Running marathons has become a way to see the world, meet new people and have fun for Michelle Schall of Bella Vista.
A recent transplant from Orlando, Fla., she has run marathons in every state in the U.S. and on every continent, earning many medals. It all started 20 years ago.
She has been running since high school and has always enjoyed it, she said. Running a marathon had been a dream of hers for a while. Years ago, she moved to Chicago and joined a running group, and the members wanted to do a marathon. So, the Chicago Marathon was her first in 2001.
"It was fun because I had a running group I was part of," she said. There were people in her group at water stations and in the crowd cheering on the runners.
Schall works for Disney in IT. Disney started hosting marathons called Run Disney in the mid to late 1990s, and that is when it became her dream to run a marathon, she said. She ran a Disney marathon a few months after the Chicago Marathon. She said it was difficult because she had an injury and did not think she would be able to do it. A friend gave her some tips, and she was able to complete it.
Next, she went to Dublin on vacation, and while researching that, she learned that there are international marathon travel agencies and about the Seven Continent Club, in which runners can run a marathon on every continent. So she started focusing on completing that.
"I met lots of wonderful people. Lots of them were part of the 50 States Club, where you run a marathon in every state. I thought they were crazy," she said.
However, she decided to run a marathon in every state and slowly started chipping away at the list.
"I had a job where I traveled a lot, and instead of going home on the weekends, I'd run a marathon," she said. She did 13 in one year that way.
"It's been a great way to see the country," she added. "I take a few days off and play tourist."
Sometimes she would stay with people she had met around the country or around the world, and likewise, runners she had met would stay with her when they came to Orlando to run.
She has completed 78 full marathons.
"I feel kind of like a lightweight," she said. "One gentleman with the 50 States Club is up to 500, and he's in his early 70s. That's a great goal for me, is to say when I retire I want to still be out there running marathons."
She continued, "It's really all about staying positive, a can-do attitude. I like to say running is 80 percent mental and 20 percent physical."
Schall loves running in her neighborhood because of the hills and greenery, she said.
As for her favorite marathon, it is hard to decide, she said, but the most unique one was the one in Antarctica.
"Being able to run and see a penguin or a seal is really unique," she said.
During that marathon, a runner got dehydrated on mile 20, and the officials were going to take him out of the race. She gave him some water, and another runner gave him an energy gel, and he bounced back. The officials allowed him to finish as long as she stayed with him, she said. They have kept in touch since then.
She said she loved running in Africa because of the animals she got to see. In South Africa during the Big 5 marathon, the event had to be rerouted because a herd of elephants found the banana station and was being very aggressive, she said.
She ran in one marathon that was partly on the Great Wall of China.
Her most challenging marathon was Pike's Peak because it was hard to breathe when she got to the top, she said.
The only one that she did not get to finish was in Burma. At the pre-race dinner, her whole table got food poisoning. She tried to run.
"I figured if I was going to be sick, I wanted to be sick at the race because we had European doctors and nurses," she said.
The medical staff gave her an IV at the tent. When she felt better she and another runner ran a half marathon so she could say she had run a half marathon in Burma.
She has run about 40 half marathons, she said.
Training for a marathon takes about 20 hours a week. During times when not training for a marathon, she tries to get in four to five miles five days a week, along with some cross-training like hiking, paddle boarding and kayaking.
She once heard a speaker talk about running marathons for the enjoyment and not for the purpose of winning. She said that is one thing that kept her going in the beginning.
"I've had fun with it," she said.