The old saying about turning lemons into lemonade was never truer for Kendall Ellis. The 400-meter sprinter turned the embarrassment of being stuck in a porta potty right before the semi-final of the U.S. qualifiers into a brilliant run that sent her to the Paris Olympics and, flushed with that success, to a sponsorship deal with toilet paper manufacturers Charmin. In an essay for Today, Ellis says that while being stuck in small spaces is her “biggest fear,” it was at least in one of the bigger stalls. “After being trapped inside for 10 minutes, my heart rate was through the roof. I thought, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me, why am I trapped in a porta-potty 45 minutes before my race? This is so insane!’” she wrote. “But oddly enough, it lightened my mood. (And, as a hilarious bonus: I now have a partnership with Charmin),” added the U.S. 400-meter champion, who helped the women’s 4x400 team to gold in Tokyo three years ago and will race for a medal of her own as well in France.