Running to get ahead on a PhD

9 October 2014

Anyone who thought that doing a PhD was essentially an opportunity to spend three or four years in glorious self-centred academic pursuit should think again.

According to an article published in The Guardian’s Higher Education Network earlier this year, it is all too common to see PhD students work themselves to the point of physical and mental illness in order to complete their studies, with increasing instances of depression, sleep issues, eating disorders, alcoholism, self-harming, and even suicide attempts being reported.

However, three UK based Nottingham University Business School PhD students have come up with an ingenious solution to counter the intense pressure of doctoral and post-doctoral study.

With the support of Professor Heidi Winklhofer (Director of Doctoral Programmes), students Gabriela Gutierrez Huerter’O, Kathryn Hartwell, and Faisal Hammad created a running club with the aim of promoting a healthy lifestyle, wellbeing, and a sense of camaraderie among the doctoral community at Nottingham.

From short distances to full blown marathons, the ‘Doc Soc Running Club’ encourages colleagues to be active as a way of coping with the stress of doing a PhD.

Kathryn Hartwell, whose doctoral research focuses on how senior partners in law firms can effectively strategize to gain a competitive advantage in the changing legal industry, said: “The running club has given me the chance to spend time with my colleagues outside the office. The escapism I gain from running has proven invaluable.

“It is true that literature reviews, supervision meetings and discussion papers are important elements of a PhD vocation, but such a lifestyle must by no means be an inactive or even lonely one. University of Chicago Professor Andrew Abbott once wrote that he had an idea for a paper while singing under the shower. Who knows; Perhaps we shall conceive ours while out running with colleagues?”

Kathryn recently took part in the Great North Run - the so-called ‘World's greatest half marathon' - raising £500 for Diabetes UK in the process. Fellow PhD students Gabriela Gutierrez Huerter’O, Kai Xing, and Faisal Hammad completed Nottingham’s own Robin Hood Half Marathon in September to raise funds for Age UK, the largest charity working for and with older people in the UK.

For more information about the Doc Soc Running Club please contact Gabriela Gutierrez Huerter' O