Grace Carleton is set and ready to tackle her first full marathon at Grandma’s

People have different reasons behind why they do things in life. When it comes to Grace Carleton, running has kept her grounded and humbled through her life’s ups and downs.

“I kind of had a rocky childhood. My mom was an alcoholic and she was in and out of jail and that’s kind of around the time I started running. It helped with my anxiety and a lot of other things going on in my life; running is like something that’s kind of was a constant. That was something to put my energy towards and put my mind on and that’s how I fell in love with it.”

That love has also given her the grit and perseverance to accomplish her goals in life; no matter how big or small things might be.

“I think it has everything to do with me. I think everyone in this entire world struggles with finding their place in the world or even finding confidence within themselves. I definitely do and running is something that I can go out each day and be like, no, I know I can do this. It’s like you need those little wins to get to that big win and running is my little win every day.”

This will be Carleton’s second time running in the grandma’s marathon, after getting notified last year that a former participant couldn’t make the race. She got the chance to buy a bib and found herself prepared to set her make in the grandma’s 5k history book.

“I didn’t sign up for it early enough and then it was too much money for me to buy the like the entry to the full marathon. So, I waited like a week until it came around and honestly, I was like, I don’t care that I don’t have a bib. I’m just going to go out on the course and race it after the race and just do it myself just because I simply wanted to do it so bad.”

Grace has run several half marathons, and this year’s race will be her first full marathon.

“It’s like every single time that I step outside or that I run or every single moment I start to think back when I’m racing, like of all the previous races, of all the days training and like, all that kind of suck. It’s just like, okay, this is it. This kind of like it proves it or it makes it all not worth it, but it makes it kind of all come to this like nice close or this nice end of a story.”

WDIO will be streaming coverage of the marathon on Saturday on air and online.