Sophie Oliver said she comes from a family of runners—her father ran multiple marathons and her mom ran triathlons. She said watching the Boston Marathon as a freshman at Boston College inspired her to run it.
“I’m a senior now, and I just remember being a freshman and going to my first Marathon Monday, and I was moved to tears by people I didn’t even know running by BC,” Oliver, MCAS ’22, said. “So, it’s always been something I wanted to do.”
Oliver ran and fundraised for the Brigham Stepping Strong Marathon Team. She found supporting this charity meaningful because of its support toward mental and physical trauma patients, who are underserved in the medical community, she said.
“Both mental and physical trauma patients are treated by Brigham and Women’s, which, to me, is really important because I have a lot of active military family members,” Oliver said. “And with that comes a lot of mental and physical trauma, so I wanted to run for something that had meaning to me.”
Despite the personal connection, Oliver said she experienced opposite training and fundraising processes. She ran into several obstacles while trying to reach her monetary goal, such as feeling intimidated to ask others for money, but she enjoyed physically preparing for the marathon.
“The fundraising process is terrible,” Oliver said. “The running process is really fun. The training, I absolutely loved. I started training in December. … I chose a mid-way training program that had very low injury risks because of the amount of training I was doing.”
During the actual marathon, Oliver said she proudly sported a BC hat and had to hold back tears as waves of emotion overcame her while passing campus.
“Even running [Heartbreak] Hill, I kind of started getting emotional, but you can’t really cry and run, like it’s really hard to breathe,” she said. “I was wearing a Boston College hat, so people were screaming at me, like so excited. That’s when I really started to get emotional, like running down by BC, and then I saw all my friends in the line, and I just, I burst into tears. My friends were crying. I was crying, like I hugged all of them. Really, it was crazy. I didn’t really think that I would feel that emotional, but in the moment, it was just so insane. One of the best experiences.”
