The Wolverine

  WHERE ARE THEY NOW? Walter would place 18th at the NCAA Championships that season, the first of her three All-America honors, and she would finish sec- ond and 11th in her final two Big Ten meets. She is proud of her career consis- tency, but admits she struggled with the disappointment of failing to re- peat as the conference champion. However, Walter would rise again, leading a contingent of four Wol- verines among the top six in the 10,000-meter run at the 2006 Big Ten Outdoor Track and Field Champion- ships with a winning time of 33:49.65. Two days later, she returned to the podium after spearheading a U-M sweep in the 5,000-meter run — her first-place time of 16:05.18 barely edging out teammate Erin Webster (16:06.51). "Erin had better leg speed than me and I had to outkick her at the very end, and in my mind I was saying, 'You've beaten me enough that I'm getting this one,'" Walter said, with a laugh. "Cross country was defi- nitely my favorite, but I learned to like track. I just always thought cross country was grittier. To this day, I don't think I had amazing talent but my grittiness factor is pretty high. Laying it all out there came naturally to me. "Track was much more about pa- tience and discipline. I had far more weaknesses, and I had to maintain my body for nine months and make sure I didn't get injured, which I had trouble with. So to win the 5K and 10K my senior year, it was that eu- phoric, blissful feeling from early in my cross country career all over again. There was a real sense of joy." A double major in cognitive psy- chology and Spanish, Walter spent the fall of 2006 as a volunteer coach at Georgetown, and upon graduat- ing in April 2007 she accepted an as- sistant coaching position at Indiana University, under the direction of Ron Helmer. She mentored the Hoo- sier student-athletes for seven years before pursuing another passion: en- trepreneurship. In August 2013, Walter and partner Tracy Gates, a general manager at a restaurant in Bloomington, Ind., sold their very first UGo Bars — a healthy snack food imagined by Walter dur- ing her years playing around in the kitchen as a Wolverine. "Anybody that lived with me in college would know I was experi- menting with snack-bar recipes," said Walter, whose product can be found in Indianapolis, Bloomington, Walter "I'm a person with a million interests so I don't know what I'll be doing in five to seven years, but for now the process of creating and marketing a business makes it really fun to come to work each day."

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