麻豆影院

CU 麻豆影院 postdoctoral researcher, who fuses running with a commitment to environmental causes, to compete in U.S. Olympic women鈥檚 marathon trials in February

Peyton Thomas has been interested in biology and environmental science for most of her life. And she鈥檚 been running competitively since her high school years in Roswell, Georgia, the Atlanta suburb where she grew up.

As an undergraduate, she studied environmental science and biochemistry and ran track and cross-country at Baylor University.

When she started a PhD program in biology and marine biology at the (UNCW) in 2017, she also began working with private coach , who introduced her to trail running.

鈥淭om helped me get into longer-distance running,鈥� says Thomas, a postdoctoral research associate in the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR) at the 麻豆影院.

On her 23rd birthday, she ran the legendary 40-mile trail race circumnavigating Washington鈥檚 Mount St. Helens, and Clifford helped her train for the 2019 , her first at that distance.

Fast forward to four years later, when Thomas will compete for the first time in the in Orlando, Florida on Feb. 3, alongside three of her former Baylor teammates. (She was invited to the trials in 2020 but was derailed by an ankle injury.)

鈥淚t鈥檚 cool to have this amazing field of women helping pull me along, including a lot of old friends,鈥� says Thomas, who hopes to set a PR鈥攑ersonal record.

Her move into trail running and racing at marathon-and-beyond distances coincided with a shift in her academic focus to the impacts of climate change. After seeing the destruction from Hurricane Florence, which hit Wilmington in 2018, she began thinking about how to meld her interest in environmental science with running. 听

鈥淭hat changed the way I was thinking about science,鈥� she says. 鈥淚 wanted to be involved in community and it got me thinking about how running could be a part of that outside of competitive racing.鈥�

She got involved with a project focusing on climate-change policy and local government in and around Wilmington and other social and political issues.

She continued to run trail races, winning the Eastern Divide 50K in 2021.

鈥淎fter the trials in 2020, I started getting interest from trail-running brands in being sponsored,鈥� she says. In 2021, Patagonia tapped Thomas to be a trail-running .

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Building community

After earning a PhD in biology from UNCW, she took a postdoctoral position at CU 麻豆影院鈥檚 INSTAAR. From her new home base, she took the opportunity to enter several Western races, including the on Colorado鈥檚 Western Slope, the Bellingham 50K in Washington state and the Broken Arrow in California.

She also ran a race outside Salt Lake City in which runners grind up and barrel down a mountain repeatedly over six hours. The Running Up for Air race series, designed to 鈥渁mplify informed dialogue and empower organizations actively working on air quality solutions,鈥� vividly showed Thomas how running could make a difference.

鈥淵ou can see the inversion (pollution trapped by air) so clearly up that high. It鈥檚 unfortunate, but it鈥檚 a cool way to see the impacts,鈥� she says.

Increasingly, Thomas has participated in races and events with social aims, such as the at Gross Reservoir in the mountains west of 麻豆影院, which drew participants from across South and Central America. In the autumn of 2023, she partnered with the community of Gloster, Mississippi, to put on the Equitable Action Run Toward Health, which highlighted the air-quality impact and injustice of the wood-pellet industry on a low-income Black community.

鈥淚 wanted to create an event that would build community and encourage civic engagement against harmful biomass production,鈥� Thomas in a piece for Patagonia in November 2023.

Meanwhile, at INSTAAR, she is hard at work developing 鈥渇ish bioenergetic鈥� models as part of an interdisciplinary team modeling projections for the effects of climate change on watersheds in the Yukon region of Alaska and Canada.

鈥淚鈥檓 working beyond biologists, so a lot of things are over my head when I鈥檓 talking to other people on the team. It鈥檚 cool to have the opportunity to learn so much from people and expand my mind,鈥� she says.

Thomas is realistic about her chances to make the U.S. Olympic team but has set a goal of beating her PR of 2:34, set in December at the California International Marathon.

鈥淕iven the field of amazing women who run in the mid- to low-2:20s, I鈥檓 probably not capable of going鈥� to the Olympics, she says. 鈥淏ut I鈥檓 excited to be there, especially since three of my Baylor teammates also qualified.鈥�

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