PORTLAND, Ore. — A Seattle woman is sharing her story after she completed two half-marathons in two days, including Portland's Shamrock Run.
Since Gretchen Schoenstein was a child, she's battled multiple autoimmune diseases that affect her lungs and joints.
"One of the autoimmune diseases I had basically took me out at the knees. My joints and my lungs blew up. I couldn't walk for six weeks. I was in the hospital on a morphine drip for a few days," Schoenstein recalled.
Doctors even told her that she would never run again.
"I thought, 'That's not a problem. I don't run anyway. You're not taking anything away from me that I love doing,'" Schoenstein said. "And a few years later, I realized I needed a big goal."
That's when Schoenstein decided to run her first race: a half-marathon.
"It spurred this whole new awakening for me of what else is possible," she said. "If I can do that, can I do a little bit more? Can I push myself a little bit more?"
Dozens of half-marathons later, Schoenstein decided on a new challenge: to run two half-marathons on two coasts in two days.
"I ran the Rock 'n' Roll Marathon in Washington, D.C., on Saturday morning," she said. "That evening, I got on a plane from DCA (the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport) to Portland and ran the Shamrock Run on Sunday."
Schoenstein normally uses inhalers and medications to get through running long distances. This challenge was especially difficult — but she kept going and finished the race.
"My legs were so wobbly at that finish line, like oh my gosh, and I just broke down afterwards — I cried," she recalled.
Schoenstein said she went through all the pain for everyone else who struggles with autoimmune diseases: "I so very much felt that I was running for other people; I'm doing this for the people that can't."
And despite what Schoenstein went through, she plans to do it again.
"I want to keep raising awareness," Schoenstein said. "I want to keep being a voice for people that aren't quite ready to share their story or don't see themselves running a half-marathon."
Schoenstein said she was inspired by March's Autoimmune Disease Awareness Month, as well as Benaroya Research Institute in Seattle for helping her run her races.
To date, Schoenstein has run 122 half-marathons.