Math teacher Stacey Bevill is working towards completing 50 marathons, one in every state, and hopes to complete it by age 50. So far, Stacey has run marathons in 16 states, including Connecticut, Nevada and Wisconsin. She began this journey in 2015.

“It started off when I ran a race after my first kid was born and kind of got the bug,” Stacey said. “And then I thought to myself, ‘what’s something that’s just so out there that I can do to keep me active.’ I decided, you know, ‘I think I’m going to have a goal of doing all the states.’”

Since COVID, Stacey has had to increase her number of races from three a year to four or five a year in order to meet her goal by 50. COVID also had a great impact on her training regiment.

“When COVID hit, obviously for everyone it caused a lot of issues,” Stacey said. “It caused my training to really get off. To where after COVID I was just doing one or two runs to prepare for these races.”

After this setback, Stacey hired FHN alumni Jackie Pirtle-Hall to be her running coach. Stacey is also supported by her husband, Brett Bevill, who is the varsity football coach at FHN.

“I do my best to make her marathons,” Brett said. “I go there to support her and you know, carry around anything she needs and meet her on the race course at least two or three times.”

Stacey began running to keep herself active after having children. When she heard about the marathons a friend of hers had been running, she decided to try it herself.

“I started with a half marathon,” Stacey said. “First one was tough, and then the second one I did, after I finished, I said to myself, ‘I think I could run that again, I’m not tired.’”

Stacey enjoys running because of the opportunity it gives her to relieve stress, especially stress related to teaching.

“So with teaching, it helps, there’s so much weight that’s always on teachers’ shoulders all the time, and running is one of the few times that, when I have just so much weight on my shoulders, I can just let it all go,” Stacey said. “And it allows for me to be free and allows my thinking to be free.”