interviewing her after the 1999 NCAA Cross Country meet that she “wanted his job,” the network offered her a commentating gig the following year. Each November, you can see Tollefson standing on the sidelines of the race, rattling off stats and figures about the top teams and competitors. But Tollefson doesn’t just offering a blow-by-blow of the race—she also offers a unique perspective about what’s going on in the athlete’s mind before, during, and after the race. After all, she has been there before.

“I try to get in there and explain what these runners are thinking about as they stand on the starting line or make that decisive move at the halfway point,” she says. “I’ll remember what I went through in the same situation. I think that perspective helps the audience, who may not know much about running, relate better to the athletes. And hopefully, it gets them interested in watching and supporting the sport that much more.”

And she’s just as eager to inform people about her non-running gig—touting homegrown fruits and veggies as the spokesperson for the produce organization Minnesota Grown. “Growing up with a farmer for a grandfather, I support visiting farmers’ markets and orchards, and buying locally,” says Tollefson, who has filmed a series of commercials and has spoken at events on behalf of the organization.

“Whether it’s on the track or off the track, I’ve always been one to go after the spotlight. I really like to perform and love being in front of a camera,” she says. And the camera favors her, too: Last year, Tollefson graced the covers of Runner’s World, Running Times, and Experience Life magazines, and she also occasionally models for adidas, her sponsor. It comes as no surprise, then, that she was voted the fourth most beautiful athlete in the world by Sports Illustrated.com alongside the likes of tennis players Maria Sharapova and Anna Kournikova and volleyball player Gabrielle Reece. Ever modest, Tollefson remains decidedly nonplussed when asked to address that honor.

“I thought that was pretty cool, but mostly because the picture they used of me was an action shot with spit and sweat all over my face,” she says. “But that’s when I feel the prettiest—when I’m out there gritting my teeth and working as hard as I can to get to the finish line.”

Tollefson may feel the most beautiful when running, but she’s the most at home in her native state. She and her husband of five years, architect and Ironman triathlete Charlie Peterson, have a house in St. Paul, where she trains with Team USA Minnesota. From time to time, Tollefson daydreams about jet-setting to New York or Hollywood to pursue a job in the entertainment industry when she retires from running, but she admits she’d probably hate to be away from Charlie and her close-knit family, who all live nearby.

“I spend most of my spare time with my family. We’ll all get together and take fun trips or just hang out,” she says. “At the same time, I love to travel around and see the world and the rest of the country, but I’m always happy to get back home.”