October 19, 2023

Climate change has had an outsized impact on middle-distance runner Carolien Millenaar’s life almost since the day she was born.

“I was born in the Netherlands in 1997 where my father was a farmer,” she noted. “He had a variety of animals, and our land was below sea level. My mom, an environmental engineer, knew that the land we needed to farm would be under threat because of higher and higher seas due to climate change. There was also not enough space in The Netherlands if we wanted to expand the farm further. So, my parents decided to move to Jutland, Denmark, where they bought another farm.”

It was there that Millenaar’s athletic journey took shape, not on the track, but on the soccer pitch. She moved up through the ranks of the Danish youth soccer world, training with the national team when she was 18. But there was a hitch.

“I wasn’t a Danish citizen so I couldn’t play in international competitions,” she shared. “I did apply but it was a long process; I didn’t get my citizenship until I was 24!”

Her path to the national team blocked, Millenaar believed her elite-level athletic career was at an end and so she pivoted to a different path: Medicine. Before starting her pre-med studies, she took a gap year job at a nursing home six kilometers from her house. How did she get there? By running while wearing a backpack.

Turns out she ran fast, and when she attended a boarding school, the running coach noticed her.

“The coach saw something in me even though I had just started my running journey,” recalled Millenaar. “He gave me a structured training plan that started me at the 400m. Gradually I upped my distances to 800m and later that year up to 3,000m (or 3K), which turned out to be my best distance at the time. I started to show my talent.”

Somehow, word of her talent spread across the Atlantic: At the end of her gap year, in the spring of 2017, the University of South Alabama invited Millenaar to run for them.

She could not believe it.

Millenaar had spent some time in the USA during high school, taking a semester at a community college in Seattle. There she focused on classes in biotechnology, but she also got a taste of how the American school system was in terms of sports. This made her realize she had to train hard in the summer before taking the Jaguars up on their offer to ensure that she would have the best chance of success in the very competitive Sun Belt Conference.

“Going from Denmark to Seattle to Mobile, Alabama was quite an adjustment,” she noted. “I did fairly well on the track in my freshman year and I met my future husband, Larry! Things really took off the next season as I shaved 30 seconds off my 5K (3.1 miles) time, which was significant. There was a part of me that wanted to go back to Denmark at that point — I felt the pull of home — but I felt like I only have one chance to live in the States and that fit for Larry as well. So, I stayed and that was the right decision. Despite COVID dominating my junior year — we had no meets, and all classes were online, I still reduced my 5K time by another 30 seconds. And then I was able to cut my 5K time by another 30 seconds as a senior!”

Academically, Millenaar’s desire to go to med school waned, replaced by a passion for ecosystems and climate solutions that had lain beneath the surface since her childhood.

“Remember, I was born in a country that constantly mitigates against rising oceans as it is below sea-level,” she re-asserted. “And it was impossible to ignore climate impacts while I was at South Alabama. We had at least six hurricanes during my time there. Plus, there wasn’t a great eco-consciousness on campus — we used plastic for everything, especially during COVID, and recycling was very limited. Eco-anxiety began to set in; I found that I no longer wanted to fly. So, I changed my path within my biology-major from being pre-med to taking courses about the environment, climate and more. And when I wasn’t in class or running, I was listening to podcasts about these topics. It was then that I decided I wanted to go graduate school to study Sustainability.”

Granted an additional year of collegiate athletic eligibility due to COVID, Millenaar decided to transfer for her graduate studies. She ended up at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in the vaunted Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC).

“Wake was really the perfect place for me; it’s surrounded by nature, the track team is strong, and the academics were just what I wanted,” she enthused. “I took ESG Investing[1], environmental science, climate mitigation, and climate communication classes. After an internship as a consultant for a sustainability consulting firm in Denmark, I returned to Winston-Salem to run one last season, and earned a second master’s degree in liberal arts studies.”

Now back in Denmark, she has embrace her roots in farming, embarking on a career as a sustainability specialist at DLG, the biggest farm supply company in Europe. Her responsibilities include alternative protein sourcing, ensuring deforestation-free soy, and accounting for their Scope 3 emissions.

And, at long last, Millenaar gets to wear a Denmark shirt, competing internationally for her country, just not in soccer as she had originally hoped, but in running. This fall, she became the Danish Champion in the half marathon in Copenhagen, completing it in 1:14:50, which translates to a brisk 5:43 per mile pace! She also placed 26th in the 5K at the World Championships of Road Running in Riga, the capital of Latvia.

And last but certainly not least, she is EcoAthletes’ newest Champion and first from Denmark.

“When I heard about the opportunity to become an EcoAthletes Champion, and to use my megaphone to make a positive difference on climate, I realized immediately that that’s for me,” asserted Millenaar. “Life after all is about leaving the planet in a better place than when we arrived. It’s very difficult to do as an individual on climate and the environment. I certainly will do what I can as a consultant, but the energy and social power around sports is unmatched. I intend to take advantage of the resources EcoAthletes provides to make sure I maximize my impact in the #ClimateComeback.”

[1] ESG = Environmental, Social and Governance

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