It’s not so much the sight that torments Marisa Ryan. You get used to it after a while. The sound isn’t too bad either-a little gruesome, sure, but nothing you wouldn’t expect.
But there’s something about the smell-that chemically choking, overpoweringly brutal smell-of dissecting a human body that just sticks with you. And once you get a whiff, it doesn’t go away.
“When you make that first cut you can’t help but wince,” Ryan said. “You pretty much have to go straight home and take a shower.”
But Ryan-lab coat and all-doesn’t have time to go home. Not when the doctor-to-be is also the hottest cross-country runner in the region, undefeated this year and looking to add to that success with a second straight America East conference title this fall. When you’re that good, there isn’t time for much else.
Yet Ryan’s success isn’t confined to the wooded trails. Nor is it confined to the lab, where the Connecticut native is in the fourth year of a seven-year accelerated medical program at Boston University. But within that four-mile stretch between BU’s Track and Tennis Center and its metropolitan medical campus is where Ryan thrives.
It wasn’t always like this. Though there’s no doubt that the senior captain has been a blur on the cross-country trails for some time, her success has never before reached these heights. Forced into a more prominent role last year following season-long injuries to both of BU’s two senior captains, Ryan excelled, picking up the slack along with teammates Christine Laakso and Abbey Sadowski to make BU tops in the conference
Success like last year is impressive. But success like this year is downright shocking. A year ago, Ryan’s top-30 finishes were helping BU look respectable as the team clamored on without its stars. Now, top-30 isn’t even in question. Ryan has come in first overall in both of her two races this year, besting a 40-woman field at the BU Invitational by 10 seconds, and then a week later topping 58 others at Central Connecticut State’s Ted Owen Invitational to take the title by a colossal 18 seconds.
She seemingly can’t lose. And the success is only making her better.
“She likes being first,” said cross-country coach Bruce Lehane. “It’s a little bit physical. It’s a little bit mental. She expects a lot out of herself. Mentally, she’s functioning with a little more intensity than when she was maybe our second, third or fourth runner.”
That mental prowess hasn’t exactly been a problem-not for the winner of the America East’s Scholar-Athlete of the Year award, given last month to the top male and female student-athletes in the conference. Ryan’s name was plucked from a pool of over 3,500 athletes from 10 schools, thanks in large part to her sparkling 3.77 GPA.
Three years ago, that didn’t even seem possible. As an incoming freshman, Ryan took a pass on the ivied walls of Harvard to enroll in BU’s medical program, which bundles bachelor’s and medical degrees into a seven-year curriculum.
The program is not for the faint of heart–and not only because of the dissections. In fact, it entails such a strenuous schedule that admissions officers doubted at the time whether Ryan should matriculate, solely because she was a varsity athlete. It had never been done before, and as such, there wasn’t much reason to think it would work.
But if there was ever an extraordinary case, Ryan is it. Because of the long hours at med school and the hassle of getting to and from its South Boston digs, Ryan is often forced to skip team practice, instead crawling out of bed at 6:30 a.m. to knock off the 50 to 60 miles of running she logs each week.
And despite the long hours, the rescheduled tests, the hurried commutes and an utter lack of free time, she handles it all remarkably well.
“If I wasn’t running, I wouldn’t have done as well academically, and if I didn’t have my academics I wouldn’t do as well running,” Ryan said. “I can’t express how nice it is after being in class all day studying, having those few hours every day in the afternoon where I can not think about school for a little while, get outside, enjoy myself. They’re really nice compliments, because both kind of keeps the other one fresh.”
Others, however, remain bewildered.
“She probably has the best time management skills of anyone I know,” said teammate Anne Wighton. “I don’t know how she does it. She does so many things, and she does them so well.”
At the core of it, though, may be something simpler. After all, it takes a special kind of person to have the desire to run mile after mile, day after day, just as it takes a special kind of person to find intrigue in dissecting a human body.
Ryan excels at both, which may just raise more questions than it does answers.
“Who the hell would want to do this? And who would want to do it so hard?” Lehane said of the masochistic nature of his sport.
“You have to go a bit nuts in order to run really well,” he said with a laugh. “Maybe she’s getting a little crazy.”