It’s no secret that running does more for us than simply keep us fit. It also provides us with an outlet to unwind, socialize (or take a break from people), and boost our moods. And for Stephanie Andre, a 36-year-old mom from Bixby, Oklahoma, running takes the place of unhealthy habits, such as smoking and living a sedentary lifestyle, that would have led her down a much different path in life.

“If you would have told me seven years ago I’d be a running marathons today, I wouldn’t have believed you,” Andre told Runner’s World. “In my twenties, the thought of running one mile, let alone a race, never occurred to me.”

Today, Andre is not only running 26.2 miles, but is racing them at an elite level. In 2017, Andre set her marathon PR in the Chicago Marathon, 2:41:50, which qualified her for the 2020 Olympic Marathon Trials taking place next February in Atlanta. And earlier this month, she set the course record at the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon, finishing in 2:45:07. Her time also broke the Oklahoma state record for 26.2 miles, which was previously held by ultrarunner Camille Herron, who holds the 24-hour and 100-mile world records on the track.

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Seven years ago, however, Andre’s daily routine was unrecognizable from what it is now. Her running success would take one determined sister, one tough decision, and a tremendous amount of hard work.

From Couch to Marathon

In late 2011, when Andre was 29, her sister, Sara, announced that she’d signed up for the 2012 Big D Marathon in Dallas. Andre was shocked by the news, she said, since Sara lived a sedentary lifestyle at the time, and she’d never shown much interest in sports when they were growing up in small-town Oklahoma.

“I was skeptical that she’d follow through with it,” said Andre, who admitted that she was also not very active at the time.

In between caring for her three-year-old son, Anthony, working as a freelance writer, and spending time with her husband, Sergio, Andre would occasionally do a P90X workout tape in her living room, and if she did venture outside for a run, it was brief: “I remember feeling so proud of myself for finishing a mile around my neighborhood,” she said. She was also smoking regularly, which made it even harder to catch her breath while running.



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To Andre’s surprise, Sara stuck to her marathon training plan. Inspired by her sister’s commitment, Andre decided that she wanted in, too, so she signed up for the marathon just in time to catch up to Sara’s training. On race day, April 15, 2012, Andre crossed the line in 3:56:27 , much faster than she anticipated. Then just two weeks later, in an effort to earn the honors of “Marathon Maniac” alongside Sara, she completed the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon in 3:58:20 .

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“When I told other runners my time, they said, ‘Oh, if you can run around four hours for a marathon, you can probably qualify for Boston,’” she said. “I hadn’t put much thought into it. But that was an exciting thing to work towards.”

Choosing Between a BQ and a Cigarette

After her successful spring debut, Andre decided to challenge herself on Chicago’s famously flat and fast course in October 2012. In order to BQ, she needed to shave a little more than 20 minutes off her marathon time, which would require a much more focused training plan—and a major lifestyle change.

“Once I started training seriously, I realized pretty quickly that I couldn’t continue smoking,” Andre said. “I remember one run in particular that went terribly. I was struggling to breathe at the end of it, and that’s when I knew that if I wanted to be any good at this, I couldn’t keep leading this double life of a runner and a smoker. I told myself, ‘You have to pick one: smoking or BQ.’”

In the end, she decided that qualifying for Boston was more important. So on Labor Day weekend, about a month out from the Chicago Marathon, Andre quit smoking cold turkey. She figured that even if she couldn’t sustain the smoke-free lifestyle forever, giving up cigarettes for at least one month might give her the extra boost she needed to get a BQ.

“It was hard to do, but running took care of a lot of the things that smoking used to,” Andre said. “The endorphins I got from running boosted my mood, and it gave me something to focus on. Instead of reaching for a cigarette when I felt stressed out, I would just go for a run. The cravings got better over time.”

She continued to ramp up her mileage that month, breathing a little easier and splitting slightly faster miles each smoke-free day. In October, she finished Chicago in 3:30:42 , which qualified her for Boston (since then, the qualifying standards have been lowered).

“After I BQ’d, I fell down the rabbit hole into marathoning,” Andre said. “It gave me such a huge boost of self confidence. And it showed me that I shouldn’t give myself limits, because I can and I should push through them.”

Setting Her Eyes on Atlanta

After the fateful 2012 fall when she gave up smoking and qualified for Boston, Andre steadily improved her marathon times, tapping into a level of endurance and speed that she never knew she possessed.

“Growing up, I did gymnastics, cheerleading, and played softball, but I absolutely hated running,” she said. “It was always a punishment when I was a kid.”

In her early thirties, however, the sport came naturally, and her teenage tumbling days likely conditioned her bones to withstand the pounding required in marathon prep. Using training plans described in by Pete Pfitzinger and Scott Douglas as well as by Luke Humphrey and brothers Keith and Kevin Hanson, she whittled her time down to 2:59:23 at the New York City Marathon in 2015. After she had broken that 3:00 barrier, she started daydreaming about qualifying for the Olympic Trials.

In February 2016, she and her husband took a vacation to Los Angeles to spectate the 2016 Olympic Marathon Trials. “I was curious about the women running. Were they all young? Did they all have six-packs?” she said. “It turned out, they were all shapes and sizes, and what they had in common was that they were all strong. The women in the back were especially inspiring.”

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That fall, Andre finished the 2016 Chicago Marathon in a Trials-qualifying time of 2:43:05, but the window to qualify for the 2020 Trials hadn’t opened yet, so her time wasn’t eligible. She came back the next year stronger than ever, however, and finished the Windy City course in her blazing personal best time of 2:41:50, officially qualifying for the 2020 Trials. In 2018, she ran a personal best of 1:18:30 for half marathon; and this year, she brought that time down to 1:17:25 at the Cowtown Half Marathon, where she placed 2nd to Allie Kieffer.

Andre chalks up her steady improvement to consistency. “This is not an instant gratification sport,” she said. To maintain a mileage of up to 120 miles per week during blistering-hot Oklahoma summers, she wakes up at 5 a.m.; does a base run at 7:30 mile pace or a workout such as a 45-minute tempo at half marathon pace (about 5:40 per mile); and later in the afternoon, runs four to five miles at recovery pace, about eight to nine minutes per mile.

While she feels more fit now than she ever has before, she said she sometimes feels her age when she’s recovering. “It takes me a little longer to rebound from workouts,” she said. “But I’m much stronger now than when I started.”

This fall, she’s racing the Berlin Marathon, where she hopes to get an Olympic Trials ‘A’ standard of sub-2:37. After that, she’ll start preparing for the Trials, where she’ll be one of 302 women and counting who are vying for a spot on the 2020 Olympic team.

“My goal is to do the very best I can, and just focus on what’s in front of me,” she said. “I have to remind myself that I’m good enough. I believe in myself.”

Hailey Middlebrook Digital Editor Hailey first got hooked on running news as an intern with Running Times, and now she reports on elite runners and cyclists, feel-good stories, and training pieces for Runner's World and Bicycling magazines.

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