Kristen Hislop’s path to the Delightful Run for Women wasn’t a clear start and finish.

“It’s a pretty interesting path that I took to get here,” said Hislop. “My first job was Federal Reserve Bank of New York,” she said.

She worked in Manhattan, but knew she wanted to stay involved in sports and fitness.

“I had been a competitive swimmer and sailor and did it all the way through college and then moved to New York and couldn’t swim. So I got into running,” she said.

She ended up in NYU’s sports certificate program for sports marketing, and then got her MBA.

She later landed at the University of Colorado, working with kids, and learned what a joy it could be to make an impact on people’s lives through work.

“I thought, if I can’t recreate that opportunity, I don’t know what I want to do, but I’m not going back into corporate America. So I started getting certifications to teach spin and to coach running, and I started coaching triathlon,” she said.

That’s what led Hislop to the Freihofer’s Run for Women, as it was called then, when she was asked to coach the very first training program.

So I would say anybody who thinks like, ‘Oh, I can’t’ come do the training program,” she said.

She believes everybody can do 3.1 miles.

Fifteen years later, Hislop is still inspiring women as the event director of the rebranded Delightful Run for Women. She is also the race director for a number of events, including the Freedom Mile, Farm Fest 5K, Oktoberfest 5K, Veterans Day Dash and the Mohawk Towpath Duathlon.

“There’s still a need to focus on women. There’s still a need to give them space to feel comfortable to – whether it’s start their health journey, continue their health journey, come back to their health journey,” she said.

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