COURTESY PHOTO
Lynn native Kristin Moccia will run the Boston Marathon in April.
By STEVE KRAUSE
LYNN — What does a high school and collegiate soccer player do once those days are over and it’s time to go out into the real world?
If you’re Kristin Moccia, you take up running.
“After college, I was looking for something to stay active,” said Moccia, 23, who lives in Lynn. “I got into organized running last November and found I liked it. I signed up for a half-marathon and enjoyed it. I’ve always run as a part of being an athlete, but never anything organized.”
Until now. And in less than two weeks, Moccia will add the second half to the marathon. She’ll be running the Boston Marathon for the non-profit for which she works: Boston Healthcare for the Homeless.
“I started, because the job (as a caseworker) can be stressful, and running takes the edge off it,” said Moccia, a St. Mary’s and Simmons College graduate whose brother, Andrew, is a senior baseball player at Lynn Classical.
She started thinking about the marathon because “I knew my organization had a marathon team through John Hancock. So I figured if I could do a half marathon and live to tell the tale, I’d do it. And the half-marathon felt good. I got hooked on the whole running/racing thing.”
She appreciates Boston “because it has a great running community,” and it comes in handy.
“Because I’m running for a small non-profit, we don’t have a training team, per se,” Moccia said. “But Boston is a really cool place to train. There are so many running groups. Almost anyone who’s running is training for Boston, so I’ve run with different groups.”
Moccia is sticking to a weekly mileage count, and “weekends are for the long runs.
“Last weekend,” she said, “I did a 20-mile run on the course, which was awesome. It felt really good. There were a lot of runners on the course, which made for a lot of energy. It was great meeting so many runners doing this for so many charities.
“There were water stops set up, and tables, all of them run by volunteers for the charities. They really keep you going, especially in the Newton Hills.”
And, Moccia says, “people aren’t joking about those hills. They’re all over the place, and they’re brutal.”
Moccia has had to fight back a little after a slow start.
“In January I had some knee issues,” she said, “but I’m feeling better now.”
Moccia is not as enthralled by the allegedly mild winter we just endured as some others seem to be.
“People keep telling me ‘you’re lucky’ because it wasn’t a bad winter,” she said. “I don’t know. We didn’t get a lot of snow, but it was cold. And March was really cold.”
Moccia administers to the homeless from an outpatient clinic in Boston’s South End, across from the Boston Medical Center emergency room.
“We care for more than 12,000 patients a year in the Greater Boston area. We have a street team too. It’s a pretty big, dynamic organization.
“It can be stressful,” she said, “but it’s rewarding.”
Training has taught her a lot about “sticking with something. It resonates really well … mirrors a lot of the work I do with patients. We’re focused on helping people set goals and being on track with them, whether it’s medical, or whether it’s bettering their circumstances.”
Moccia was required to raise $7,500, and met that goal. She hopes to raise $10,000 by race day.
To contribute, go to the CrowdRise funding page, and search for “team bhp” and “Kristin Moccia.”
