Missy Rock's mind is a world away when she steps out her front door for a training run. The multiple-time NCAA champion, formerly Missy Buttry, passes rows of well-kept houses in her suburban neighborhood just outside Minneapolis as she makes her way to a sprawling park. She logs workouts on miles of trails that travel along the shores of a quiet lake and through the prairie and woodlands that are showing signs of the changing season. The last warm lingering breezes of summer send vivid leaves airborne around her, but she hardly notices.

Instead of celebrating the change of seasons in Minnesota, 5-year-old Tina remains stuck in an orphanage surrounded by concrete walls in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Courtesy Missy Rock

All she can think about is Tina.

Five-year-old Tina -- who was adopted by Rock and her husband, Andrew, nearly two years ago -- remains in an orphanage in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Surrounded by concrete walls and rubble, Tina and 40 other children live in a place that has few beds, forcing most to sleep on the ground. While the orphanage's staff does its best to care for the children, funds allow only for a single meal even on a good day.

Although Tina possesses an American visa and the Rocks have legally adopted her --both the American and DRC governments recognize them as her parents -- the DRC is withholding exit letters from all adopted children for reasons few understand. This means that the Rocks, along with about 200 other families, are stuck in limbo, unable to bring their children home.

"September 30 was the second birthday of Tina's that we have missed since adopting her," Missy Rock, 31, said. "We send her presents, we write letters and we have pictures of her, so I think she has an idea that she has a family, but having been abandoned in an orphanage, we don't know if she really understands what a mom and a dad even is."

Over the past two years, Rock has pleaded with members of Congress, interfaced with DRC government officials and networked with other frustrated families. Still, she always felt there had to be something more she could do. Giving up when things get tough has never been her style.

A reason to run

A three-time individual national champion in cross country at Wartburg College in Iowa, as well as the holder of 11 track titles in individual and relay events, Rock knows a little something about patience, persistence and pushing forward even when the path isn't easy. Andrew, a gold medalist in the 1,600-meter relay at the 2004 Athens Olympics, isn't one to back down from a challenge, either. That is why, just when the two-year mark for waiting to take Tina home was staring them in the face, daring them to lose hope, the lightbulb went on in Rock's mind. Why not leverage one of her greatest natural gifts?

She would run for Tina.