A year ago, when Randall and Jessie Diggins won the United States’ first Olympic gold medal in cross-country skiing and its first medal of any kind in the sport in 42 years, Randall already had breast cancer.

She just did not know it yet.

After all the wide-eyed jubilation in Pyeongchang, South Korea, on the night of Feb. 21, 2018, Randall’s realization that something might be wrong came on a much quieter evening — and served as a stark reminder that cancer doesn’t really care if you are an Olympic medalist, an icon in your sport, have no family history of the disease and are more fit than 99.99 percent of the population.

It was May 13, Mother’s Day, less than three months after her crowning achievement. The newly retired Randall; her husband, Jeff Ellis; and their 2-year-old son, Breck, had just spent a day in the outdoors near their new home in Penticton, a small Canadian city that sits between two lakes in the Okanagan Valley.

They had hiked in the nearby mountains in the sunshine, bought a grill for their yard and shared the feeling that they were finally settling into a rhythm after months of transition and a post-Olympic move from Anchorage.

“We’d had the best day,” Randall, 36, said. “I was so psyched on life, psyched to be a mom, psyched to be here starting our life here together. And then I was getting ready for bed and just happened to notice it.”