From Harvard Swim to Med School Marathons: Felicia Pasadyn’s Journey | Sports activities

Felicia Pasadyn ’22 is likely one of the best swimmers in Harvard’s program historical past. During her time in Cambridge, the Hinckley, Ohio, native gained 10 Ivy League titles, was named to 12 All-Ivy League groups, set 5 of the college’s all-time information, and certified for 5 occasions within the 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials.

In 2028, Pasadyn will return to the Olympic Trials… for the marathon.

She certified whereas within the midst of getting her MD at NYU’s Grossman School of Medicine.

Pasadyn’s state of affairs is definitely distinctive as she continues to try for a future in each drugs {and professional} athletics.

“I don’t know of a salaried, signed professional runner who is also a medical doctor,” Pasadyn famous.

“But there was also a time when I didn’t think I could train for the Boston Marathon and do clinical rotations at the same time, and I did that,” she added. “So I think I’ll just have to take it as it comes.”

Pasadyn was a prime athlete at Brunswick High School, the place she was additionally the valedictorian of the category of 2019. She was recruited for each swimming and cross nation by prime packages all through the nation.

After struggling an harm throughout cross-country season, Pasadyn felt that swimming can be the perfect sport to pursue in her collegiate profession.

“I loved the sport,” she stated. “I felt like I was on a very positive upward trajectory and felt like I had a lot more potential to see through.”

Ultimately, it was the mix of athletic and educational alternatives that drew her towards Cambridge.

“I just felt at home,” Pasadyn stated. “I felt that the women on the team had a great balance of caring about the whole person, having fun, and really putting friendship first, but also driving each other to be better at our academics and swim goals.”

Pasadyn dedicated to Harvard throughout her junior 12 months of highschool and arrived on campus within the fall of 2019. The choice to don a Crimson jersey, she says, made each her athletic and medical careers achievable.

“I don’t think I can thank Harvard enough for making me the strongest version of Felicia that I could possibly be,” she stated. “There was only one way to complete double swim practices, break school records, and get the most out of the academic rigors of the university. And that way was to be efficient, and to do everything with intention and purpose.”

“I don’t want to say it made medical school plus training as a pro marathon runner easy; by no means has it been easy,” she added. “But it trained me to normalize a day that’s very intentional, busy, and packed, and to also make it fulfilling and sustainable as well.”

Felicia Pasadyn wins an Ivy League Championship in 2022. She was additionally awarded the NCAA’s Division I Women’s Swim Elite 90 Award. | By Courtesy of Felicia Pasadyn

Beginning her freshman 12 months, it turned obvious that Pasadyn would turn into one of many all-time greats for Harvard swim.

In her rookie season, she gained seven Ivy League titles, certified for the NCAA Championships, and gained the crew’s Outstanding First-Year Award, culminating in her qualification for the 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials in 5 completely different occasions.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and each the NCAA Championships and Olympic Trials had been cancelled.

“I’m not gonna lie, it was miserable,” she stated. “The pandemic took everything I loved about the sport—teammates, social time, trying to achieve a group goal, preparing for relays, competing at meets against other Ivy League schools—and just left the black line and the social isolation that is putting your face in the water. And that was hard.”

“But it made the hunger to come back senior year and lead my team to an Ivy League title even stronger,” she added. “We gave it our all, and we ended up walking away with a team title, and I got to actually represent Harvard at NCAAs, finally. So, it did ruin some of my sophomore year swim goals, but it made us much more thankful, grounded, humble, and united.”

The pandemic in the end swayed the two-time First Team Scholar All-American to take an enormous leap in direction of her medical profession.

“When we were doing Harvard from home, I had a really hard time wrapping my mind around paying for a university when I was basically self-teaching,” Pasadyn stated. “I treasured every moment there, but I had missed so many wonderful parts of Harvard, and it just didn’t feel right.”

Pasadyn selected to graduate in 2022, a 12 months early, and enroll on the Ohio State University.

“I began looking for a potential opportunity to get a master’s degree before medical school,” she stated. “I had been doing some research in bioethics and really fell in love with that area, and Ohio State was willing to pay for my degree. So it was financial, that I really do love bioethics, and I was able to swim for a Big Ten [program].”

“But it absolutely had nothing to do with not liking Harvard because I treasured every moment there,” she added.

Pasadyn proceeded to win the Big Ten title within the 400-meter particular person medley for the Buckeyes, whereas additionally inserting within the prime 15 in a number of occasions on the NCAA Championships.

Even with a rigorous educational and athletic schedule, Pasadyn additionally continued to pursue her ardour for working all through faculty.

“It never really went away,” she stated. “I’ve loved running since my first 5K at nine years old. All through Harvard and OSU, even on my off days, I would run because I just loved the sport. It was such a great way to explore the Charles River, explore MIT’s campus, just get to know Boston a bit more.”

After graduating from the Ohio State University, Pasadyn enrolled at NYU’s Grossman School of Medicine to get her MD. In New York, she started to contemplate selecting up working at a rigorous stage once more.

Felicia Pasadyn could have stop competitively working for a time, however her love of the game by no means left her. | By Courtesy of Felicia Pasadyn

“For four years, I brewed the idea of, ‘could I maybe one day achieve a marathon?’” Pasadyn stated. “So by the time my collegiate swim career ended, I started half-marathon training that exact same day.”

That coaching shortly was success at her first marathon, the 2024 Revel White Mountains Marathon in New Hampshire.

“I was a first-year medical student at the time,” Pasadyn stated. “I completed a very competitive time of 2:49:00, and qualified for Boston by 41 minutes.”

That success drove her to push even tougher.

“This training block felt sustainable,” She noticed. “Challenging, but sustainable. When the Olympic Trial qualifying standards came out, a little piece of me thought, if I take this even more seriously, I could achieve that sub-2:37:00. I thought I could even ramp it up a bit, and really make something of this whole running thing.”

That meant that Pasadyn deliberately constructed her schedule to maximise each a part of her day.

“Medical school has me waking up about three hours before I have to be in,” Pasadyn stated. “If that’s at 7 a.m., I wake up at 4. I get about two and a half hours in the gym, and then I go to either lectures or clinicals all day long. I come home anytime between 4 and 7 p.m., and try to fit in a FaceTime home with my family, something with a friend, and then fueling appropriately and packing for the next day.”

Included in that was prioritizing sleep, which is usually an unfamiliar sentiment in Cambridge.

“I try to always rely on nine to nine and a half hours of sleep,” Pasadyn stated. “That’s the single thing that is able to recharge my body so that I can compete and academically perform at a high level.”

Her schedule was daunting, to say the least.

“I try to do more normal people things on the weekends,” she added.

The arduous work all paid off when Pasadyn completed the 2025 TCS New York City Marathon with a time of two:35:00, sufficient to qualify for the 2028 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials.

“I think about that 16-year-old girl with a stress fracture who was told she couldn’t run,” she stated. “When something is taken away, you want it more than ever. So I run with gratitude every day since recovery from that.”

Pasadyn acquired much more excellent news this previous March, when she realized she had matched with each of her prime two packages. Next 12 months, she can be a first-year resident physician finishing a transitional 12 months at UF Gainesville, and from 2027 to 2031, she is going to full a four-year radiology residency on the Cleveland Clinic.

That radiology residency will notably overlap with the 2028 Olympic qualifiers, complicating Pasadyn’s coaching routine.

“My hope is I’ll take advantage of the months during residency that are a bit more relaxed and try to do heavier training blocks then,” she stated. “During the months when I’m working six twelve-hour shifts, and maybe the ICU, each week, it’s very intense. I might do something a bit more relaxed.”

“But I will be absolutely training,” she added.

When it comes right down to it, nevertheless, Pasadyn will at all times put drugs and the lives of others first.

“I think a lot about my original inspiration to go into medicine,” she stated. “I had an uncle who passed away from ALS, and I think my family and I were faced with the cruelty of incurable diseases.”

“We all know people in our lives who, unfortunately, have been diagnosed with something, and even medicine isn’t enough, but you remember the physicians who were part of the care team that diagnosed that thing on that chest x-ray, or said that this was going to be the treatment plan for chemo, or helped when palliative care and hospice services were involved. To provide that comfort in the most vulnerable part of a patient’s life, I think, is a continual reminder of how fulfilling medicine is for me.”

“At the end of the day, medicine is the most important to me,” Pasadyn concluded. “Running isn’t forever; there are injuries. But medicine is. As long as my brain is intact, I think that’s going to be the most fulfilling part of my life. So I want to make sure that’s always at the forefront.”

—Staff author Maxwell P. Friedman may be reached at [email protected].