Kristen Nicole

I ran marathon this year, I finished, and I won. I won, not because I finished in first place (this guy did), but because I finished, followed my plan, and met my goal of running below 4 hours and 30 minutes. Every year, over 450,000 people in the US line up at the starting line for one of these races….many finish, some don’t, and a far fewer number actually become the first to cross the finish line. However, most people aren’t running for first place. Most are running just to finish at a “goal time,” and the only way they can do that is to run their own race over the 26.2 mile course. The marathon experience, from training to race day, reinforced this lesson for me during the past year. It was something I had to internalize during the PhD process, but there is nothing like the literal “putting foot to pavement” to make something stick…