The small school, part of the NJCAA D-II Great Rivers Athletic Conference had been a starting point for other Kenyan distance runners such as Kipyego and Stephen Sambu.
[7] A few months later though, in fall 2008, she outpaced a packed group of strong runners to win the Rend Lake-hosted NJCAA Cross-Country Championships.
[8][5] She continued dominating the junior college competition, placing in multiple races all the way to the NJCAA D-I Indoor Track and Field national championships where she took first in the 5,000- and 10,000-meters.
As a Seminole, she led her team (along with Pilar McShine) to two second-place finishes at the 2009 and 2010 NCAA D-I Cross Country Championships.
[10][6] In 2011, she beat Esther Erb and Serkalem Biset Abrha to win the storied Litchfield Hills Road Race.
[12] Later in the year, she paced with Lyubov Denisova and Kim Pawelek Brantly but ran away to win the Marine Corps Half Marathon.
[16] In 2014, she won Grandma's Marathon, outrunning Brianne Nelson, Sarah Kiptoo, Yelena Nanaziashvili and 3,000 other women to finish with the victory, taking home more than $10,000.
As a part of her routine, she engaged in her programs to become a nurse, motivated by the lack of care for preventable diseases that she saw in her early years.