Delightful Run for Women – News – Kostarellis Headed Home For Delightful Run For Women 5-K

KOSTARELLIS HEADED HOME FOR DELIGHTFUL RUN FOR WOMEN 5-K
By David Monti, @d9monti
(c) 2025 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved – Used with permission.

(30-May) — When she was a student at Churchville-Chili Central High School in Upstate New York, Anna Kostarellis didn’t want to be a runner.  Drawn to the soccer pitch instead, running held little attraction for her.

“The running for itself was actually looked down upon, I’d say,” Kostarellis told Race Results Weekly in a telephone interview yesterday from O’Hare Airport in Chicago where she was changing planes.  “I had a pretty negative idea of cross country runners.  It was sort of like those were the only people who couldn’t make another sport.  That was the attitude around running in my high school.”

Little did she know that a missed soccer team tryout would lead to a surprising, six-year collegiate running career and eventually a pro contract with Asics.  The now 25 year-old will be taking on a classic road running double for women, competing in tomorrow’s Delightful Run for Women 5-K in Albany, N.Y. (formerly called the Freihofer’s Run for Women), then the Mastercard New York Mini 10-K in New York City a week later.

“I just accidentally happened to miss tryouts for soccer that year and the only sport that took applicants any time of year was cross country,” Kostarellis continued.  “I had just basically done a few local 5-K’s, and was given the opportunity to join the team for the rest of the season.”

While she discovered her talent for running, she didn’t love it.

“This is not the most fun I’ve had in sports,” Kostarellis said.

As a senior in 2017, she took third in the mile at the New Balance Nationals Indoors in a personal best 4:50.95, and began her collegiate career at Xavier University of Ohio in Cincinnati in the fall.  She competed well, finishing second at the Big East Cross Country Championships, 11th at the Great Lakes Regionals, and 66th at the NCAA Cross Country Championships.

But like thousands of other student-athletes, Kostarellis’s collegiate career was derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic.  That took her on a journey from Xavier to both the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque then eventually Baylor University in Waco, Texas.  The NCAA allowed student-athletes affected by the pandemic to actively compete over a stretch of six years.

“COVID happened, then the opportunity to get another year of eligibility prompted me to think that now I could… potentially get a masters…