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Esther Atkins (née Erb) will run the 130th Boston Marathon on her 40th birthday. She’s had it on her radar for about five years, and now that the day is almost here, she’s not sure what to expect.

“This could be the beginning, could be the end, who knows?” Atkins said. “I see this as a starting-over point.”

The 2008 Case Western graduate first hit her stride in running while in college. Atkins garnered six All-American honors, including a national title in the 10,000 meters, during her D3 tenure before going on to spend two years as a Fulbright in Europe, where she soft-launched her career in the marathon. She signed up for the Berlin Marathon while still a senior at CWRU and debuted in 2:46 to place 14th overall.

After two more marathons abroad–Vienna, which she described as her slowest marathon she’s ever run after battling severe dehydration, and Seville, where she bounced back to run a new PR of 2:39:49–Atkins returned to the U.S. and joined ZAP Endurance, who she represented in the 2012 Olympic Trials.

“I figured out that I was definitely better at the marathon than anything else pretty quickly,” Atkins said.

She would prove this strength again and again, going on to win the 2014 USA Marathon Championships in Minneapolis–St. Paul, and finish 24th at the 2015 World Championships in Beijing and 11th at the 2016 U.S. Olympic Trials.

There seemed to be no stopping her. Fifteen years of healthy, high-level running was helping her win races around the country–New York, Jacksonville, South Carolina–but eventually, she started to slow down.

“It was probably some endocrine system shut down, like adrenal fatigue,” Atkins reflected. “It was not an injury per se at that point, but I was just getting slower. My response to it was not the greatest. I tried to train for ultras and didn't know what I was doing, so I just put in a ton of miles. Eventually, after a week where I put in a 20-miler and a 32-miler, I had one bad step going down a hill and felt a perforated rip of everything in my right glute, hamstring attachment.”

Atkins called this moment the beginning of the end. As many runners often do, she ignored the injury and continued to train because she could and was used to injuries fading, but the trauma from the injury, both physical and mental, remained.

“I developed a hitch, I developed a fear of falling,” Atkins said. “It's been a long journey to try to figure it out. The fear-of-falling thing is still an issue. I wish I could zap it away from my brain, but it does keep me from going fast and especially from changing gears.”

As a result, Atkins shut down the season ahead of the 2020 Olympic Trials. She instead turned to other aspects of life, and found adversity in these avenues, too. She had two miscarriages before her and her husband’s first child was born in August 2021. She got Achilles surgery from Haglund’s deformity in her right foot when she realized she couldn’t play with her son without pain. She had a second baby after a third miscarriage and then developed a kidney disease.

Somewhere in the middle of all of this, she tried to train, but her hamstring gave out again.

“I remember the day I sat on the curb and cried,” Atkins said. “I haven't really cared much about running since.”

It’s not so much that Atkins doesn’t care; it’s that running looks different for her these days.

“I hold very loosely to everything at this point,” Atkins explained. “I may or may not be able to do my long run this week. I might not be able to show up to a race because my kid gets sick. Running is not the top priority.”

However, it is still a priority. When she found that her kidney disease benefitted from running because the activity helped with swelling, she gave herself permission to start logging miles again. She signed up for a race in Richmond without expectation. She applied the ideals she’s learned from over a decade-long career in coaching to coaching herself, and, somewhat to her surprise, it worked.

“I looked at the data objectively and said, ‘okay, this is what you can do.’” Atkins said. “Whereas in the past, I'd always known what I was capable of and it had skewed how I looked at myself. Especially since the fear of falling is still a problem, I have to live in this very zen, no-pressure, just-here-to-have-fun way and see how far I can go.”

After “falling apart” ahead of CIM last year, Atkins signed up for three marathons and put no pressure on herself to do any of them. She ended up running Myrtle Beach in 2:52, pacing the McKirdy Micro in just over 3:00, and will now line up for Boston.

Running now looks like waking up early to meet with Greenville, S.C.-based training group WR@D, or We Run at Dawn, who does exactly what their name suggests. On Strava, they post 5:15 a.m. workouts and weekly sunrise averages. Atkins joined the group last May and, as a coach for McKirdy Trained, quickly saw places where the group needed more structure.

She offered her advice on pacing, rest time, injury prevention, and more, and is now looked at by some members of the group as a trusted coaching figure. She even works one-on-one with some members through her coaching with McKirdy. Atkins acknowledges that coaching has also helped her in her own running.

“When I remind my athletes of all the extra stuff they should be doing, I also am reminding myself that I need to be doing it,” Atkins said. “Every time I give advice that is helping somebody to navigate a tricky situation, I have to check myself: do I have any little nagging injuries that I'm ignoring or did I actually take time off? Am I doing all the things that I tell other people to do?’”

In a sentiment that mirrored Diljeet Taylor trying bicarb, Atkins said her main purpose for running now is to empathize with her athletes.

“The reason why I still want to do workouts and show up for races is that it's important for me to know what it feels like for my athletes,” Atkins said. “As long as I'm able to still do that, I would like to continue to do it so that I can try out new workouts, remember what it feels like to be on a starting line, and know what the latest fueling guidelines feel like because it is totally different from how it was 12 years ago.”

Atkins will race Boston as part of PUMA’s Project3

On Monday, Atkins will join eight of her athletes in running the legendary Boston Marathon in a true test of the human spirit. This test is not necessarily seeing what the body can do; it’s seeing what the soul can do in the face of a heartbreak that can only come from knowing peak success and redefining that success in the aftermath of adversity.

“The greatest lesson that running has offered me is the ability to practice getting old,” Atkins said. “There are going to be things that all of us can't do as well anymore. And we have to still find joy in those things. A lot of people just retire when they're not going to be as fast as they once were or they keep beating themselves up thinking that there's another PR in there.

They know they don't have the time or ability to actually chase it and they just still feel like they're falling short all the time. My situation has allowed me to figure out how I can have fun doing this thing that is never gonna look like it once did and that was so fulfilling in that form at some point in my life.

How can it be fulfilling now in a different way?”

She cited Dot McMahan and Roberta Groner as role models showing her what’s possible as she forges ahead into her forties, which will kick off with the Boston Marathon.

Atkins’s marathon PR of 2:33:15 is from Boston in 2014. In 2017, she ran Boston again in 2:36:11. 2026 will be the first year she finds herself in the masses instead of alone out front, and her goals are much different, but Atkins still lights up when talking about them.

“I think I could probably break 2:50,” Atkins said. “I don't know by how much, but that would be a good day. An outstanding day would be running the time that I ran my debut in, which was 2:46:15.”

A beat later, more goals poured out of her.

“I want to run negative or even splits,” she said. “I think that would be really good. I'd love to be the first masters woman from the masses. I don't know how competitive that is. I should probably look that up.”

Atkins might not know it, but her fire is still there. This could be the end; it could be the beginning. Sometimes the fall is meant to teach how to get back up.

The Build to Boston: Esther Atkins

The Build to Boston: Josh Derrick