For the past three months, I have spent a lot of my free time preparing for the Boston half-marathon. Training for and running the 21-kilometre race last month made me realize that getting a PhD is an endurance event.

Accomplishing your goal, whether it's finishing a race or a PhD, takes a lot of work and time. Unfortunately, all the work can be derailed by bad weather, an injury, an unlucky collaboration or an experiment gone wrong.

Company can also make all the difference. Having someone to run with gives me that extra boost. I shudder to think what graduate school would have been like without the support of classmates, friends and my boyfriend.

And sometimes you just have to stop. During the race, I stopped at water stations and walked while I drank. In those ten seconds, I caught my breath and renewed my will to run. Although I might have shaved off time if I hadn't stopped, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been able to run as hard. Similarly, there were many times in graduate school when I had to take mental breaks.

In the final mile of the race, I was very tired and my left leg was cramping, but I kept running because I knew I was close to the finish line. That's how I feel now about graduate school. It's been a long time since I started and there have been some tough moments, but I can only believe the end is near. Even if my pace is slower than I was hoping for, I have to keep going.