While most of us rarely step foot on a treadmill and have already given up our get-fit New Year’s resolutions, Natasha Sandrock Arthur is putting her feet to the pavement and keeping her resolutions in a big way. Natasha, co-owner of Coronado’s Island Fitness, recently completed the Carlsbad marathon—her 24th marathon to date.

She runs about four full marathons a year, plus one international race every year. But what is perhaps even more impressive than that is her membership in the Seven Continents Club—an elite group of runners who have a run a marathon on every continent in the world.

Her seven-continent triumph was born out of the deep sadness she felt at the loss of her husband, Michael Sandrock, who died of a massive pulmonary embolism in 2002. He was 38. They had been married for 12 years

“It was totally unexpected,” she said. “Losing someone so young, you realize that people take life for granted.”

Natasha, 42, said she also realized that “taking care of your health and body is so important—but not just physically. Emotional, mental and spiritual health all play a big roll in fitness.”

After Michael’s death, she decided to run a marathon. She had always been a runner, but not long distance.

In the weeks that followed, she trained hard, beginning with 5- to 6-mile runs and eventually increasing to 14-mile runs, with an occasional 16- to 18-mile run. In June of 2002, about two month’s after her husband had died, she ran the Rock 'n' Roll Marathon in downtown San Diego. 

Natasha pushed herself for 26.2 miles, until she crossed the finish line, completing the race in 4 hours 2 minutes … and?

Nothing.

“It was just a blur, sensory overload,” she said. “I thought there’d be this big breakthrough—an epiphany. But nothing relieved my grief.”

She said the sense of loss was all-consuming. “Grief takes you to a place where you don’t really have anything,” she added.

But she did have something. She had run a marathon, and whether she knew it or not, the feat had given her the self-confidence to try running another one.

She set her sights on a new goal—the America’s Finest City Half Marathon (AFC). This time, she trained even harder than the first. But about one month before the race, she faced another setback. She displaced her hip.

“It was too many miles, too soon,” she said.

Believing the distance was just too much, her doctors told her she couldn’t run marathons anymore.

Natasha hung her bib from the AFC race—the bib she never got to wear—on a door in her house. “I kept it there as a reminder that I couldn’t achieve my goal,” she said.

Then fate intervened. Prior to the AFC race, Natasha received a gift bag containing her bib and other supplies. Inside the bag was a flyer for a marathon on the Great Wall of China. The race was scheduled for May 22, 2004—what would’ve been her late husband’s 41st birthday.

“I realized in that moment that I was going to China,” she said.

It was a grueling race. Runners must climb a wall that is roughly two miles long with 3,700 stairs—twice.

Natasha had only intended to run the half marathon, but on the day she arrived, she knew she had to run the whole thing. 

Somewhere around mile 13, her legs began to cramp and her toes split. Then came the stairs.

“I literally and metaphorically hit a wall at mile 21,” she said. “I was exhausted.”

Officials wanted to pull her from the race, but they let her finish. This time, she had the breakthrough she had been waiting for.

“When I crossed the finish line, I thought, ‘Now that is a marathon!’ ” Natasha said.

She went back to her hotel room that night and lit a candle in honor of her husband’s birthday. “I cried and cried,” she remembered. “But then I realized it was OK to live, to honor his life by living my life.”

And so began the journey of seven continents. First there was the Tenzing-Hillary Everest Marathon in Nepal. Runners had to hike for 10 days just to reach the start line, near the base of Mount Everest. The extreme altitude caused nosebleeds and dehydration, which caused nausea, among other uncomfortable symptoms.

And yet, Natasha describes the experience as a “dream come true.”    

Next came a race along the Inca Trail in Peru, another challenging course with about 6,000 stairs at extreme altitudes. Peru was followed by the K42 Swiss Alpine Marathon Davos in Switzerland, which Natasha called “a tough mountain run,” and where her shoes “ate” the back of her heels and caused major blisters.

After South America and Europe, she ran the Kilimanjaro Marathon in Tanzania, where she was particularly inspired by the people and culture.

“It was hotter than blazes, but it’s a beautiful, beautiful place,” she said. “The people are so poor, but so kind and generous. They had love, which seemed to be enough for them.”

In 2009, she ran a marathon in Antarctica—yes, Antarctica—which she traveled to via a Russian research vessel. It was an experience of National Geographic proportion. At one point, a chinstrap penguin crossed in front of her along the path. “It was just too much!” she said.    

But perhaps more pivotal than any penguin encounter was the day she met George Arthur. The pair worked together for a year at a defense consulting firm before they started dating in June of 2009.  

In 2010, George joined Natasha for the 6-Foot Track Marathon in New South Wales, Australia, where she completed her seven-continent quest. It was perhaps the toughest race yet, with a steep, 12 percent grade. Runners were also forced to cross a 50- to 75-foot-wide river with chest-deep water.

The cutoff time was seven hours flat. At 6 hours 29 minutes, battling a sore knee and sandy shoes from the riverbed, Natasha and George crossed the finish line hand-in-hand. Following the race, the couple drove to Sydney and were married on March, 17, 2010. 

When asked about the lessons she gained along the way, Natasha said there are many. She initially began running marathons because of the grief and guilt she felt after her husband died. “I wanted to beat that out of myself,” she said.

But instead, she learned to be kinder to herself and to open herself up to receiving love.

“I am extremely grateful for the gift that is my husband,” she said with a smile. “I am so blessed.”

She also gained a desire to serve others. In addition to Island Fitness, Natasha and George are starting a second business, Ourgenesis Foundation, which will fight world hunger and poverty.

For Natasha, running marathons has never been about stats or race times (although she knows them all by heart and rattles them off like merit badges: China, 6 hours 23 minutes; Peru, 9 hours 24 minutes; Nepal 9 hours 18 minutes; Switzerland, 6 hours 59 minutes; Tanzania, 5 hours 1 minute). For her, it is all about the journey. She has learned, no matter what the circumstances (blisters, cramps, nosebleeds, sadness), to take the time to appreciate her surroundings and many blessings—something she realized while standing at the base of Mount Everest.

“It’s about how you get to the race, enjoying where you are and what you’re doing,” she said. “I was so focused on getting there, but it’s really a journey, not a destination.”

To learn more about Natasha, check back next week for details on how she trained for these races and her tips on how to lead a healthier life.