Over the past eight years, Marla Runyan has become known as Eugene’s Olympic athlete.

It was a role she embraced.

Runyan earned international acclaim in 2000 when she became the first legally blind athlete to compete in the Summer Olympics. She overcame her visual impairment to place eighth in the 1,500 meters in Sydney, Australia.

Four years later, she made her second U.S. Olympic team when she qualified for the Athens Games in the 5,000.

But today, with the 2008 U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials set to be staged on her home track at Hayward Field in less than three months, the 39-year-old Runyan doesn’t know whether she will ever compete again.

“I’m not saying I’m done,” said Runyan, who underwent lower back surgery to repair a lumbar disc tear in May 2007. “I just want to run again, and if the Olympics come and go and I have nothing to do with it, so be it.”