Originally, Baylor thought of herself as a sprinter.

“I didn’t want to accept that I could be good at distance,” she says. “I had it in my head that I was a sprinter.

... I really didn’t try — I hate to say it. But I really didn’t try as much as I should have.

And I don’t think that I was pushed that hard. Now, coaches are pushing girls to the level that they can. And I really think that in the late ’80s and ’90s, coaches didn’t push females as much as they do now.”

Baylor was more in her element on the track. She never made states in cross country, but she twice went to the PIAA Championships for track: once for the 400 and twice for both the 4x400 and 4x800 relays.

But she couldn’t just run track at Bloomsburg University, which she entered in the fall of 1990. Her coaches insisted that she run cross country, too. That’s when Baylor started to reach her potential as a distance runner.

“My coach (Tom Martucci) was the wrestling coach,” she says. “He was very demanding; he really worked us hard. ... So I really ran.

I think my first 5K race in college was an 18:50.” (Her previous best was in the 21:00 range.) Baylor continued to run middle distance, eventually earning the school record in the 1,500. She still runs 5K’s today, but something clicked when she ran her first marathon last November.

“I came to the finish line thinking, ‘That was too easy,’ ” she says.

With the help of her coach, Susquehanna track and cross country coach Marty Owens, and her training partner, Bucknell assistant track coach Rob Guissanie, she’s training to run a 2:46 marathon.

Baylor runs every day, rising at 5:30 a.m. for her training.

She runs 50-60 miles a week, and goes through a new pair of running sneakers every other month. She’s hoping it all pays off with a trip to Boston next year.

“It just baffles me, because all through college I hated cross country,” she says. “I thought it was the longest distance ever.”