Feature: We Brought Boston to Chicago for Michelle Staudt, Who Decided to Put 26.2 Miles in Her Own Hands After a Disheartening Boston Marathon in 2019

In 2019, three days before the Boston Marathon, Michelle Staudt's father was reported missing in Ohio. Two days before the race he was found in Kentucky and placed in a geriatric psych unit and was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. The doctors told her there was nothing she could do to help at the present time and that she should run the race anyways. The race did not go well to say the least. But she still finished.

2020 was shaping up to be her redemption year. The year 2019 was supposed to be at the Boston Marathon. Things didn't quite turn out that way. In early April, Michelle's dad was diagnosed with COVID-19 in his retirement home. On March 18th, the Boston Marathon was cancelled due to COVID-19. But Michelle needed redemption. She couldn't let herself remember the Boston Marathon like that. What started as a drunken thought, quickly turned to a reality as she mapped out a route on less-trafficked side streets to run by herself while visiting 16 friends along the way.

We got a tip and caught wind of her isolated marathon and decided to bring Boston to her. Complete with Sam Adams Boston Lager, Dunkin' Donuts, and an official adidas Finisher Jacket, her finish was as Boston as you can get. We invited our photographer to capture the finish in a safe, socially distanced manner.

We hopped on a Zoom call with Michelle to ask her more about her personal 26.2.

It's about 24 hours post-marathon. How do you feel?

I feel really good actually. I feel a lot better than I had anticipated. I got a quick adjustment from one of our chiropractors at Aligned Modern Health and I'm excited to get back to running maybe tomorrow.

It's got to be convenient that you work for a chiropractic and health and wellness company, right?

It is (laughs). Yes, the team here has kept me in good shape for as long as I've been here so I'm really lucky with that.

"Boston is one of those things where I feel really fortunate any time I get to go do it I feel like that's a huge victory and any time you do it could be the last time, you know? So you should always try to look back on it with feelings of gratitude."

Back to the story. When did this idea come about?

I kind of tossed the idea around fo ra little bit but not too seriously for a week or two because I typically work on Mondays so I didn't really think too deeply into it. Then my work scheduled changed a week ago and I started to have Mondays off. This past Friday night after a few glasses of wine I just decided I was going to do it.

Normal wine thoughts.

I've been planning my runs recently to visit friends because it's really the only way we get to see each other so I've been going out for shorter runs and swinging by friends' houses so we can say "hi" with appropriate social distancing in mind. So I thought what better way to plot out a course than to incorporate all of my friend's houses into one big marathon loop.

How many friends did you see along the way? What was your accuracy rate?

16 out of 18.

"I haven't really been running as much because I felt it's too difficult and there are too many challenges and it's not as fun but I wanted to prove that it is fun and it is doable, we just all have to find a way to do it safely."

Why do you think you felt the need to do this?

It was definitely more than boredom. It's been a rocky year for me. You know a little bit of my backstory from last year having had a race that didn't quite go as planned and had a lot of extenuating circumstances last year that made for a disappointing day and I didn't want that to be the last Boston I ran or the way I remember Boston, so, going into this year I was really excited to enjoy it. My dad is in a good care facility and being looked after so I really wanted a chance to have fun. Maybe not even have a fast race, but enjoy it. Obviously I didn't get that opportunity in Boston, at least for now. So, I wanted to come up with another way to still look back on this day and have a good memory versus the memory from last year.

In 2019, with your dad being placed in a geriatric psych unit days before the race, does your personal 2020 race compare at all to last year's knowing your father was in the hospital and now recovering from COVID-19 before this year's race?

He's not currently in the hospital because with his diagnosis and how advanced his dementia is, his care team and I decided that if he needed advanced care we would not admit him and make him as comfortable as possible for the time being so we kind of just had to wait it and see how he recovered and luckily he has made a really good recovery from it. But we definitely had some touch-and-go for a couple of weeks.

This year's race did compare to last year's marathon in Boston. Last year when everything happened with my dad I found myself living with this 10-out-of-10 anxiety and I'm not really an anxious person by nature I kind of feel like the world works the way it's going to work even when it's really suck-y things will work out. Part of that is that I've been very lucky and very privileged but I've been pretty happy go lucky my entire life but last year I found myself in a really anxious spot and this year definitely had some of those feelings which exasperates almost a PTSD reaction. So, there's definitely a lot of anxiety surrounding this but getting to do the run yesterday helped take some of that a way which was really nice.

What was training like this year? Did you lose motivation after the shelter-in-place order was placed on Chicago? What about when the Boston Marathon was officially cancelled?

Totally the latter. I was doing 'OK'. I was running pretty consistently and getting in 20 mile runs but then after they cancelled I haven't run more than 10. It's been hard to find a place and I actually wanted to prove yesterday, to myself, that I can do long runs in the city and on the streets because I haven't really been running as much because I felt it's too difficult and there are too many challenges and it's not as fun but I wanted to prove that it is fun and it is doable, we just all have to find a way to do it safely.

Earlier you told me "I didn't want how things ended up happening in 2019 to be how I remember the Boston Marathon." Were you hinting that 2019 could have been your last year running the Boston Marathon?

Oh, never! But you never know. With running, so many things can take us off course such as injuries or being sick so Boston is one of those things where I feel really fortunate any time I get to go do it I feel like that's a huge victory and any time you do it could be the last time, you know? So you should always try to look back on it with feelings of gratitude.

Tomorrow is never promised.

Exactly.