Tough Girl: An Olympian's Journey - Softcover

After several failed swim lessons, young Carolyn Wood finally conquers her fears and dives into unknown waters in Tough Girl. By 1958 she has set a goal to make the 1960 Olympic team and, along with teammates and competitors, begins the arduous road to Rome. Losses, pain, fear, and fatigue accompany the rambunctious athlete as she finds her way through athletic training, school, and social-gender expectations.Beautifully written, Tough Girl artfully weaves Wood's life story around the tale of her long walk on the Camino de Santiago, an effort to tap into her tough-girl resilience so she can understand and accept the end of a decades-long marriage. The ups and downs of this story will thrill and inspire readers as the ultimate lesson becomes clear: we get through life one stroke, one step, one page at a time."If you liked Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, you will love Carolyn Wood’s memoir Tough Girl. While Strayed walked the Pacific Coast Trail to find herself, Wood journeyed on El Camino de Santiago in Spain to reclaim the fourteen-year old tough girl of her youth who competed in the Olympics in 1960. Wood’s story of coming out, of finding and losing love, of healing herself on a lonely pilgrimage is the story of courage in the face of heartbreak. One that many of us need again and again."           Linda Christensen, Director Northwest Writing Institute, Lewis and Clark College "Carolyn Wood is living a life worth reading about.  An Olympic swimming champion at age 14 and a slowly emerging gay person in an earlier, less understanding era, she has been resolutely the “Tough Girl” of her book title. Beautifully written, the book artfully weaves her life story around the tale of her long walk on the Camino de Santiago, an effort to understand and accept the end of a decades-long marriage. This memoir could easily become a favorite of American literature teachers and their students."          George Vogt, Retired Executive Director, Oregon Historical Society

Carolyn Wood, a life long Oregonian, grew up in southwest Portland and attended Beaverton High School.  In the summer of her freshman year she competed and won a gold medal in swimming at the 1960 summer Olympics in Rome.  She raced nationally and internationally for three more years before attending the University of Oregon (BA English, Phi Beta Kappa).After graduation in 1967, Wood began a thirty-five year career teaching high school English in the Portland area. During that time she earned a Masters of Social Work and an MS Education from Portland State University.  A fellow of the Oregon Writing Project, Wood wrote with her students over the years, attended writing workshops and retreats, published a poem here and an essay there and promised herself that someday she’d “pull those writings together and tell her story.”  In 2010 she began to write TOUGH GIRL: An Olympian’s Journey, her first book.Even though Carolyn remains deeply rooted in Oregon, life’s journeys have taken her far:  working as governess for the Robert Kennedy family the year after the senator’s murder, backpacking throughout the Oregon and Washington Cascades, exploring Europe, Africa, India and Asia, climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, trekking in the Himalaya and Alps, walking a thousand miles across France and Spain on the Camino de Santiago.  Volunteer work after retirement with Habitat for Humanity International, Medical Teams Northwest (Mexico), Wilderness Volunteers, and Coffee Creek Corrections have furthered her education.  These days her explorations also include yoga and meditation as well as gardening and bee keeping.