This article has been edited since it first appeared online.
(From left) Marathoners Katherine Zampolin, Will Hofacker and Jennifer Janus
This isn’t a story about one marathon. It’s a story about 50 marathons.
Among the estimated 1.1 million runners who complete a marathon somewhere in the world in a single year, there’s a smaller group of marathoners who complete more than one, because they’re chasing a different goal: finishing a marathon in all 50 U.S. states.
Richmond’s Katherine Zampolin is looking forward to reaching her goal of 50 with the Humpy’s Marathon in Anchorage, Alaska, this summer. “It’s challenging when you [need races in] these far and expensive states,” she says. “You can only run in Alaska in June, July and August. It’s just kind of worked out” that this is her last one.
Zampolin began running in high school with friends for a social connection. In college and early in her work life, running helped relieve stress. “It was a way to clear my head,” she says. In 1994, after gaining race experience on shorter courses, she decided to try a full marathon. “I thought, ‘How hard can it be?’ ” she says, laughing. “The answer is, it can be really hard. I swore I would never do it again.”
In fact, it was eight years before Zampolin ran another marathon — the Marine Corps Marathon in Northern Virginia. She ran in memory of her sister-in-law, who had died from leukemia. In Alaska, Zampolin will run in memory of her mother, Phoebe, who died in January; she’s also raising money for the Alzheimer’s Association. “This one’s for her,” Zampolin says. “It’s been a long time in the making. It’s going to happen if I have to crawl across the finish line.”
Henrico resident Will Hofacker completed his “50 in 50” in 2018. Like Zampolin, he wasn’t eager for a repeat experience at the end of his first marathon, in Connecticut in 1983. “When I finished that first marathon, I said I’m never going to do one of these again,” he says. “I was in so much pain. I knew what it was to hit the wall.”
Eighteen months later, he ran another. And then he took a 17-year break.
By then, he and his family had moved to Richmond. Working for Circuit City, he found a group of co-workers who ran at lunch. “I was way behind them initially,” he says. “They were marathon runners, training for Boston.”
Hofacker increased his mileage — it was easy, given the friendly, competitive nature of his group — and ran a few more marathons. In 2010, he and his wife, Sue, celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary with a European vacation that included the 2,500th-anniversary running of the first marathon. As legend has it, that original run in Greece, nearly 25 miles from Marathon to Athens, was made by a messenger to share news of an important victory in battle. (The modern race distance of 26.2 miles comes from the 1908 Olympic route, which started on the lawn of Windsor Castle and ended in front of the royal box in London’s Olympic stadium.)
After that, Hofacker and his wife decided it would be fun to find marathons in every state.
They began planning trips so he could run marathons on back-to-back weekends. “I was 56 and thought, ‘If I don’t get this done faster, I’m going to be pretty old when I finish,’ ” he says.
For his last marathon, in 2018 at the age of 62, Hofacker ran in South Carolina, so friends and family could travel to celebrate with him. “We had almost 50 people there, and many people ran the half-marathon,” he says. “We got a room in a restaurant and had a party.”
Powhatan resident Jennifer Janus, who plans to run her 47th race in New Mexico in March, says she enjoyed having a big extended-family vacation in Hawaii last December but kept thinking about her upcoming race, the Hawai’i Bird Conservation Marathon, at the end of the trip. “The marathon was hanging over my head all week,” she says.
Janus says her joy in running comes from friendships and camaraderie, rattling off a list of friends and family who have helped her complete marathons by providing housing or child care or running alongside her. “I don’t think I’d have come nearly as far if I didn’t have my running buddies,” she says. “There was a big stretch [of time] when I’d run alone every day, but it’s more fun when you’re with someone.”
Since she married her husband, whom she met at the University of Mississippi, Janus has lived in six states — Mississippi (twice), Missouri, Texas, Colorado, Tennessee and now Virginia — and running has brought her friends in every locale. She’s even still in touch with a couple she met when they were all lost during the Trails of Glory marathon in Nevada.
“I feel like running opens me up to experiencing life in the moment,” she says. “Plus, I can say something to a running buddy if we’re running side by side that I can’t say sitting with someone face to face.”
Running also offered a healthy outlet when her three children — twin sons and a daughter — were younger. “I’d tell people that a marathon was 26.2 miles of peace and quiet,” she says with a laugh.
Her goal is to finish the 50 before she turns 50 in the fall of 2024. After that? A possible capstone might be the Dingle Marathon, whose course encircles the Dingle Peninsula of Ireland. The 2024 race is scheduled for her milestone birthday weekend. “I don’t want to set myself another goal,” she says, laughing. “People will say, ‘You’re almost finished’ ” with the 50 in 50, she says. “I say, ‘Don’t say that to me until I’m at mile 26 with .2 to go.’ There are still a lot of miles.”
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