Inspired by a conversation with Outside Sales Representative, Janina Bracht
There is a moment in every marathon — usually somewhere around mile 22 — when your legs feel like concrete, the finish line seems impossibly far away, and every rational part of your brain tells you to stop. It is in that exact moment that a runner’s true character is revealed. Do they quit, or do they keep going?
For Janina Bracht, the answer has always been the same: keep going. And not just in running. Forged through miles of pre-dawn training runs, snowstorms, blistering heat, and personal heartbreak, her unstoppable spirit is the very thing that makes her exceptional at work every single day.
At our recent sales conference, we gathered around the shared theme: Breaking Barriers. We discussed pushing past the limits we impose on ourselves, challenging assumptions, and opting for discomfort over stagnation. Janina’s story isn’t just a running journey- it’s a masterclass in everything we aspire to be.
From Isolation to the Starting Line
Janina’s relationship with running started long before she ever pinned on a race bib. When she first moved to the United States from Germany, she found herself in a small Rhode Island town where she knew no one and barely spoke the language. The loneliness was profound. So she ran. She ran at 7 p.m. She ran at 10 at night. She ran whenever and however she could, because running was something she could do without words.
That early chapter of her life was, in itself, a series of barriers: the language barrier, the cultural barrier, the barrier of being new and unknown in a world where everyone else seemed to belong. And yet she found a way through — not around it, not by waiting for it to resolve itself, but by lacing up her shoes and moving forward anyway.
Years later, she found her community at a CrossFit gym called Elm City Fitness, where her coach Joe introduced her to a different kind of running. Not track laps, but trail races, endurance challenges, and something called the 4 by 4 by 48 — a David Goggins-inspired challenge where you run four miles every four hours for 48 consecutive hours. Most people hear a description like that and smile politely before changing the subject. Janina signed up.
Training in the Dark: The Barriers Nobody Sees
Here is what most people don’t understand about running a marathon: the race itself is almost the easy part. The real work happens in the dark, in the cold, in the quiet hours before the world wakes up — when there is no crowd, no medal, and no one watching.
For Janina’s most recent marathon, she began training on December 1st and didn’t finish until mid-April. Four months of early mornings, long weekend runs, and non-negotiable commitment — all while working full-time. She trained through shin splints. She trained through a deviated septum that made breathing in the cold feel like a battle. She trained through a groin injury. She trained the week her company launched a new computer system, logging 47 to 50 miles while simultaneously learning new software, fielding difficult customer calls, and managing the chaos that comes with any major transition.
One morning in February, the forecast called for a snowstorm, and the only time the temperature would be remotely tolerable was at 3 a.m. So Janina and her boyfriend Mark got up before dawn and ran from Branford to East Haven through the snow, passing snowplows and the occasional confused driver heading home from a late night out. She got frostbite on her ankle. She didn’t stop.
That is what breaking barriers actually looks like. Not a dramatic moment of inspiration, but a quiet, stubborn refusal to let conditions, circumstances, or excuses win.
Running for a Reason Bigger Than a Finish Time
While Janina was building her running career, she was also walking through one of the hardest stretches of her personal life. Her stepfather — the man she calls her real dad — was battling prostate cancer that had spread throughout his body. By the end, he had no cartilage left in his knees and could no longer walk. He would tell her, on the worst days, how desperately he wanted to live, how badly he wanted to be able to move.
For Janina, that became the why behind every mile. Here was someone who would have given anything for the ability to move — and yet so many people who have that gift make excuses not to use it. Her father’s voice, she says, is with her at the hardest moments in a race: “Flipsy, you can literally do anything. Just keep going.”
There is something quietly powerful about carrying a purpose that transcends a personal record or a placement. It means the barriers — the heat, the hills, the tired legs — are never really the point. The point is honoring the commitment you made and showing up for something bigger than yourself.
Three Marathons, Three Lessons in Breaking Through
Janina has now completed three world major marathons: London, Berlin, and Nashville. Each one taught her something different about herself and about the nature of barriers.
At London — her first — she arrived at the start line having talked herself into a spiral about how she looked and whether she belonged among the 70,000 runners surrounding her. Her leggings ripped that morning. Everything felt wrong. And then she started running, and none of it mattered. The barrier there was the voice in her own head — the one that tells us we’re not ready, not good enough, not the right type for something. She broke through it by simply beginning.
At Berlin, the barrier was physical: brutal, suffocating heat that sent runners collapsing around her, with doctors on bikes weaving through the field to help those who had pushed past their limits. Janina kept moving — not because it was easy, but because she had made a promise to herself and she wasn’t willing to break it.
In Nashville, the barrier took an unexpected form: dismissiveness. Midway through a particularly punishing series of hills, Janina offered a friendly compliment to two fellow runners. Their response was cold. In a moment that will resonate with anyone who has ever been underestimated, Janina made a decision. She drank some pickle juice, downed half a beer at an aid station, and ran them down. She finished ahead of them. They had lit a fire she didn’t even know she needed.
What the Finish Line Feels Like — And Why It Matters at Work
When Janina crossed the finish line in Nashville in 5 hours and 1 minute — slower than her previous races, on a brutally hot day with a hill at nearly every mile — her first reaction was a flash of disappointment. But only for a moment. Then she looked around. Some runners had collapsed before the finish. Others never made it that far. She had.
“At the end of the day, who cares?” she said. “What matters is doing something you said you were going to do — and then finishing it.”
That mindset — the ability to hold both the desire to improve and the grace to accept the day’s outcome — is something most people take years to develop. Janina has it now, and it shows up everywhere in her professional life.
She describes it as having “mastered the art of feeling uncomfortable.” Making a difficult call to a customer when an order is late? She’s run 22 miles on dead legs in 85-degree heat. Navigating a new system launch while managing a full workload? She’s done peak training weeks of 50 miles while learning new software and handling escalations simultaneously. The barriers that once felt daunting now feel like mile markers — things to move through, not stop at.
Breaking Barriers: The Shared Language of Runners and Salespeople
At our sales conference, we discussed Breaking Barriers — not as a slogan, but as an invitation. An invitation to get honest about what’s holding us back — the real obstacles and the ones we’ve invented — and then choose discomfort over the safety of standing still.
Janina’s story is that theme made flesh. She broke through language barriers and cultural ones. She broke through the physical barriers of injury and weather and her own internal doubts. She broke through the mental barriers that tell you mile 22 is where it ends, that your time isn’t good enough, that you don’t look the part.
And she did it through the same tools available to all of us: commitment, structure, a willingness to show up on the hard days, and a reason that means something. Make a plan and work the plan. No excuses. Just go.
Next up for Janina: the Chicago Marathon this fall, running for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Another barrier, another starting line, another reason to keep going.
Parting Words from Janina
When asked what she’d say to someone thinking about running a marathon — or stepping outside their comfort zone in any area of life — Janina didn’t hesitate:
“A lot of people think they have limitations: ‘I’m too old for this,’ ‘I can’t do this,’ ‘I can’t do that.’ But have they ever tried? If they don’t try, they will never know what they could have accomplished, and they have limited themselves. Challenge yourself. Give it a shot, despite your fears. You’ll learn a lot about yourself. You’ll realize you’re stronger than you think, and you won’t want to quit when it gets hard. I think more people should experience that.”
That is the spirit of Breaking Barriers. Not fearlessness — Janina has fear too. But the quiet, practiced decision to act anyway: to pick up the phone, to run in the snowstorm, to push through mile 22, to show up and do the thing you said you were going to do.
The finish line is always closer than it feels.
