Presumably, that includes having a son exactly three years and one day before the Opening Ceremony of the 2004 Olympic Games.

"That's just how it worked out," she insisted.

In any case, Keplar Hogan's arrival in August 2001 allowed Lott-Hogan and her husband, Brent, to start their family and still give her enough recovery time to take another shot at qualifying for the Olympics in the heptathlon.

This weekend in Sacramento, the former Brigham Young star will try to top the fourth-place performance of 2000 that left her home from Sydney.

If she had finished in the top three and made the U.S. team then, she probably would have retired from track and field at age 25.

As it was, she gradually returned to training and competition.

"It was the hardest thing I've ever done," she said, "because I've never been that far out of shape."

The initial period of inactivity was almost as difficult for an athlete who started running at age 11 and practically had never stopped. "For me to take nine months off was a little strange, actually," she said.

When she did start running, jumping and throwing again, she was on her own for about six months before returning to Provo as a BYU assistant strength coach. Working out with the Cougar athletes motivated her, besides reuniting her with BYU women's coach Craig Poole.

If she needed any more incentive, there was the memory of the 2000 Olympic Trials. Lott-Hogan stood third after the first day (four events) of the heptathlon, and was still third entering the final event, the 800 meters. But she ran the first lap too fast and faded, losing enough points to fall to fourth place and making her the most compelling figure among several Utahns will compete in the '04 Trials, which go from July 9-18.

"I ran it stupid," she said. "Hopefully, I'll be smarter this year."

Even worse for her, only two Americans ended up competing in Sydney. Kelly Blair-LaBounty came home with a spinal injury, too late to have Lott-Hogan summoned as an alternate.

Lott-Hogan acknowledges "a bitter taste in my mouth" about that turn of events, but she did not let the disappointment linger.

"It's the nature of the sport, trying to stay upbeat," she said, "because if you do badly in one event, it can spiral downhill from there. I try not to ever be pessimistic."

So Lott-Hogan is confident about making the Olympic team, while dealing with the pressure of having four years of training come down to two days in Sacramento. Track and field athletes compete in the equivalent of the Olympics every two years, but Lott-Hogan understands that the average sports fan tunes into the sport only every four years.

"It's pretty much the same thing as the World Championships," she said, "but you get the glory of the Olympics."

With Poole coaching her and former BYU athlete Marsha Mark Baird, who will compete for Trinidad & Tobago in the Olympic heptathlon, training with her, Lott-Hogan has made a science of the heptathlon. She's part of a group that has traveled to U.S. Olympic Committee training sites in Colorado and California for regular testing, besides attending clinics and reading as much as possible.

It's all in the interest of developing training techniques that complement each other; otherwise, practicing for seven events would take several hours a day.

Apparently, it's working. Lott-Hogan won the heptathlon in the 2003 Pan Am Games and the USA Indoor pentathlon in March. She also will try to make the Olympic team in her best event, the 100-meter hurdles.

Lott-Hogan grew up mostly in American Fork before attending Pine View High in St. George, where she met her husband. She recently updated her entry on a Pine View alumni Web site, writing: "I am still running - is that a surprise? I have decided to give track one last season and see if I can't make the Olympic team."

Chances are, she can. Poole projects her as the No. 2 finisher in the Trials behind 2000 Olympian Shelia Burrell. As they both know, all that matters is making the top three of the 24-athlete field.

"She's running well, throwing well, jumping well," Poole said.

Fortunately, that pretty much covers the heptathlon.