On a warm morning in early August, Heather MacLean laced up her sneakers and did what she usually does: She went for a run. Her time at the Tokyo Olympics was winding down after she had fallen short of qualifying for the final of the women’s 1,500 meters, and as she began to jog, she found herself coping with that hard reality — all the way down to her toes.
“My legs had never felt heavier in my life,” she said.
For many athletes, competing at the Olympics is the stuff of dreams, the product of years of painstaking work.