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By Doug Carroll

Back in November, she dropped a clue that something was up.

Unlike the races she used to run, when the whole world was watching, few people probably noticed. And yet, there was the proof, hidden amid the results of Atlanta Track Club’s Invesco QQQ Thanksgiving Day 5K.

Gail Devers, Bib: 3693, Time: 26:21, Pace: 8:29, Hometown: Buford, Georgia. First place, Women 50-54.

Wait. What? That Gail Devers? The one who made five U.S. Olympic track and field teams as a sprinter and hurdler? Back-to-back Olympic gold medalist in the 100 meters in 1992 and 1996? Olympic Hall of Famer?

You mean people still can’t catch Gail Devers at the age of 53?

Mike Phillips, Devers’ husband, just shakes his head and laughs. He puts his wife in a class with the likes of Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Tiger Woods and Muhammad Ali.

“These are the types who’ve spent more than a decade at the top,” Phillips said. “She was competitive at the highest level for 25 years. She’s not going to not perform.”

For her second act, as an endurance athlete, Devers has been preparing with the Club’s In-Training group to run the Publix Atlanta Half Marathon on March 1. On a training run in early January, she showed that she had plenty left in the tank after covering eight miles at a 9-minute pace (her last mile was well below that). She has since done 10 miles in 1:29.

Devers downplays all of this by insisting she’s “a PTA mom converted to a distance runner.” But most PTA moms don’t have wheels like hers, not to mention a V8 engine that was built for blowing past her goals. This is someone who underwent radiation treatment for Graves’ disease in 1990 and medaled at the IAAF World Championships the next year.

Competitive? You think?

“I’m that person that likes a challenge outside of my comfort zone,” Devers said. “This is cool – and totally different. Everybody has been so encouraging. What I bring is heart and determination.”

More than 1,800 miles away, in Scottsdale, Arizona, former shot putter John Godina has been working the same out-of-comfort-zone training plan as Devers, with the same goal of completing the Publix Atlanta Half Marathon.

Rich Kenah, Atlanta Track Club’s executive director, had the idea of challenging two U.S. track and field stars from the 1996 Atlanta Games, training them in a brand-new discipline for America’s Marathon Weekend. Devers and Godina, a pair of UCLA products, took him up on it.

Godina, 47, an Olympic silver medalist in the shot in 1996, will tell you that he never had wheels. In fact, the farthest he had ever run before he began the In-Training program was 2½ miles, and that was a few years ago. It did not go well.

“I thought I was gonna die when I did that,” he said.

However, since he began training in November for the half, he has come alive. In two-plus months he lost 20 pounds, and 14 more would put him at his goal weight of 219. (He was a shade under 300 when he was competing.) He is fitting comfortably into XL shirts and 36-waist jeans for the first time in forever.

“I’ve spent most of my life heavy, and sometimes for good reason when it was part of my job,” Godina said.

He said he has stuck to the plan designed by In-Training coach Amy Begley and feels great, which has surprised him.

“It’s amazing how quickly the body adapts,” he said. “In throwing, the principal adaptations are from strength training, and those can take a long time to see. With running, I saw changes almost immediately.

“The misery index with running is so much lower. No matter what, when your workout is done, you pretty much feel good the rest of the day. After a day of training with throws, you’d have 48 to 72 hours of soreness to where you couldn’t sit down. You never felt good at all.”

His wife, Kristina, a former college volleyball player who has run a marathon and a half-dozen half marathons, has been training with him and will run the Publix Atlanta Half Marathon as well.

She said Godina was a tough sell on running, but once he was sold, he was fully invested.

“I thought we’d take it easy, but now he’s passing me,” she said. “I think the competitiveness is in his DNA. He likes the details and the process. At the Olympic level, you have to have that. It goes to show that it’s a different thing at the highest level. I’m more like, ‘Can we just get to the race?’”

Godina and Devers have been mixing in some cross-training with their running, which tops out at 25 miles for a week (and a long run of 13). Godina spends two days a week on his Peloton bike. Devers also does some cycling, along with various exercises that benefit her core.

“It’s the most training she has done since 2007,” Phillips said. “This is serious with her. Her hope is that this will inspire people who think they can’t do it.”

Although Devers said her goal is just to finish the race without walking — that’s what she said, anyway — Godina is set on breaking two hours. He acknowledged that’s an ambitious goal for a first half marathon, especially a hilly one. If he doesn’t get it, he plans to keep trying.

He’s a runner now, after all.

“The first time I ran three miles, it was a big deal,” he said. “Then a few weeks ago [in mid-January], it was easy and so much faster than before. Not that I’m fast, but I was cruising and thinking, ‘This is getting to be fun.’”

Both Olympic medalists said they are thrilled to be part of America’s Marathon Weekend, which they see as an opportunity to showcase the role that fitness can play in the life of a city.

“How awesome is it that we got the marathon Trials?” Devers said. “That speaks volumes about Atlanta. The world will be watching. This is what we’re about, and people will want to be part of this. Running City USA is about the best quality of life you can live.”

Godina said Atlantans’ appreciation of their large, vibrant running community should grow as a result.

“The people of Atlanta don’t realize what they’ve got there with Atlanta Track Club,” he said.

Photos: PhotoRun, Meredith Parker, Courtesy of John Godina