Balancing the demands of competitive sports and life can be challenging. However, for three students within the George Washington University (GW) Doctorate of Physical Therapy (DPT) program, they manage the demands of life, a doctoral degree, and their chosen sport.
Coming into a doctoral program is stressful enough, but for Rebekka Kalenga, she also knew that she would be competing on the international stage just a few weeks in. Kalenga started running in middle school. She ran a variety of long distance races in college until she volunteered for an Iron Man when she felt so inspired that she made a commitment to do one by age 30. Not only did she complete an Iron Man, she placed 4th in her age group which qualified her for the Iron Man world championships in 2023. At the championships, she placed 6th in her age group while 13 weeks pregnant. In her first semester at the GW DPT, she returned to the world championships for the half Iron Man in Portugal with a whole new group of people cheering her on an ocean away.
Kalenga has trained extensively for the three sports and says that “learning more and more about my own body will help me be a better physical therapist.” Kalenga was so inspired by the 2024 Olympics in Paris that she began training for the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane. She'll hopefully compete in the marathon event for either the country of her home, the United States, or the country of heritage, Austria. Kalenga carries the grit and determination she’s learned through her intensive training into her education. Conversely, she is able to draw from the prioritizing and balancing she needs to do for school into her training. She says, “PT school is helping me with my training, but also I’m bringing in a lot of knowledge from my training into PT school.”
Katrina McGuire (‘28) started playing Ultimate Frisbee in high school, where she won two national championships. She continued playing at the University of Michigan, where the team qualified for the college nationals twice. In her first semester of the GW DPT program, she won gold with the US mixed U-24 team at the WFDF 2025 World Ultimate Club Championships. In addition, she now plays for the DC Shadow, the 2025 champions of the Premier Ultimate League.
Similar to Kalenga, McGuire said that Frisbee has “absolutely influenced my decision to come to PT school.” In the past, she’s had teammates who are practicing physical therapists who give advice to their fellow players. In the future, she “wants to be that resource.” She met an alumnus of GW DPT program through the tight knight Frisbee community who influenced her decision to attend the program. She wants to serve as that kind of resource, saying it’s important “being a part of your community and bringing your knowledge to your community to better it.” McGuire returned to the WFDF 2026 World Ultimate Club Championships in Limerick, Ireland where she repeated last year’s success and maintained the title of world champion.
Karsen Barley is accustomed to PT both as a student learning about the topic and a patient who has received care. Barley has been running long distances since high school. She completed 2 marathons while in college and was excited to be on the starting lines of the Boston Marathon until an injury set her back and was unable to compete. She says that “having to build my way back up from basically being able to do nothing has been hard, but that’s also what we're going to be doing on a daily basis with patients in physical therapy. It’s given me a much better understanding of what they’re going through.” The content that she is learning in school and experiencing in her own physical therapy is contributing to her training. She remembers a time in a physiology course where the reasoning behind cross-training really clicked with her, saying “there are a lot of components [to training] that people overlook” and going to school has allowed her to appreciate all of these components. She is excited to get back into training with a new perspective about “how the things we are learning in class are actually being used in practice from the perspective of a patient.”
