Shawn Johnson‘s idea of retirement is a marathon, triathlon and an Ironman.
Johnson, the 2008 Olympic champion gymnast, has already run a half marathon and plans on doing a full marathon (26.2 miles), triathlon and an Ironman, she told Elle magazine.
“It’s on the list and it has to be crossed off one day,” she said.
An Ironman is a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride and a 26.2-mile run that takes the world’s best female competitors around 9 hours to complete. Johnson’s gymnastics routines were no longer than two minutes.
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Johnson, 21, is 4-foot-9 and launched a comeback attempt for the 2012 Olympics, shedding 25 pounds in the process, but retired one month before the Olympic trials.
Johnson said she first started running for longer than two minutes at a time after retiring, at night to clear her mind.
“I still have a hard time if someone tells me that I have to run 20 miles today -- I don’t like that, and I will run, like, one mile,” she told the magazine. “But the next day if I feel stressed, I will go run 20 on my own.”
Johnson also said she’s ready to go to college, waiting on her acceptance letter, and plans to open her own gym in her hometown of West Des Moines, Iowa.
“It’s not really a gymnastics gym, it’s just a bunch of stuff under one roof,” she said. “Hopefully by next spring we are going to break ground finally.”
(h/t @OllieW)
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