The Boston Marathon is an athletic event like no other. Celebrating its 130th running this year, about 30,000 athletes participated in the 26.2 mile race. Among them was Entergy Mississippi’s own Tiffany Austin, who serves as executive assistant for Haley Fisackerly, president and CEO of Entergy Mississippi.

A committed runner for more than 20 years, Austin began running for fun and exercise, dipping her toes into competitive running with local 5K and 10K races, eventually mixing half-marathons and a 15K in Madison into the rotation. She made the leap to marathons with the Country Music Marathon in Nashville in 2004. Despite storms that delayed the start of the race by an hour and continued rain that soaked her shoes and socks, she finished.

“I got through it,” said Austin, but she was not inspired to enter another race immediately. She continued running and tried her second marathon with the Mississippi Marathon run on the Natchez Trace.

Since then, she has completed 19 marathons, at least that many half marathons and five ultramarathons, which is any run that is longer than 26.2 miles. The longest ultramarathon she has completed is a 40-mile run in the Fondren area of Jackson.

Like most forms of exercise or athletic endeavors, it’s more fun with friends. Austin has a group of friends that combine their joy of travel with their joy of running. They usually plan at least one trip per year to compete in either half or full marathons.

While she was certainly an experienced marathoner, Austin doubted she could qualify for the Boston Marathon. Runners have to apply and be accepted to earn the opportunity to compete in Boston. Acceptance is based on a runner’s best time in a previous race and must make a cut based on the times of other runners in their age and gender group.

One of the runners in the group of friends had competed in the Boston Marathon six times and offered to help Austin train to get her time down into a range to increase chances of qualifying for Boston.

Entergy fosters a culture of innovation and continuous improvement by making it a priority with visible support from leaders and encouraging employees to try new things and lead innovation, benchmarking and improvement ideas. Austin put these ideas into action, using innovation and benchmarking to improve her time.

“At the time, my average marathon time was four hours and 40 minutes,” said Austin. “I knew to qualify for Boston in my age group, I would need to be under four hours. I thought there was no way I would be able to reduce my time by that much.”

However, her friend encouraged her to take the first step and just try, so in early 2024, they began meeting as a group at a track in the early morning to train. At first, Austin was the slowest one, but they encouraged her to stick with it and eventually, she was able to keep up with them. She continued to compete in marathons and benchmark her progress. At a marathon in Ogden, Utah in May 2025, she finished in under four hours with a time of 3:57.

Austin was afraid that time would still not be low enough to qualify for the Boston Marathon, so she kept training and trying to lower her time. At the Jack and Jill Marathon in Seattle, Washington on July 29, 2025, Austin recorded her personal best: 3:48. While it wasn’t guaranteed, Austin thought this time might qualify her for Boston. Even that might not be enough. Because the interest in competing in Boston is so high, there were 9,000 runners with qualifying times that did not get to run in the race this year.

The experience of running in the Boston Marathon was worth all the hours of training.

“It was incredible,” said Austin. “Everyone really appreciates the runners. There are more than 500,000 spectators and they line the entire 26.2-mile route, which is rare for a marathon. People are cheering; bands are playing. It really makes you feel special. It’s like the Disney World of marathons. They have thought of everything.”

One of her favorite aspects of the experience was the church service held the day before the race at a beautiful church located at the finish line in downtown Boston. Everything about the service — from the music to the message — was focused on the runners. Attendance is so high that three services are held to accommodate everyone. She also enjoyed meeting her fellow competitors, who converged on the city from all over the world.

Joined by friends and family to cheer her on, Austin felt their support throughout the race and was thrilled when she spotted them cheering her on from the sidelines. Her husband, son, daughter-in-law, sister-in-law and friends, including the Boston Marathon veteran who helped her train for the event, flew to Boston to support her.

Austin set an ambitious goal and achieved it. She finished the Boston Marathon with a great time of 4:02, placing her in the middle of her age group. Throughout the process, she demonstrated the behaviors Entergy team members are encouraged to employ as part of its culture of innovation and continuous improvement, including being intentional in the process, committing time and resources to the effort and collaborating with others to identify, develop and implement new innovations and improvements.

Running the Boston Marathon was a major goal, but in keeping with her ethos of continuous improvement, she is not stopping there. She has plans to run a marathon in Utah in October and continue traveling and running with her friends, possibly returning to compete in Boston once again.