Ready, set, run!

Many people would cringe at the thought of running 26.2 miles, but for senior civil engineering major Jonathan Hoffman, the thrill of crossing that finish line outweighs all the pain and exhaustion along the way.

Hoffman, a senior civil engineering major, clocked in an impressive three hours, 40 minutes and 45 seconds at the 12th Annual Under Armour Baltimore Running Festival this past Saturday – beating his previous record by almost 15 minutes.

“Once you get past 13 miles, it’s mind over matter at that point,” Hoffman said.  

However, getting back into top form for the marathon after Hoffman returned home from studying abroad this past semester proved to be more difficult than expected.

“When I returned home from Southeast Asia in June, I was very out of shape from too much Pad Thai and had a lot of work to do in the coming months in order to get ready,” Hoffman said. “During the summer I worked 50 hours a week at my summer internship, and because it was so hot I could only run late at night. When school started, I was behind on my 16-week training schedule by about two weeks and never really caught up.”

However, Hoffman refused to give up and somehow managed to find the time to squeeze in a few two-hour runs each week.

“Sometimes it was midday and sometime they were midnight runs, but I was always able to find a good balance with school and training,” Hoffman said. “Luckily this semester, even while taking 15 credits of engineering courses, I had some free time during the day to fit my runs, and when that didn’t work I fit some shorter runs in late at night. I never really planned out what day I was going to run during the week because with class, homework, meetings, and club lacrosse it was hard to commit.”

He also cut out any fried foods and all fast food from his diet to stay in shape.

Looking back on the race, Hoffman said while he is pleased with the result and his final time, he wished he could have put in more training beforehand.

“Looking back on it, I did not put in nearly the same amount of mileage I did when I ran two years ago,” he said. “Going into the marathon I felt it was more of a mind over matter thing and as a result everything worked out.”

And Hoffman’s cousin Jason Schubert, who ran in the half-marathon, said he thought achieving that kind of time for a 26.2 run as a college student is a feat in of itself.

“I couldn’t imagine training for a marathon while I was in college,” Schubert said.