Meet the Harvard Student Who Ran 70 Miles Back to School – runnersworld.com

• Inspired by the long trail runs and hikes she did as an Appalachian Mountain Club intern this summer, Harvard junior Brinkley Brown decided to run 70 miles back to the Cambridge, Massachusetts, campus from her home in Concord, New Hampshire, in time for the fall semester to start.
• Brown began running at 4 a.m. on August 31 and completed the distance in a running time of 12 hours and 21 minutes.

While some students race back to college once summer winds down, others soak up their last days of freedom, waiting until the last minute to move in before classes kick off. And then others, like Harvard University junior Brinkley Brown, turn their journeys back to school into something much more epic than a road trip: they go on foot.

At 4 a.m. on Saturday, August 31, the 20-year-old left her home in Concord, New Hampshire, and started running toward Harvard’s campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 70 miles away. She sported a tank top, shorts, and a headlamp to illuminate the dark roads, plus a hydration backpack filled with water and Clif Blok energy chews.

She was joined by a running store coworker and a friend’s dad, who agreed to run with her for the first 20 miles. In front of the group, Brown’s parents drove a car packed to the brim with her college supplies. The plan was to meet up every 10 miles so Brown could rest and refuel.

“I wish I could say I told my parents, ‘You go ahead, I’ll meet you there,’ because that would sound much cooler,” Brown told Runner’s World. “But I think they were worried about me.”

Brown, who is studying sociology with a concentration in French, first had the idea to run back to college in June. She was interning with the Appalachian Mountain Club in New Hampshire’s White Mountains, and throughout the summer she spent long days hiking and trail running with her coworkers—many of whom had completed ultramarathons. It inspired her to do an endurance challenge herself.

When she asked a friend which ultramarathons he’d recommend, he told her that he didn’t do races, but instead ran the distance on his own.

“That got me thinking of creative ways I could do an ultra distance that wasn’t a race,” she said. “One night, I called my parents and told them I wanted to run back to school. At first, I thought I could break it up by doing 10 or 20 miles per day and staying at friends’ houses along the way.

“But then my dad said, ‘Do you really think it will take you that long? I bet you could do it in a day.’ I think he was half-kidding, but I was game.”

Though the journey was by far the farthest run she’d ever attempted—her previous record was 20 miles, which she completed in Maine’s Eastern States Road Race this past March—Brown said she still felt confident she could complete the distance, thanks to the strength she’d gained from being on her feet nearly all summer, plus her running background. After growing up as a competitive swimmer, Brown joined the cross-country and track teams in high school, then continued to train for half marathons on her own in college.

Brown said that to prepare for the 70-mile run, she didn’t follow a strict training plan.

“It was all very spontaneous. I did a lot of long trail runs and hiking trips and practiced stopping to eat while I ran,” she said. “The week before the run, I did a 64-mile solo hiking trip. That boosted my confidence.”

Once back home, she and her parents mapped out the safest, most direct route from Concord to Cambridge, which consisted of mostly rural roads and two-lane highways. Brown said her favorite part was about two hours into her run, when the sun rose over the rolling farmland.

“Everyone talks about how great stargazing is at night, but the best stargazing happens at sunrise, when the moon is still out,” she said. “It was magical.”

Every 30 minutes, she ate a half-package of Clif Blok and sipped on . At each 10-mile checkpoint, she ate a . Then around midmorning, she stopped for a turkey wrap sandwich and potato chips.

By keeping her pace fairly conservative—between 10 and 11 minutes per mile—and stopping frequently, Brown was able to sail through the first half of the run easily. She said the toughest part was at mile 50, when she realized she’d gone more than double her longest run ever—and she still had 20 miles to go.

“I walked up to my dad, and he said, ‘You don’t look so good,’” she said. “He told me that he was proud of me, and I could hop in the car then if I wanted to. He walked with me for a little while, then we jogged for a bit. My dad doesn’t run much, so that meant a lot to me. It gave me the boost I needed to get through the next 10 miles.”

At mile 60, Brown was met by friends from Harvard who had planned to run the last stretch with her. When they finally arrived on campus later that evening (Brown’s total time running, not including her stops, was 12 hours and 21 minutes), her parents were waiting for them with a bottle of champagne.

“It was an awesome way to celebrate the end of summer and the start of school,” Brown said. “I was really tired at that point, but I was also full of adrenaline after going all that way. I was so happy to be around all my friends and my parents.”

Though her legs were toast, Brown couldn’t totally rest that night—she still had to move into her dorm room. Luckily, her friends pitched in to help unload all of the boxes from the car and move them into her dorm room.

“I’m on the sixth floor this year,” she said. “But there was an elevator, thank goodness.”

Digital Editor Hailey first got hooked on running news as an intern with Running Times, and now she reports on elite runners and cyclists, feel-good stories, and training pieces for Runner’s World and Bicycling magazines.