Hello!

Thanks so much for visiting! Here's a little bit about me and the work I do...

M. Nicole Nazzaro ran her first mile on a local high-school track in a pair of castoff Saucony sneakers in 1984. She remembers exactly two things about that experience: it was fun, and she was slow. Neither of those things have changed too much over the years. After over 35 years of running, she’s happy to still be on the competitors’ side of the rope at local road races.

An introduction to a fellow Russian Studies major who was the original creator of the website for Runner’s World led Nicole to her first big break in sports journalism: covering the 2000 Boston Marathon. She worked for NBC at three Olympic Games and covered the 2008 Beijing Olympics for Sports Illustrated. She also kept running, notching an almost-Boston Marathon qualifying time in 2011. (She’s still trying to qualify; luckily, she keeps getting older, so the qualifying standards keep getting closer.)

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Also in 2011, Nicole co-authored the outdoor fitness manual Fit by Nature and began speaking professionally on the topic of personal health and creating healthy cultures, especially in the workplace where so much of our daily stress originates. She created the Playbook Method to train individuals and groups in the skills of making lasting personal and organizational change, and in 2020 expanded these principles into a framework for businesses called Health Centered Leadership. Nicole holds a professional level membership in the National Speakers' Association.

Nicole graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College and holds graduate degrees in journalism and Asian Studies, with a specialization in China, from the University of California-Berkeley. In 2020 she completed premedical coursework in the Washington State community college system, a milestone on the way to a new goal: earning an advanced health degree to complement her health and medical writing practice. As of August 2020, Nicole is in the process of earning national board certification in health coaching while leading Impact Media Northwest, writing, studying biochemistry, and co-parenting (with husband Andor) their lively kindergarten-age son.

(And if you've read this far...remember that it's never too late to pursue your professional dreams, even if it takes thirty years to get back to it after you gave up in college. Get after it! All my best, Nicole)