That was not a goal at all, Bell tells SELF.
The goal the whole time was just to finish and not die.
Before taking on the Triple 8 Quest,Bellran a marathon in every single U.S. state.
Courtesy of Celeste Bell
And no, shes not a professional runner.
A:Ive always been into sports.
Im the only girl of five children, and not playing sports was not an option.
The Triple 8 Quest runners in Australia
I started with basketball.
I actually hated running when I was playing basketballsprints, suicides, anything that had to do with running.
That was the initial motivation.
I was only running 2 or 3 miles a couple times a week just to stay active.
After college, I realized I needed some kind of goal to work toward outside my day job.
Maybe Ill do that.
I signed up, and the first marathon I did was horrible.
I said I was never going to run again after that.
A:Everything that could go wrong did go wrong.
It was in Miami.
It started raining 5 minutes in, and didnt stop.
My shoes felt like bricks, it was an awful experience.
I thought, This is the dumbest thing Ive ever done Im not doing this again.
This was in 2004, and I took a break from distance running for the next three years.
A:In 2007, I decided I needed another goal.
I did the east coast first, since it was easy to drive to, then started heading west.
I wrapped up that journey in January 2015 in Hawaii.
A:Last year I decided my break was over.
So early last year I decided I was going to do the 8 in 8 challenge.
Now there are a couple, so I signed up.
In January, we set out to do it.
And we did it.
I had done two back-to-back twice, just weekend races.
And I felt fine, like I could do another on Monday.
I did North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, and Nebraska in 2014.
Then, I did five in a row again.
I decided I didnt want to run full marathon distances before totry and avoid injury.
A:It started in New Zealand, so we went there two days early.
We were able to relax and get ready.
We ran New Zealand the morning of January 23.
That was the case with the first six races.
The first four races I literally didnt sleep.
Those first four days I was like, Oh gosh, what did I get myself into?
But I didnt really feel tired until it was all over.
A:I actually couldnt.
While I was in Chile for the seventh race, my grandmother passed away.
That was on a Monday, and the funeral ended up being Saturday.
It took two weeks for me to get back to normal in terms of a regular sleeping schedule.
A:While running the States, I learned thatice bathswere my friend.
They work really well for me.
Sitting for 5 to 10 hours on flights was tough.
I did a lot of stretching in the galleys of the airplanes, as much as possible.
But getting sore was inevitable.
A:In the first three marathons, I suffered fromdehydrationbecause of the heat and humidity.
I threw up on the way to New Zealand so that started me down the wrong path.
Knowing I was committed to raising money for this charity was one of my biggest drivers to finish.
My next goal is to run a marathon in every country in the world.
But my long-term goal is to also give back in the process.
A:Dont put too much pressure on yourself.
A lot of folks go out with certain times that they want to meet, especially early on.
At the end of the day, youre competing with yourself unless youre actually a professional athlete.
For us amateurs, if youre not having fun, it kind of defeats the purpose of doing it.
The most important thing is to enjoy the experience.
