Tiffany Christensen becomes two-time All American runner

Middle school is a tough age, filled with the challenges of growing up and figuring out who you are. It is a time when you must start to make decisions of who you want to be; who you want to surround yourself with; who will have influence on you; and how much you’re going to believe in yourself and who you can become.

Tiffany Christensen, a 2014 graduate of Eagle Grove High School, admits that middle school was not easy for her, but it was where she discovered her passion and helped her decided what she was going to do about it.

“I was bullied in junior high pretty bad. I had kids somehow bullying me for being good at running. I had kids making fun of my dreams and my goals along with being bullied for various other things,” confessed Christensen. “But here’s my message to people dealing with that and having big goals. Don’t listen to them, don’t even tell people your goals and dreams, keep them to yourself. Personally, when I got into high school I decided to prove those people wrong, prove that I could be a state champion, prove I could get a college scholarship.”

And she did exactly that. Christensen won State Track in the 1500 not once, but twice in her high school career. She also held the State record in the 1500 for two years.

After graduation, Christensen knew she wanted to continue running and accepted a scholarship to Wichita State. Unfortunately, she was injured really badly running track her freshman year. To make things worse, it was misdiagnosed and she continued to run on it. It swelled up huge. The pain got so bad, she had to stop running altogether.

After a year-and-a-half at Wichita, she decided to transfer to the University of Northern Iowa. She was accepted into their running program, but first they would get to the bottom of her injury. The UNI coaches sent her to the University of Iowa Hospital to be looked at. They diagnosed her with a chronic stress fractured Sesamoid bone. They told her it was to the point where it would never heal on its own. In 2016, she had foot surgery.

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