Ep. 1: Stubborn Enough to Finish

What keeps you going when every part of you wants to stop? For Kathleen, the answer is equal parts stubbornness, grief, and love.

In this first episode of Hear Every Mile, host Laura Thornton sits down with Kathleen — a New York City-based IT professional who works on Broadway by day and logs predawn miles before the rest of the city wakes up. She's run five marathons, completed a 50K ultra, and is weeks away from toeing the line at the Sydney Marathon. But her running story isn't really about pace or mileage. It's about loss, healing, and the quiet decision to keep moving forward.

Kathleen opens up about losing both parents in the span of a year, how grief became a reason to lace up instead of shut down, and why Sydney is a race she was always meant to run. She also shares the moment at mile 20 of her first marathon — soaked, freezing, and begging a medic to pull her — when she found out just how stubborn she really is.

In this episode:

• Running as therapy, escapism, and something in between
• Training with smoke-filled skies, a career-defining deadline, and a taper tantrum on the horizon
• The mindset shift from "mental toughness" to "mental strength"
• Her race-day song, her pre-run fuel (Red Bull + s'mores Pop-Tart), and the local news habit that has Laura speechless

Hear Every Mile is presented by Rally — powering the ability to hear every mile.