As Courtney Bird ran past miles and miles of cornfields, she wondered what she was doing with her life. She was running a half marathon in Ohio, or maybe Indiana – they were starting to blur together.
“What am I doing with my life?” she asked herself. “I’m on this nondescript road in I-don’t-know-where and I’m running for what?”
At the mile-nine slump, she finally called her family to convince her to keep moving. They reminded her of her goal: to prove that you don’t have to be fast to set a world record. Bird wanted to be the woman to run the most half marathons in a year.
By her personal count, Bird ran 141 half marathons between Dec. 31, 2016, and Dec. 30, 2017. Though, she isn’t sure how many races Guinness World Records will include in its official count. Some of the races were small trail runs that may not be considered official due to the low number of competitors and the casual nature of the event. Still, she is confident that she beat the previous record of 102, which was set by Lauri Fauerbach Adams from Philadelphia in 2011.
A Soddy-Daisy resident, Bird is the founder of Run Chattanooga, a laid-back running club. In 2013, her goal with the club’s inception was simply to encourage other runners to get out, without putting too much pressure on speed or time. Running is hard enough, after all.