By Jenna Ciccotelli, sports editor
The summer before her senior year of high school, Meghan Jastrzembski felt pain, swelling and pins and needles throughout her legs and feet while running. When her symptoms began again while walking or spending just a few hours on her feet, she was diagnosed with exertional compartment syndrome.
Her injury, caused by three years of running competitively in high school, led doctors to recommend surgery. Eager to have a senior stand that would catch the eyes of college recruiters, Jastrzembski tried to avoid the procedure through physical therapy, acupuncture and routines of stretching, icing and rest – pushing through her last seasons of high school running.
“I got really frustrated that treatments weren’t helping,” said Jastrzembski, now a senior health science major at Northeastern. “[I] no longer wanted to pursue running in college because the pain and discomfort started to take away from running.”
When Jastrzembski came to Northeastern in 2012, she ran occasionally for fitness before the pain became too much. After her sophomore year, she underwent surgery for her compartment syndrome on both legs and was on crutches and in physical therapy for weeks after.
On Monday, Jastrzembski will join more than 30,000 participants, including several Northeastern students, in the 121st annual Boston Marathon. Though she ran a half marathon in her home state of New York and the Cambridge Half Marathon last November, next week will be her first time running the 26.2 mile race.
Northeastern will be well-represented on the course: Michaella Niro, a senior marketing and political science dual major, and Bailey Fritzinger, a junior psychology major, will be running their first marathons for charity. Niro will be running for the Brookline Community Mental Health Center, which provides mental health services and programs for teens battling homelessness and drug addiction. Fritzinger will be a member of a team from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
Both Fritzinger and Niro said they are passionate about the causes their respective charities represent.
“I’ve watched too many people struggle with [mental health] and have to work around the negative stigma that comes with [it],” Niro said. “I think it’s so important to talk about mental health and normalize it.”
Fritzinger, who was on Northeastern’s club swimming team before quitting to focus on for the marathon, said she chose to run for Dana-Farber in memory of her grandfather, who died from prostate cancer.
“Unfortunately, many people’s lives are touched by cancer,” she said. “The research that Dana-Farber does and the patient care they deliver is so important for so many loved ones.”
Jastrzembski is running with a team that supports buildOn programs in Boston. The organization creates service-learning opportunities for high school students and sends them to developing countries around the world to build schools. She was introduced to the charity by her Northeastern global social enterprise professor Dennis Shaughnessy, and is attempting to raise $6,500 for the organization.
“Running for a charity team was the perfect way to combine my goal to complete a marathon, passion for running and commitment to service and education,” Jastrzembski said. “Not only am I running for me, but to raise money for and awareness about all of the incredible work buildOn does.”
Fritzinger said training for the race involves more than running. She followed a standard 22-week plan that involved running between 45-55 miles per week, healthy eating and stretching.
Fritzinger struggled to find time to run during the day while on co-op at Massachusetts General Hospital, but said the mental preparation that went into the race was the most difficult part.
“It takes a good amount of planning,” Fritzinger said. “I actually bought a planner for the first time since high school to keep me sane.”
Niro said the sense of community and pride surrounding the Boston Marathon continued to be a source of inspiration throughout their training, a feeling they hope will continue through to race day.
“I knew that it would be mentally and physically challenging,” Niro said. “For every training run, you see so many people along the route and it helps you realize that you’re part of something so much bigger and it really does inspire you to keep going.”
Jastrzembski was watching a friend’s sister run the marathon in 2013 when brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev set off two homemade bombs near the finish line of the course.
“On the way back, we started to see tons of people coming from the course and it got more and more crowded and frantic feeling,” she said. “Then we saw helicopters and tons of police cars and motorcycles. There was an overwhelming sense that something was definitely wrong.”
Jastrzembski said the perseverance of the city following the tragedy made participating in the marathon more meaningful to her.
“In just a few hours, the atmosphere of the city flipped entirely, but there still managed to be a sense of camaraderie, support and resilience,” she said. “This persisted in the days, weeks and months following the marathon, and even still today.”
While all three women said they had an idea of where they wanted to finish the race time-wise, they said the experience of running the Boston Marathon outweighs any athletic goal.
“When I first decided to run the marathon and got a bib, I was just hoping to cross the finish line,” Jastrzembski said. “But over the course of my training, my senior year, and working with buildOn […] I knew I was gaining so much more.”
Fritzinger said she was hoping to take in the experience and atmosphere of the race, something she felt everyone participating would revel in.
“It isn’t just about the five-month training plan and the 26.2 miles on race day,” Fritzinger said. “Some are achieving goals they never thought possible a couple of months ago, some are running to experience one of the most competitive marathons in the world and everyone is supporting a city that has overcome incredible adversity and has come together into a community unlike any other.”
Jastrzembski said running the race weeks before graduating from college adds sentimental value to the experience.
“It feels like it’s been full circle since watching the race for the first time my freshman year,” she said. “What a fitting way to close out my time in a city that’s been home for five years, and a kick off to new adventures that await.”
