An ode to some of the weirdest places I’ve ever run while training for a marathon.

As you know, marathon training takes up a lot of time. And regardless of what kind of runner you are, if you’re training for a marathon, you’re likely going to make an effort to get your miles in. 

That said, you also have to live your life. And most of us are really freaking busy. Maybe you have a full-time job that requires travel. Maybe you’re a parent with multiple kids and a pet bird. Maybe you’re a student with two jobs. Maybe, like myself, you are some combination of all of these things: mom, two jobs, two dogs, and elite sock finder. And I’m really good at the sock thing. 

I’m also currently training for my 38th marathon. And what I have learned over the years, sometimes the hard way, is that life, my non-running life that is, usually has to come first. Because marathon training is a choice. An “extra,” if you will. For me, at least, it’s family first, job second, a few other things third, fourth and fifth and then the training. And when I don’t prioritize life, the critical day-to-day things very quickly start to fall through the cracks. However, if I’m able to get all the important “regular” life stuff done, and I still have time for the training, regardless of where I am, who I’m with, or what we happen to be doing, I’m going to try and make it work. 

Let’s go back to January, 2022, shall we? My husband and I were out in Utah for a ski weekend. As far as training goes, I try really hard to front-load my week if I’m doing something over the weekend that I’d like to focus on more than running. Special adventures like these are few and far between, but in this instance I planned to fully engage in skiing and relaxing. There would be no long runs and no workouts because I didn’t have time, there was nowhere to do them and, more importantly, because I wanted to be present as a wife and friend while I was away. I was still planning on getting some easy runs in for mileage. Both Jeff and the friends we were with knew this was a must for me. For training, yes, but also because mentally I need to run to keep myself sane. 

The snow accumulation during our trip was beyond nuts. Literally, feet of snow and awesome for skiing. Not great for running, though. I did a couple runs in a parking lot and one in the driveway. No, treadmills were not an option. On our last day, we got up very early in order to shovel out our car which had been buried due to the massive accumulation of snow we’d gotten over the previous 24 hours.

The roads to get out of our AirBnB and to the airport were pretty treacherous, and we were worried they might be shut down completely. So we decided to just get up earlier than necessary and head to the airport to avoid any issues. We arrived at the Salt Lake City airport around 7:45 a.m. even though our flight wasn’t until 10:30 a.m. 

Naturally, my wheels started spinning. Normally I wouldn’t even consider going for a run in an airport terminal. But, I had not been able to run the day before because the roads were closed for avalanche blasting. So I was behind in mileage and itching to move.

Eager to get a run in, I asked one of the Delta employees at the gate if they thought it would be OK if I went running in the terminal. His response? “Sure. Why not? People are running for their flights all day. Right? And I power walk all the time through the terminal often. Just stay out of the way of people when you can and you should be fine.” 

That’s all the input I needed. Off I went to the tunnel that connected Terminal A to terminal B, probably about a quarter mile long. I put on my tunes and started my run. Down and back. Down and back again. I got lots of odd looks but more smiles and “Good Job!” comments than I expected. In the end, I managed to get 6 miles in. And honestly, I had a blast. Most likely because it was something new and different, and both I and the people around me were getting a good kick out of the scene. 

For the record, when I finished, I washed my face in the bathroom, changed my shirt, grabbed an iced coffee and made sure I was in acceptable shape to sit next to my husband and a stranger for the next four hours on the flight back to Boston. I’m a bit of a crazy runner, but I do respect other people’s space. 

This has to go down as the weirdest place I’ve ever trained. Would I do it again? No question. That said, I am now officially on the hunt for a crazier place to lace up and log some miles. And as the snow continues to accumulate here in the Boston area, treadmill aside, my options are becoming more and more limited. 

A few ideas that I’ve been kicking around—the very large parking lot at the Woburn Showcase Cinema (it’s a huge theatre), Rockingham Plaza shopping center and resident community in Salem, New Hampshire (I can hit the grocery store afterwards!), and up and down Massachusetts Avenue from Cambridge to Lexington (in the bike lane, of course). Stay tuned! 

Top 5 Weirdest Places I’ve Ever Run

1. Salt Lake City Airport. You already know this story. By far the best, though.

2. At the top of a hotel in South Africa. Our family had been in Botswana and Zambia for Christmas. I hadn’t run for 2 weeks for obvious reasons. Mainly lions. This was our last night. I felt like garbage. But I loved every minute of it.

3. In my basement during Covid. Meg McDonald of the Amity Island Running Club based on Martha’s Vineyard threw out the indoor mile challenge and I jumped right on it. I did lots of dumb things during Covid. This was definitely one of them. I regret none of them. 

4. The driveway of our AirBnB in Eden, Utah. That’s right. We were on the same ski trip in 2022 and we stayed on the mountain. Literally. The only road available was along the mountain itself which really wasn’t an option. So, I ended up doing many, many laps in our driveway which was about .2 miles long. That was a lot of laps.

5. And last, but as I said, definitely not least, Lot 2 in the town of Alta, Utah. Fortunately for me, lifts didn’t start running until 9:15 and it really didn’t get light out until about 8:30 so I had ample time to run circles in the dark. I was out there with Alta security who was checking cars to make sure people hadn’t camped overnight, which I guess happens often. I was more than pleased to have someone out there with me. He was very nice. And both runs were lovely.

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About the Author

Boston-area editor-at-large Rebecca Trachsel is a mom, a competitive age-group marathoner, a high school cross country and track coach, and music lover with a coffee problem. She’s still chasing big goals and having a blast along the way.

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