When a friend in middle school asked Olympic Marathon hopeful Gina Recher Rouse to go out for the track team, her response was "What's track?"
 
She would soon find out that she didn't like the sprint events of the sport.
 
"I was not made to go short and fast," she said.
 
However, in the fall of her seventh grade year she ran her first two-mile cross country race.
 
"I was hooked," Rouse said. "There was an eighth grader ahead of me on the team. I just followed her every move. I figured she knew how to be good."
 
She must have. That led to a successful collegiate career and dreams of the Olympics.
 
As a junior at Farragut High School near Knoxville, she gained the attention of Chattanooga's long-time cross country coach Bill Gautier. With a full scholarship at UTC, she majored in nursing and excelled at running.
 
Rouse was a three-time Southern Conference Champion in cross country and track. In cross country she was named the 2001 Runner of the Year following her title and was a three-time all-conference performer.
 
In outdoor track she won the 10,000 meter and 5,000 meter runs her senior year and was voted the SoCon Most Outstanding Track Performer that season. She was a four-time all-conference runner in the outdoor and earned the honor three times in the indoor season.
 
It took time to reach that level, however. She dealt with It Band Syndrome and struggled with an eating disorder her freshman year.
 
"I had surgery that first year to fix my knee," she said. "And treatment for the disordered eating."
 
Following graduation, she landed a job as a nurse at nearby Erlanger Hospital, but found the training schedule she followed at UTC was difficult to maintain as a third-shift nurse.
 
"I was too exhausted," she recalled.
 
She put her running shoes in the closet and there they would stay.
 
Athletes who have high accomplishments become known for that and find it difficult to identify in any other way. By stepping away from the sport she had loved more than a decade, she was able to find herself.
 
"I found myself, and God, outside of running," Gina said. "This time was good for me to develop as a whole person made in the image of God.
 
She returned to the sport when she met her husband, Matt. Their dates would be running together where she found that he would open up and talk more while running.
 
It wasn't until after the birth of her first child that she turned to marathons. With the husband-wife duo training for marathons, Matt hired coach Bobby Holcombe.
 
"It was he who told me he believed I had a shot at making the trials," Gina recalled.
 
She missed qualifying for the 2016 trials by just 15 seconds six months after giving birth to their third child.
 
Despite missing the qualifying time, she was back in the saddle, so to speak. She was a runner again and would go on to win the Knoxville Marathon four straight years.
 
With the support of her husband, three daughters and entire family, Rouse tried again in 2020 to reach the Olympic Trials. She ran a qualifying time in 2019 in the Bank of America Chicago Marathon that earned her a spot in the trials in Atlanta.
 
'My dear husband and daughters are my biggest fans," she said. "He has juggled his physician/surgeon career, our children and his own 80-mile a week running regimen so that I could have everything I needed to reach this goal."
 
She was able to compete at the 2020 Olympic Trials in Atlanta and hit the qualifying time, but she was 31^st out of 390 women vying for the three qualifying spots.
 
While she did not qualify for the Olympics this time, she has not given up hope of future races.
 
"After a week break I was back running," Rouse said. "However, COVID-19 has impacted training and racing, obviously. With no races on the table for anyone, motivation to train becomes difficult."
 
She can still get outside to run, despite shelter-in-place orders from the governor. She has returned to training on a schedule and has started a few short workouts. There are not any commitments to any races currently. Her focus right now is to chase another big Personal Record (PR).
 
"That I think I still have in me," she said. "I am 40 years old, but I don't feel like I have reached my full potential. When I can tell I'm not getting any more out of my body as far as improvements go, I'll know it's time to take a step back."
 
While the prospect of stopping her training to focus on coaching other runners or give herself more fully to mothering her children, they still want her to go out and run. They want her to chase her dreams. Even so, she still puts her children before her own goals.
 
"I'm excited to see what dreams our girls have of their own."