Many runners are driven by a desire to cross the finish line quickly. Sandy Pearman ’80 is driven by a desire to cross it before race organizers call it a day.

She’s cut it close, but she’s always succeeded. Don’t ask Sandy, Guilford’s longtime Director of Enrollment Information, about her fastest time. That’s not the point.

“A lot of people track their times and are driven by that,” says Sandy. “As long as I beat the finish time, I’m OK with that.”

After eight half marathons – “that’s four marathons,” she jokes – and a slew of 5K-races mixed in, Sandy is walking away from running. Her most recent half marathon, the St. Jude Rock ‘n’ Roll on March 15 in Washington, D.C., was also her last.

She has no regrets. It was a good, well, run. But Sandy knows when it’s time to quit. “My body knows,” she says. “You can’t just show up on the day of a race. There’s a lot of training in the months before and for me it just got harder and harder.”

In a culture that frequently measures our worth by a clock, there’s little glory in taking your sweet time as Sandy does on race day. She has little use for the clock at the finish line. Her satisfaction comes before the race with all the hard work she put in training. When she decides to run a race, she’ll run three or four miles a day for weeks on end either outside or, during winter, at a local gym.

“For me it’s about the discipline and work before the race that I take pride in,” she says. “When I cross the finish line it’s everything I did to get there that I find satisfying – not the race itself.”

Sandy’s first half marathon was March 16, 2013. Her daughter Emily Rhoades ’06 invited her to run in the St. Jude’s race in Washington with her. Sandy didn’t know how to train for a marathon so she downloaded a routine off the internet.

Mom and daughter didn’t hang around on the race course for too long. Emily left Sandy in the dust within the first mile. “She’s more competitive than I am, and that’s fine,” says Sandy.

Sandy’s run in half-marathons in Asheville (“too hilly”), Greensboro (too boring since she trains here), Myrtle Beach (no thanks – “all highways and no view of the Atlantic”). Ah, but the Washington race is like the perfect porridge – just right.

The course starts behind the Smithsonian’s Natural Science Museum before taking runners past the White House, the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial, through Arlington, Va., and back across the Potomac River through the red-bricked buildings making up Howard University before finishing up at the U.S. Capitol.

“There’s a lot to see and take in so I don’t mind running alone,” says Sandy.

Will she miss running? “I don’t think so,” she says. “If I do, I’ll always have these to remind me.”

Sandy, whose name on her final running bib read Grandma Sandy, pulls out a bag with a fistful of racing medals. “It was fun, but I’m done,’ she says.