The many shoes of a long-distance runner

At left, Elisabeth Kline standing with her medal after finishing the Philly Love Run Half-Marathon in March 2017. At right, a picture taken by Kline while wearing one of her beloved pairs of running shoes after finishing a daily run.

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By Kathryn Kline | 24 February 2021

 

 

It started with an average-looking black pair of Nike sneakers – a half-size too big, and not specifically made for running in the first place, a sort of shoe that you would maybe wear to gym class or a casual trip to the grocery store. The black Nikes accompanied Elisabeth Kline, now 25, through much of her high school years, otherwise known as one of the darkest times of her life.

 

When asked where her journey with running began, Kline laughs and answers succinctly, “My terrible mental health.”

 

“But seriously, that’s where it starts. My mental health issues really began in high school, but even before that I’d dealt with debilitating anxiety,” Kline said.

 

She sought help in the form of therapists and psychologists throughout her teen years, but none of these outlets seemed to lessen her severe depression and anxiety.

 

“It didn’t feel like anything helped subside or control my anxiety. I had really unhealthy coping skills… I would eat a lot, sleep a lot. I mean, I hung out with friends sometimes, but I didn't do the normal high school stuff. I didn't go to prom. I never played a sport. I was very socially anxious,” Kline explained.

 

During her junior and senior year of high school in the conservative, rural town of Lock Haven, Pa., Kline’s mental health hit an all-time low, a period of time that would significantly shape the next several years of her life. Due to the stressors of navigating high school in a society that values thinness and external beauty, and an overwhelming feeling that she was a social outcast, Kline often felt like she couldn’t find her place or fit in normal social scenes and situations.

 

Through it all, those familiar black Nikes stayed constant on her feet, whether she was driving the half-hour route to her therapist’s office in a neighboring town or walking across the brimming high-school lunchroom that often caused her anxiety due to the loudness and amount of people in the room.

 

“My depression and anxiety got to the point where I physically felt like I couldn’t go to school. There was a mental block there. Most days I didn’t even get out of bed,” Kline said. “I think I physically went to school for three months during my senior year, total.”

 

Luckily, the administrators at Central Mountain High School were quite accommodating and allowed Kline to finish her high school degree on time by receiving one-on-one tutoring at home.

 

Kline acknowledges that she is fortunate in that her teachers and principals treated her with such empathy and care, because “This is often not the case for teens struggling with depression,” especially for those that live in rural towns with little access to adequate counseling and mental health care, she says.

 

“I graduated high school, but I was still really unhappy with my body; really out of shape and just overall unhealthy,” Kline explained. “I don’t know how heavy I got, but I was probably around 200 pounds at that point, in a 5’3” frame, for reference.”

 

The summer after her senior year of high school, Kline began her undergraduate education at Penn State University, a 45-minute-drive from her hometown – close enough that she could still drive home, but enough space for a little freedom. It also helped that her older brother was a senior at the university at the time and lived only five minutes from Kline’s freshman dorm if she ever needed a familiar face.

 

She began during the university’s summer session, which is offered to students contingent on their acceptance into the university and is meant for students to catch up by starting classes early, often to make up for lower grades, or in Kline’s case, the many days of high school she had missed due to her mental health struggles.

 

“I was still literally petrified of social situations to the point where I did not make friends with anybody. I didn’t want to party, and I felt like that’s what everyone else wanted to do. I physically could not make myself participate,” Kline explained. “But one thing that I noticed kind of helped my anxiety was walking around campus.”

 

Penn State’s campus is infamous for its large size, set in a rural area with sprawling hills and valleys, with a total of 13-square-miles that make some form of transportation, whether a bike, car, use of the extensive CATA bus system, or just a good pair of walking shoes, a necessity for students to make it to their classes on time.

 

“I was so out of shape and I had to walk super far to several of my classes, but I noticed I liked it,” Kline recalled. “Those hills were tough but walking around campus was the only time where I felt like I had a little bit of a getaway or relief from the anxiety. But then I would get to class, and my anxiety would just be terrible due to the social anxiety I had.”

 

It was those same black Nike sneakers that Kline walked to class in during her two-and-a-half semesters that she spent at Penn State University, before leaving school and returning to her hometown because of her declining mental health and poor body-image that proved to be too overwhelming to continue classes there.

 

Part of the issue, for Kline, was the vast amount of people on campus at Penn State – with an average undergraduate population of more than 40,000 students. Crowds in general tend to trigger her anxiety, including at concerts or on a busy street corner, both of which are places she’s been struck by severe panic attacks, including feelings of her throat closing up and being unable to breathe, which are her most common symptoms.

 

“It’s hard when you go to a school like Penn State. It sounds cliché to say, but every girl I would see [on campus] looked so beautiful, in shape and exactly like the type of girl you think would go to a state school – the athletic, party girl. And I felt like I was the exact opposite,” Kline said. “I feel like people saw me as I saw myself back then – not healthy or happy.”

 

One particularly negative experience she had with her peers on campus sticks out to Kline, despite the six years that have passed since she was a Penn State student.

 

“I was walking past two boys on campus and I heard them say, ‘That’s a three,’ when I passed them, like they were ranking my looks on a scale of ten. And they laughed. I can’t be entirely sure, but that’s what I heard,” Kline explained. “The way I felt about myself translated into me doing very poorly in school, because I had no motivation. I couldn’t bring myself to care about it.”

 

Kline decided to withdraw from her classes and move back home with her parents in 2015 and subsequently began working as a delivery driver at a sketchy local Papa John’s chain that wasn’t necessarily the pinnacle of the dreams she had for her future. She knew she wanted to help people but hadn’t yet decided what career path or college degree would best fit that desire. But, on the bright side, she didn’t have to interact with tons of people in this role, and she enjoyed driving alone in her car because it gave her space and time to herself just to think.

 

Months later, the job turned out to be a bust after the chain decided they would be shutting down in a few months. At this point, she had not yet resumed her undergraduate education and Kline wasn’t sure where to go next.

 

“This was a really low point for me – another depressive episode. That was in the winter of 2015. It sounds cliché to say, but I was completely fed up with the way I was living my life,” Kline said. “Nothing brought me joy, I had no hobbies, genuinely. I didn’t have an identity.”

 

Those thoughts, as well as an extremely traumatizing experience Kline had with terminating an accidental pregnancy that winter (which she preferred not to discuss in detail for the story), led her to make a promise to herself – a New Year’s Resolution for 2016 – that she would finally lose weight. She was 20 years old at this point.

 

“I want to specify that my intention, originally, was to lose weight, because I've struggled with disordered eating and body image issues. So, this wasn't necessarily about being healthier or getting in shape at first, it was just about losing weight, which I thought would be like the answer to all my problems and make me feel better immediately, which, of course, is never the case,” Kline explained, as a disclaimer.

 

Out of all the types of exercises that Kline could have picked up, she chose running because of its accessibility (all you need is a treadmill, or a road to run on), and, more importantly, because running isn’t really a social sport, at least not usually.

 

“I liked it because I didn't have to go to a gym and be around people, which I was petrified of. I couldn't even eat in a restaurant without like feeling like I was going to choke and getting anxious,” Kline said. “My dad had an old treadmill at his apartment, and no one was home during the day. It was the dead of winter, so I couldn't run outside. Plus, I don't think at that point I would have run outside, because I didn't want people to see me since I felt so out of shape.”

 

Kline recalls downloading the ‘Couch to 5k’ app, a popular training program users can download on their smart phones that slowly ramps up from running for seconds at a time to running an entire 3.1-mile 5k, which served as her training schedule in the early days of her running journey.

As for the sneakers she wore…well, Kline still only had the worn-out black Nikes that were a half-size too big, but that didn’t stop her from starting a habit of running four to five times a week.

 

The treadmill she used at the time wasn’t perfect either – it was so old that the belt would often slip off the track, causing her to stumble for a moment. It also would give her a little shock nearly every time she touched the plastic screen due to the excessive static that seemed to always cling to the treadmill. “I was getting jolted off it every couple minutes,” Kline recalls.

 

“You have to remember that everything was uncomfortable in my life at that point. Being overweight and just existing in general is pretty uncomfortable,” Kline explained. “So, I wasn’t focused on the shoes being too big for me, or the old treadmill. They worked. I was just like, ‘Okay this is what I have to do.’”

 

Kline continued using the interval running program, eventually building herself up to running a 5k in a few weeks, and it just kept building from there.

 

“I remember the first time I ran for 30 minutes straight. And I obviously wasn't running fast. I don't even think I was able to run more than a couple miles at that point. But I could run for 30 minutes straight,” Kline recalled. “A lot of my life I spent avoiding things because I was so depressed, and this was the first time I did something for myself to change it. And it wasn't easy.”

 

Something that might have seemed like a small goal to someone that had spent their teen years playing sports and keeping active was a huge, and hard-fought, accomplishment for Kline, who had never really run or been active in her life before that.

 

“I was seeing for the first time in my life that I had a drive. I did have motivation. One thing I do remember, despite so many years of my life being blurred from depression and anxiety, is that I never stopped to walk once during those running intervals the whole time I did couch to 5K,” Kline pointed out. “It doesn't sound like that big of an accomplishment, but to me – I'd never been proud of anything I'd ever done before that. I realized, ‘Wait, I can do hard things.’ When my brain is telling me to stop running, I can keep going.”

 

 

And it wasn’t just the fact that she enjoyed running and proving to herself that she could do it that motivated her. Kline began to see results in her weight really, really quickly. She completely transformed the way her body looked by adding running to her life over less than a year.

A before-and-after collage of Kline, which she posted on her Instagram account dedicated to her fitness journey. The top photos are of Kline before she began her running routine, and the bottom photos are after her significant weight loss.

 

“I lost weight fast. I started in January 2016 at around 185 pounds, because I think I’d already lost a bit of weight from growing out of puberty and becoming an adult, but by October of that year, I was 118 pounds. So, let’s say, I lost around 65 pounds in nine or ten months from running,” Kline said.

 

One of the biggest impacts running has had on Kline’s life is the vast improvement it has made on her mental health – to the point that she was able to completely wean off of antidepressants in the first year of her running journey.

 

“When I was in the thick of it, it almost felt like a high – especially for the two and a half years that I was in super good shape and was running every single day. I don't want to say it cured me of my depression…but I can’t ignore the vast improvement it made in my mental health,” Kline said.

 

And part of that improvement is the fact that Kline began to feel more confident and assured in her body-image than ever before, in part from the physical weight loss, and in part from knowing she had the confidence to push herself to her physical limits.

 

“Obviously I’m not a doctor so don’t take my word for it, this was just my experience…I completely got off antidepressants and I was fully dealing with my depression and anxiety through running. It was my outlet,” Kline said. “Running seemed to give me the endorphins and the serotonin that I needed antidepressants for in the first place, and I didn’t need it anymore.”

 

This improvement in her mental health was the most surprising outcome of her decision to start running, because it wasn’t something that she had hoped for in the beginning – she didn’t even know it was possible, she says.

 

“I started running because I just wanted to lose weight. But six months of running later, I was in the best mental shape of my life,” Kline explained. “It gave me an identity. It was the first time in my life that I found something I genuinely enjoyed doing, that I was dedicated to and that I did every day, regardless of if I felt motivated or not. It was almost like waking up and brushing your teeth; I didn’t even think about it. That showed me how much of a work ethic I had, for the first time ever.”

 

By the summer of 2016, Kline was able to run five miles straight. The day she first ran five miles, outside in the summer heat, sticks out to her as one of her most formative memories of her early running career. “I remember that day. It also ended up being the first time I weighed myself after all those months of working out,” Kline recalls.

 

Her relationship with the scale has been complicated, to say the least, for most of her life, according to Kline. She says she didn’t want to weigh herself during all those months because she was able to see such progress from looks alone – in the way her clothes fit her better and how she looked in the mirror. Most of all, the thought of knowing how much she weighed brought up the extreme self-criticism and obsession with weight that she had struggled with in the years prior to starting her fitness journey.

 

“That day after my dad and I finished running [the five miles], we stopped at a family friend’s house who had just moved in down the street. We went inside and for some reason I decided to weigh myself on a scale in their bathroom. It said 125, and I just thought, ‘Holy shit,’” Kline explained. “Also, that day, our family friend, who used to be a track coach at Lock Haven University, said to me, ‘You know, you look like a runner.’”

 

“Never in my life had anyone ever equated me with athleticism or being in shape or anything like that,” Kline said.

 

Despite the success she faced early on with weight loss and pushing herself to run even farther, it wasn’t until more than a year into her running journey that Kline acquired a proper pair of running shoes – at a well-known running store, Rapid Transit, in State College, Pa.

 

“I had stuck it out in those black Nikes for so long, because it was like I just instantly got addicted to getting in better shape and being able to run faster and farther. I wasn’t worried about what equipment I had or what I was wearing, especially at the beginning,” Kline said.

 

Kline recalls her dad taking her to Rapid Transit for the first time, where trained workers essentially have customers run in front of them to analyze their gait and form in order to help them pick out a pair of running shoes that best suits their running style.

 

“I remember this moment because this is the second compliment about my running I had gotten from a stranger, or someone other than my family. And I don’t mean a compliment like, ‘You look good,’ because I was used to those after losing so much weight and having such a dramatic transformation, especially as a woman. A lot of people were happy to see me looking thin, more than they were excited to see that I was healthier than ever,” Kline explained. “Getting compliments about my running and about my physical strength has always made me happier than comments about my appearance.”

“The worker guy took me outside and had me run down this little back alley. I probably ran like 30 feet and then ran back to him. After watching me, he said, ‘Wow you have great form,’” Kline recalled. “And I was like, what? I didn’t know anything about form… I had never been on the track team. I had never even watched a video on running form. I was really just winging it.”

 

Kline ended up choosing the first style of sneakers the worker picked out for her – the Brooks’ Ghost 9 model in a bright electric blue color with a lime green logo to match her typically eclectic, colorful style. “I’ve always been drawn to bright things. Even today, I pretty much always get colorful running shoes,” Kline says.

 

“This was my first pair, so I’m just like, okay I’ll go for it. And I know this now, but you’re always supposed to get running shoes a half size bigger than your normal shoes, just because your foot moves back and forth while you're running, so you need more room,” Kline said. “But for some reason, I told him that the size eight felt comfortable, even though they were a little too small. I didn’t mean to self-sabotage [laughs]; I think it’s a habit of my anxiety and feeling unable to speak up in certain situations.”

 

Kline was so excited about her new shoes that she immediately came home, went outside, and ran a longer route than her usual three-mile loop around the neighborhood, despite it being frigid cold outside in the midst of winter. The difference in her ability and quality of running was undeniable and immediate.

 

“I think this was when I realized that shoes make a huge difference. You're only supposed to run maybe 400 miles in a pair of shoes. I had definitely overdone it in my first pair of Nikes. And they didn’t even fit in the first place,” Kline said. “So, when I got this new pair of shoes, it felt like I could finally see my potential and my progress. It felt like I could finally show myself the kind of shape that I had gotten myself into.”

 

That day, in her new pair of shoes, Kline ran almost a minute faster per mile than she had been used to running, and something about it even felt comfortable. “It almost felt easy,” Kline recalls.

 

That’s when she realized she could probably run a half marathon, and that it might be a fun challenge for herself. So, she decided to start training. Again, all on her own.

 

“I just never felt particularly attracted to a 5K or a 10K race. I liked running for as long as I could. It wasn't necessarily about running fast for me at first. It was just about seeing how far I could run and how far I could push myself. And so, I think that's what attracted me to the half marathon,” Kline said.

 

In order to choose what race to run in, Kline mainly based her decision on proximity and decided it would be best to pick a race in her home state of Pennsylvania. After doing extensive research online, she ended up choosing the Philly Love Run which was in March of 2018.

 

This gave her exactly 12 weeks to train for her first ever race.

 

Before this, Kline had never run in a competitive setting, not even a mere 5K. She was used to mainly running alone, accompanied only by the music in her headphones, the shoes on her feet slamming the pavement below her, and her Garmin GPS watch offering a suggested pace to keep her moving along.

 

“I went online and did a quick Google search for 12 week half marathon training plans and found this random running coach guy’s blog. I took his outline for the training program and just winged it. I didn’t do exactly everything he said, because a lot of the runs on there were like speed workouts,” Kline said. “You have to keep in mind, at this point, I had only been running for a year. I wasn’t doing speed workouts and the type of things that you do when you're training to PR (set a personal record) in a race. I was just starting to learn about all that stuff.”

 

Kline remembers that race fondly, partly because it was exhilarating to run in downtown Philly, a city that she had grown up visiting, and partly because the chilly spring weather, in the low 20 degrees, was her ideal running temperature, she says.

 

Kline, on left, running in her half-marathon in Philly in March of 2018.

 

“[My first half marathon] was intense. If you've ever run in a big race where there's thousands of people, it’s almost like a blur, because your adrenaline is pumping. It was fun for me. It got hard towards the end, but I just pushed myself,” Kline explained. “The last four or five miles, I felt it. I definitely slowed down and realized I needed to pace myself a little better. It was very, very cold that day, but it didn’t really bother me. Plus, my adrenaline was so high that I don’t remember it being very cold.”

 

Kline ran her first half-marathon in one hour and 54 minutes, which if you know anything about running, she says, it’s not a “super-fast time,” but it’s not “super slow” either. “I ran at around 8:40 pace [per mile], which was pretty good considering it was my first race and that I went out of the start way too fast,” Kline said.

 

After finishing the race, Kline immediately says she was “hungry for more” – eager for another challenge.

 

“I just wanted to keep running. I was hooked from the beginning,” Kline said.

 

It was surprisingly easy for Kline to run in the midst of the thousands of people that were also competing in the race, and she actually found that the groups of runners surrounding her helped motivate her to run faster – something that, only years ago, would have surely triggered her social anxiety.

 

It would be a little over a year until Kline would run her second half marathon, the International Women’s Half Marathon in Washington, DC, in May of 2019.

 

“At this point, I had gone back to school to finish my undergrad in social work [at Lock Haven University in my hometown], so I was a lot busier. I was still running four or five times a week, but I also had gotten into lifting,” Kline explained. “I’d definitely say I wasn’t as in good cardiovascular shape as I had been for the first race.”

 

It wasn’t necessarily a surprise to her, then, that her second half marathon was significantly more difficult, not only because of her exercise regimen in the weeks prior to the race, but because of the fact that the race took place on an extremely humid, rainy day in May in DC.

 

“I could hardly breathe because it was so humid. I was completely soaked from my clothes down to my shoes, which made little squeaking sounds as I ran because so much water had absorbed into the soles from the rain,” Kline recalled.

 

Despite the obstacles of the day, it was still a fun race, Kline says, and she found a few moments of positivity in facing such a difficult challenge.

 

“I remember the last couple miles being very hard and wanting to stop, but you see all these people on the side of the street with signs and they're all cheering, and it makes you keep going,” Kline explained. “And, the elite runners, who finished like an hour before, will often come back and stand along the sidelines cheering. I think that's a super cool thing about the half marathons I’ve ran in – that the elite runners will cheer for all the amateur runners, whether it's their first half marathon or they’re just doing it for fun, it’s just nice to see the support.”

 

As for her strategy when it comes to running, Kline says it varies, but that having an extensive playlist of loud, motivating music and pacing yourself are both key. Most importantly is the mindset that you can’t stop before you reach the finish line.

 

“I'm the type of person where once I start running, I'm not stopping until I've reached my goal. I'm not gonna walk; I'm not the type of person that will stop,” Kline said. “Plus, during a half marathon, your adrenaline is so high and it’s just fun running with so many other people and just blasting music in your headphones.”

 

No matter the outside variables, Kline stresses that the right running shoes are one of the most crucial aspects of her runs, something that she’s clearly learned in time since the days of running in her oversized Nikes.

 

“During the first half marathon, I wore another pair of Brooks – Ghost 10’s in a burgundy, maroon color. I probably should have worn different shoes, something lighter, but I didn't know a ton about running and what shoes were meant for racing yet,” Kline said. “But when you're racing, you want shoes that are broken in just enough so that they're comfortable, but you don't want shoes that are super worn either, obviously, because you won't get the full potential out of them.”

 

Currently, Kline has about five pairs of sneakers that are functional, a.k.a. in good enough shape to run in, in addition to all her old pairs, which she keeps as memories of the thousands of miles she’s ran over the past four years. In total, she has 12 pairs of running sneakers in her collection at the moment, but that number will only grow as she grows older and continues on her running journey, she says.

 

“The shoes itself are such a fun part of it. I pretty quickly became addicted to getting new running shoes,” Kline said. “One of my favorites is this pair of tie-dye Brooks, which is a limited-edition model. As time went on, I really started learning more about the shoes. I bought a few newer versions of the Nike Zoom Pegasus, which is a type of a shoe that a lot of people wear in races. I finally started to feel like a real runner because I had shoes to rotate.”

 

As any serious runner knows, rotating out your shoes is crucial to extending their longevity, due to the heavy wear and tear that naturally comes from a human’s body weight repeatedly slamming into a shoe thousands of times over the course of a run.

 

“Before that, I was wearing a shoe continuously for like six months. Having several pairs and rotating through them is important, because you don't want to put too many miles on a shoe, and you have different shoes for different runs,” Kline explained. “You have a shoe, like Brooks, for recovery and easy runs. You have your Nike's for a tempo run or interval training.”

 

Running shoes, especially those from elite brands like Brooks or ASICS, which are extremely popular among runners of all abilities and ages, are fairly expensive, which is a bit of a barrier for beginners hoping to acquire the proper gear, with a single pair costing upwards of $120.

 

For Kline, it’s not just about the way the shoes make her feel – faster, lighter – but it’s also about the way they look on her, she says.

 

“It’s one of the only things I splurge on. When I want to treat myself, I get new running shoes. When I get a fresh, new pair, it just makes me super excited about running and makes me want to go workout that much more, especially if I like the shoe’s design,” Kline said.

 

Over the past year, Kline has slowly fell out of her daily running routine, something that she says reflects the negative state of mind she’s slipped into as the pandemic has gone on.

 

She graduated with her bachelor’s degree in social work in May of last year, after her field internship at FICs (Family Intervention Crisis Services), that she had been highly anticipating, went entirely virtual – limiting the real-life experience she was able to acquire.

 

Currently, Kline is employed as a pharmacy technician at Weis Stores in Mill Hall, Pa., where she worked consistently throughout her college years to support herself. She continues to search online for social work jobs, though the options are fairly limited in her rural hometown, especially during the pandemic, while filling prescriptions and helping administer COVID-19 vaccines during her day job at the pharmacy.

 

“I’ve dealt with major depressive episodes my whole life, so I feel like it was a major success that I went almost four years without a major episode,” Kline points out. “But over the last year and a half, I could feel it building up again. I’ve accepted it, because I know it’s the natural cycle of depression and emotions that I have to deal with, but it doesn’t make it any easier to get through it.”

 

These depressive episodes are often characterized by fatigue, achiness and over-sleeping, in addition to the lack of motivation, self-deprecating thoughts, and extreme critique of her body-image, which, overall, makes it extremely difficult for Kline to run.

 

“When I go into an episode, I neglect my physical health, and I have no energy to do the things I love to do, like run, because I feel so weak,” Kline said.

 

Things are looking up, though, for Kline, in the new year. Since January, she started and finished the ‘Couch to 5k’ program again, which she says was significantly easier this time than the first time.

 

“I just zoomed through it – it’s muscle memory from when I’d been in such good shape. It was a lot easier to get back into it,” Kline said.

 

Kline especially is looking forward to the warmer spring weather and bright scenery, so she can run outside again, which is simply impossible in the winter in central Pennsylvania with its frequent snow storms and flurries that often continue all the way into March.

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“I’m just hoping and waiting for spring. I can't wait to run outside – it’ll be nice to have an escape like that in the pandemic especially. The treadmill gets a little dreary, being stuck inside,” Kline said. “But it’s comforting to know that I have something that works for me. Working out and running has been such a healthy coping skill and way for me to deal with my depression and anxiety in the past.”

 

One of the most valued aspects of Kline’s running journey is the opportunity it presents for bonding and spending with her family, especially her father, who occasionally joins her on her runs through town by riding his bike next to her.

 

“He has knee issues and can’t really run anymore, and obviously we don’t do that during the winter, but mainly in the spring and in the summer and in the fall. It’s just one of my favorite things. It’ll be nice when we can do that together,” Kline. “My older brother also has been starting to run every day on the treadmill, so it’s fun to think about running with him in the spring and maybe doing a half-marathon together someday.”

 

Looking towards the future, both in her running journey and her career, Kline has high hopes for what she will accomplish in the coming years, especially post-pandemic.

 

“I would love to run a whole marathon. I want to do that before I’m 30. I feel like I can definitely do it within the next five years,” Kline said. “Now that I think about it, I also want to buy a new pair of running shoes soon. I think I owe that to myself [laughs].”

 

Additionally, Kline hopes to start grad school to get her master’s in social work sometime in the near future, and, eventually, her goal is to work as a licensed clinical social worker, particularly with individuals struggling with substance abuse.

 

No matter the shoes she’ll be wearing on her feet, whether it’s a worn-out pair of Nikes or a shiny new pair of Brooks, Kline walks confidently into the future, knowing that running is always going to be a part of her journey.

 

“I feel like I’m kind of coming out of that dark place now, and I just know that getting into good shape will only make me feel healthier,” Kline said. “I know it’ll be an important coping mechanism for me when I’m in grad school just like it was during my undergrad. And I know the more I get back into it, the happier I’ll feel. Running will always be there.”