Running the Distance: Hope Taft

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Today, we are happy to spotlight Hope Taft, who is running for the Massachusetts General Hospital Boston Marathon Team.

Hope is the Executive Director of the A.A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging within the Radiology Department at Massachusetts General Hospital. She oversees day-to-day operations and strategy, including developing new partnerships and industry studies, and purchasing new capital equipment.

Q: What inspired you to start running marathons?

I ran my first marathon a couple of years after graduating college. I was living in Washington, DC, and started running on the weekends to explore different parts of the city. My casual weekend runs started getting longer and longer and I decided to sign up for the Marine Corps Marathon, which followed some of my favorite running paths around the city. After that first race, I was hooked!

I love the idea of setting a goal, challenging myself daily through training and accomplishing something tangible at the end. I also loved how running, and specifically distance running, helped clear my mind during particularly stressful times at work and in graduate school.

Q: How do you balance your research/work with marathon training?

It’s not easy! I usually plan out runs a few weeks in advance to make sure that I can fit everything in. I started treating my runs like I would any appointment or meeting—they need to be scheduled and prioritized.

Being flexible has been helpful, too—whether it is squeezing in a run in Boston after work, running before work at home, or a late treadmill run after I get my kids to bed.

Overall, training forces me to take a break and time for myself during a very stressful time in research, which I believe has helped me be a more effective leader.

Q: What lessons from marathon training apply to your work in research?

There is a lot of ambiguity and uncertainty in research right now. Training has helped reinforce the importance of perseverance and balance.

There are ups and downs in training (I just got over a two-week bout with the flu) but jumping back into training is so important—there is no time to do anything other than keep going. 

The same is true at work. There are setbacks, losses and difficult times but it is important to keep moving forward. Training also reinforces the importance of balance—working very hard but taking time for rest and recovery.

This is an important reminder for me with work, as there is a seemingly endless list of things to be working on, but to be most effective and efficient it’s vital to take breaks and find time to recover.