Lisa Nemec

Early life in the United States Stublić was born on May 18, 1984, in Waterbury, Connecticut. Her father was born in Sisak, Croatia, but emigrated to Germany at age 18, then moved to California and finally to Connecticut. Her mother is an American of Italian descent. Among several college athletic scholarship offers, she chose Columbia University and moved to New York in 2002 to study music theory. Despite her athletic achievements, at that time Stublić's primary interest was art – music, poetry and drawing – and she still saw running as little more than a hobby. By late 2007, though, she was growing dissatisfied by her financial situation and the fact she could still not find a job as a professor of music. Feeling what she described as a "quarter-life crisis", she decided to move to Croatia for a couple of years and to learn Croatian.

She improved her best in the half marathon twice in 2012, first running 72:07 minutes at the Roma-Ostia Half Marathon, then setting a time of 70:31 at the national championships in Zagreb. That year she represented Croatia in the marathon at the 2012 London Olympics (timing 2:34:03 hours for 52nd place) and placed ninth at the 2012 European Cross Country Championships. Stublić came third at the NYC Half Marathon in March 2013 and her run of 69:18 minutes was another big improvement to her national record mark. In April 2013, Stublić won the Zurich Marathon in 2:25:44, slicing nearly 5 minutes off her Croatian National Record. In November 2013, Stublić returned to New York City for the NYC Marathon finishing 12th in 2:34:49 and leading the New York Athletic Club to the team victory.

Personal bests +Personal bests Surface Event Time (h:m:s) Venue Date