IUP Athletic Hall of Fame
Nicole Monette, who excelled as a distance runner at IUP, hasn’t slowed down since leaving school, even at the age of 36. She ranks among the finest ultramarathoners in the land.
The highlight of Monette’s time at IUP was overcoming a fall to earn All-America honors with a seventh-place finish as a senior at the NCAA Division II cross country championships in Pensacola, Fla. She had earlier won the East Region race, by a whopping 52 seconds. She also claimed a PSAC title in the 3,000 meters indoors as a senior running for coach Ed Fry.
For her efforts, Monette was named East Region Runner of the Year in 2007 by the United States Cross Country and Track and Field Coaches Association; was an ESPN the Magazine first-team Academic All-American for cross country and track and field, District 2, College Division; won a PSAC Top Ten award for combined athletic and academic excellence; and was named IUP’s Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year.
Monette earned a second All-America citation in 2008 while running as a Slippery Rock grad student when she finished eighth at nationals in the outdoor 10,000 meters.
A year later, Monette finished third in the Pittsburgh Marathon and fourth in the United States marathon championships, and in 2012 she qualified for the U.S. Olympic trials. Monette has since transitioned to longer distances: She won the Yeti 100-mile Endurance Run in Virginia in 2020 while setting a women’s course record of 16 hours, 19 minutes, 57 seconds, and in January of this year finished second in the Hoka One One Project Carbon X 100K in Arizona in 7:43:18, the ninth-fastest time ever over that distance.
Monette, who graduated from IUP in 2007 with a degree in exercise science, earned a Doctor of Physical Therapy degree from Slippery Rock in 2010. She is a physical therapist at Team Rehabilitation in Rochester Hills, Mich. She resides in nearby Oxford with her husband. Patrick Monette, and children Peter, 7; Jacob, 5; and Madelyn, 2.
