How I Got Here: Molly Bossdorf ’25

On the track and in clinicals, this young woman cuts to the chase: It’s about focus.

Words by Kara Pothier

Molly Bossdorf ’25

Steeplechase is a track and field event. I read once that it started with horse racing, but later it became a footrace for people who would run from one church steeple to another because they could see each steeple in the distance. The runners would jump over hedges or walls and cross through rivers along the way.

As time went on, it developed into an event that is like an obstacle course on the track. It’s a 3K race. You go seven and a half laps around the track, and there are four regular barriers and one water barrier on every lap.

The barriers are the same height as women’s hurdles. But they take up a couple of the lanes. In hurdles, everybody’s in their own lane with their own hurdles. But in steeplechase, you could be going over the barriers with other people at the same time.

Your technique doesn’t matter that much for steeple. You can step on the barrier or jump over it. For the water barrier, the closer you are to that barrier, the deeper it is, so you want to jump as far out as you can.

I hadn’t gone over a barrier or a hurdle until I got to TCNJ. In high school, I did cross country and track. I ran mostly middle distance: the 800 meter and the mile.

At TCNJ, I would look over at steeple and think, “Wow, I want to try that.” Every distance runner is a little bit crazy, but if you’re going to do steeple, you have to be a little bit crazier.

It definitely takes mental toughness. The person with the best time wins, but it’s more a question of “Who’s going to tire out last?” I always tell myself, “Focus on the task in front of you; attack the hurdle.” I try not to worry about how many laps I have left. When each race is over, it’s just so fulfilling.

I qualified for regionals by a millisecond. The last lap I threw myself over the barrier and I just sprinted to the end as fast as I could. And then I got on the starting line for regionals two days later. My shoes were still wet.

I am a nursing major, and the athlete mindset and the nursing mindset are very similar. In the nursing field, you have to work as a team and do one thing at a time, even when you have a million patients and all these procedures to perform.

Every time I’m in clinicals I’m like, “This is so exciting. I can’t wait to do this one day.”

Photo by Bill Cardoni