Running the NYC Marathon – University of Nebraska

My love for New York City

I grew up in a small town in what many would consider the suburbs of New York City, a town called Amityville in Long Island, New York. 

As a child, I was constantly captivated by the magic of the city, the allure of the city lights, and the romanticism of it all captured in movies. Living the shadow of such an imposing and significant marvel naturally engenders a mystical sense of wonder and longing in the mind of a child. When the greatest of dreams remain possible, it’s hard to not fall in love with the fantastical imaginations of what could lie on the other side of a one hour train ride. On the rare occasion my family would make a trip to the city, it was like a holiday for me. The whirlwind of excitement and the frenetic energy in the air was intoxicating and still lies embedded in my heart as a series of wondrous memories.

The endless sea of opportunities the city has in store was simply enchanting for me as a kid when my hometown offered a scant selection of attractions and clubs. Naturally, it was in the city that my love for sports first began. 

When I was 11 years old, I was able to participate in a charitable tennis program organized by the New York City Parks Association in which I met and played against Steffi Graf and Billie Jean King, two legendary icons of tennis who I idolized. 

Seeing and meeting these two role models who reached the heights of my sport sparked a competitive flame in me. If only for a second and if only for a charitable tennis program, the ability to be a top women’s tennis player felt possible and within my reach. 

I knew from that moment on that this was what I wanted and this spurred a fundamental change in how I viewed sports. 

For the first time, I felt the push I needed to take tennis beyond just a recreational hobby to a passion, a way of life. I got better and better, rising through the ranks and taking down steeper and steeper competition until I had finally realized one of my long held dreams. 

I was a five-star recruit and earned a full-ride to the University of Nebraska.

Of course, the dream didn’t last forever.

Unfortunately, we must eventually awake from our dreams and college tennis was a rude awakening for me. 

The demanding lifestyle of a busy student-athlete combined with inordinately intense practices took their physical toll on my body. 

The stress of balancing my rigorous Biochemistry degree with the relentless pressure to perform broke my love for the sport in a slow, grinding disintegration of the passion I’d once felt. 

Good was never good enough, pain was never an excuse to relent, and stress was never ending. The nightmare came to a head just before my senior year when a wrist injury ended my tennis career. 

For many athletes, their dreams may end there, but I had other ambitions beyond athletics. I always felt enamored with the idea of serving as a healthcare professional. 

The opportunity to serve the downtrodden and provide care to the needy always appealed to me. So, after graduating, I applied and got accepted into the #1 nursing program in the country at the University of Pennsylvania, allowing me to move back closer to my roots.

While in school, I remained dead set on eventually finding my way back to New York City. Even after all these years away, the city retained its natural gravitational pull on my heart and that’s exactly where I ended up after school. For the past year, I’ve been working as a full-time Registered Nurse in a top Manhattan Hospital— another dream come true. 

When I moved back here, it didn’t take long for me to start dreaming again. After all, where else are dreams made more often than in New York City? Soon my dreamy thoughts wandered towards the New York Marathon and I thought to myself, “Why not make this my next adventure?” 

That was about a year ago and now, with less than 50 days until the marathon, I find myself in the height of my training.