Off The Cuff: Renee Saris-Baglama

Jan. 31, 2020

Our CCRI faculty and staff are a diverse group with many fascinating hobbies and interests that keep them busy during their free time off campus. Welcome to "Off the Cuff." Every other week, we'll profile a member of our CCRI family to find out what makes them tick. Hopefully, their stories inspire others and help us develop new connections and friendships with our CCRI colleagues.

Boston native and Psychology Professor Renee Saris-Baglama joined an elite club during the winter break when she completed her first 26.2-mile marathon. The best part was the scenery; Saris-Baglama participated in Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend in Florida, part of the runDisney initiative in which marathoners compete in a theme park race experience and earn a medal for completing the course.

According to data in various runners’ publications, there are approximately 570 marathons held in the United States each year and less than one percent of the population has actually participated in a marathon, so Saris-Baglama is now part of a select few who have crossed this item off their bucket list.

We sat down with Saris-Baglama, who has published a number of journals during her five years at CCRI, to find out how she trained for the race and how running actually plays a role in her work within her field, specifically with how programs such as Girls on the Run use the process to help young women gain self-confidence.
 
How did you first get involved with participating in marathons?
 
This was my first full marathon.  About 20 years ago, a friend talked me into training for the Indianapolis 500 mini-marathon, one of the largest half marathon events in the country. It was fun training with friends, getting the opportunity to run a lap around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (home of the Indy 500), and wearing my finisher’s medal to dinner that night! I’ve started doing events like these again only recently.
 
How did you find out about the opportunity at Disney and what were the details of the marathon?
 
When I decided I would try to complete a marathon with a friend, my husband and daughter suggested the Disney Marathon so they could take a fun trip!  Lucky for them, Disney is actually a great place for first-time marathoners because of their generous time limit (seven hours to complete 26.2 miles) and focus on having fun rather than finishing fast. The marathon started a little after 5 am and the course took us through all the Disney theme parks (Hollywood Studios, Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, and Epcot). There were many Disney characters that you could take a photo with along the way. Some of the areas had good crowd support where people held funny signs and cheered us on.  At mile 23 we got Hershey’s Kisses instead of Sports Beans with electrolytes, which was pretty great. The two-sided (Mickey and Minnie) finisher’s medal we got is sweet!
 
Did you train for it, and what was your training regimen like? How did you balance that with work, etc.?
 
I trained for the race using Jeff Galloway’s Run/Walk/Run method. Galloway is a former Olympian who promotes the deliberate use of walking breaks as a way to help all kinds of people run longer distances while avoiding injuries.  It was a little tricky balancing my training with my job and other responsibilities, especially over the winter. I typically ran three to four times per week and did my increasingly longer runs on Sundays. I usually ran at 5:30 am, before work, for the shorter weekday runs.
 
How long did it take to complete the marathon and what was the feeling like at the end?
 
It took me six hours and 31 minutes to cross the finish line.  When I did, I cried a couple of happy tears because I had set a very ambitious goal and achieved it. It is hard to explain the level of satisfaction and sense of accomplishment I had at that moment. I am now part of the one percent of the population that has completed a marathon! If I could do this, what else can I do?
 
You have also published journals, etc., in the past related to your field. What do your publications focus on and which would you say is your favorite / most informative?
 
My focus is in the areas of Social Psychology and Health, and studying ways to improve teaching and learning. It is hard to pick a favorite. One informative paper I co-authored was on “Self-Objectification and its Psychological Outcomes for College Women.” We found that self-objectification (viewing oneself as visual object; focusing on appearance) has a relationship to restrictive eating, bulimic symptoms, and depressive symptoms. Self-objectification theory was young at that time, so we had just started testing its predictions. In a society that sexually objectifies girls and women and sets unrealistic ideals of beauty, it is important that we teach girls to think about themselves as agents, not objects. Girls on the Run is a fun program that integrates running with other lessons to help young girls gain confidence in themselves and recognize the connection between physical and emotional health. At the end of the 10- to 12-week program, girls participate in a 5K, giving them a strong sense of accomplishment. Just like my marathon, it’s not all about the running.  It’s about having a goal-oriented mindset and watching yourself succeed.

We would love to hear your story, too! Email us at [email protected] if you’d like to be featured in a future edition of “Off the Cuff” or want to nominate a co-worker.

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