Each year, the Foot Locker Cross Country Championships bring together 40 of the best high school runners in the country to compete for a national title in San Diego, California. If you scroll through past results of the event, you’ll recognize the names of athletes who went on to become Olympians or professional runners. But for every one of those, there are far more who have taken other paths in life.
Tessa Barrett competed at the Foot Locker Cross Country Championships only once, as a senior, in the fall of 2013, but that was all it took for her to become a national champion. She won two more national titles in indoor track before moving on to Penn State. Barrett’s story is still a work in progress, but it’s one of struggle, loss, resilience, community, hard work, and falling back in love with running again. And the most recent chapter included a win at the Marine Corps Marathon on October 27, with a personal best of 2:39:38.
A big win at home
Barrett, 28, says she doesn’t travel well, so she prefers to race close to home whenever possible. And no race is more convenient than the Marine Corps Marathon, which finishes about a half mile from her apartment in Arlington, Virginia. She jogged to the start of the race. The initial plan was to start out around 6:10/mile and pick up the pace, but early in the race she found herself running alongside 2:34 marathoner Hiruni Wijayaratne, going a little quicker than planned. Barrett was feeling good and enjoying the company.
Around Hains Point, just before halfway, Barrett took the lead for good. Because that part of the course is on a peninsula, there weren’t many spectators, but Barrett is used to that. She runs that stretch of road in training every week. “I’m used to having it be quiet and just kind of getting into like my tempo zone and just going,” she said in a phone call with Fast Women.
Elsewhere on the course, Barrett had a lot of support. She’s lived in the D.C. area for six years and trains with a variety of local running groups, so she’s recognizable, and she also had family and non-running friends cheering her on. She ultimately won the race by more than six minutes (Wijayaratne dropped out after 35K) and took six minutes, 15 seconds off of her personal best.
Marine Corps was Barrett’s fourth marathon and her best so far. In her debut at the 2022 Chicago Marathon, she ran a solid 2:45:53 off of only about seven weeks of marathon-specific training. Her next two marathons were slower due to illness or nutrition struggles.
It was fitting that the victory came in the city that helped Barrett rediscover her love of running. “Never in a million years did I think that I would be able to run at a high level while working full time and having a life—like social life, friends, family—and even be competitive, let alone be winning races,” she said. “It’s really just been a dream year of running. I have just an amazing group around me, and to be able to share that with them was just a really exceptional moment.”
Success amidst struggle
As a ninth grader at Scranton (PA) Prep, Barrett began dealing with what would eventually be diagnosed as atypical migraine syndrome. She would develop migraines so severe that they would often lead to seizures. One of the biggest triggers was exposure to fluorescent lights, which are difficult to avoid.
Midway through her sophomore year, the seizures forced Barrett to leave the high school she loved and enroll in online school. She was still able to run for a local high school, which became her social outlet, but it wasn’t easy being “the sick kid,” she said. “I think running kind of kept me sane, and it was the one thing in life that I could somewhat control.”
It took a while for Barrett to find the right medication, but that ultimately helped, as did maintaining a high level of physical activity. During her junior and senior years, when she finally wasn’t sick every day, Barrett’s running began to improve. But it was a stressful time. Her father was ill, and she was trying to get good grades and figure out her college plans.
Barrett came up with a lot of her own training during high school. She ran about 40 miles per week, but also spent a lot of time swimming, pool running, and strength training. “Every run, I was just hammering, which was probably not the best,” she said. “But I wouldn’t have listened to anybody if they had told me different. I didn’t know about stretching, taking days off, or the female athlete triad.”
Shortly before Barrett graduated from high school, her father passed away. A week later, she found out that she had a sacral stress fracture. In her early college years at Penn State, she found herself in an injury cycle and she struggled with her mental health.
Barrett ultimately became a two-time All-American, with a high finish of fifth in the 5,000m at the 2017 NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships and a personal best of 15:28.99 that season. “By the time I found my footing, it was just too late,” she said. “I did well, but I definitely never fully reached my potential.”
Finding balance
After graduating from Penn State in 2018, Barrett started a fifth year of eligibility at Providence College. She loved her time there but she didn’t finish out the year after her mother had an accident and Barrett moved home to help support her. In February, 2019, she moved to Washington, D.C. and began working for her current employer, Merrill Lynch. And shortly after, her mother, who grew up in the D.C. area, moved there as well.
Barrett decided she was done with high-level running, but she began running with the Georgetown Running Club (GRC) for fun, in an effort to make some friends. That was how she was connected with the team’s coach, Jerry Alexander, who helped give her running some purpose as she transitioned to post-collegiate running.
“I really just rediscovered my joy for the sport and at the same time, was able to build community through GRC,” she said. “And when it became fun again, that’s when I kind of felt more like myself. Running felt like such a job in college, but now it’s just a really fun hobby.”
The pandemic forced more solo running, but in 2021, when GRC began holding practices again, Barrett got into a routine of working out with the team every week, and she started to see results. From 2019 to 2021, she didn’t race at all, but in 2022, she began to dip her toe back in, including running a 1:14:37 at the Paris Half Marathon.
Even though Barrett works 60 hours per week as a financial adviser and runs up to 90 miles per week, she goes out of her way to make room for friendship and community as well. “College me would never have missed a double (run) or a weight lifting session,” she said. “Now I’m much more flexible with that kind of stuff, and mentally, it puts me in a good place.”
In order to fit her training in, Barrett sometimes gets up as early as 4:30 a.m. She does a disproportionate number of her weekly miles Friday through Sunday, because that’s what is most compatible with her work schedule. She also combines social time with training when she can. In addition to doing workouts with GRC, she takes part in various group runs. And being around less competitive runners has helped her appreciate the sport more.
“At the end of the day, it really doesn’t matter if you’re trying to run sub 2:40 or you’re trying to break 4:00 in the marathon, we’re all trying to improve ourselves, and there’s something really beautiful in that,” she said.
Looking ahead, while appreciating the present
When Barrett was in high school, doctors told her that as she got older, her atypical migraine syndrome would become less of an issue, and that proved to be the case. She has had a seizure since she was 18, and she’s almost off her medication now. “It’s something I’m always cautious of,” she said. “You’ll always see me in sunglasses when I run—sometimes people make fun of me for it—but I have terrible photosensitivity and I think I’ll probably have that my whole life.”
Barrett doesn’t have any concrete spring racing plans, but she’d like to run a 10,000m at some point, and improve upon her 34:22.03 personal best from college. She hasn’t raced on the track in more than six years. She’d also like to run a fast 10 miler. But she’s not putting too much pressure on any of it. “I’m just having fun with it, and I don’t want to change that,” she said. “If it starts to feel like another job, then I’m out.”
Longer term, Barrett would love to qualify for the 2028 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials. The qualifying time hasn’t been announced yet, but she’s excited to go after it, whatever it is. She made an attempt to qualify for the 2024 Trials by running under the half marathon standard of 1:12:00 at the 2023 Naples Half Marathon. She knew everything would have to go perfectly for her to have a shot, and it did not. She was running alongside Allie Kieffer, on pace, when they were both misdirected nearly a mile off course.
Whatever happens next, Barrett is grateful for where she is now. “I’ve had to face a lot of struggle and I’ve had a lot of loss, but I think the things I’ve gone through have made me appreciate life so much more,” she said. “And that includes the little things in life, like just being able to go out for a run, or meet friends for coffee. Knowing that life is very precious and none of us really knows how long we have has made my outlook so much greater.”
