Finish Lines & Milestones: Episode 153: Sally Hed Dahlquist - 178 Marathons
Share
Here's how people can enjoy this episode:
- Spotify (watch or listen)
- YouTube (watch)
- Apple Podcasts
- Amazon Music
Guest: Sally Hed Dahlquist @sallyunstoppable
Show Notes:
Sally Hed Dahlquist and I met through previous guest, Christine Anderson of Anderson's Maple Syrup (Pure Fuel).
During this episode, sponsored by Amazfit and Relay Active, we talk about:
- Her 2026 Tokyo Marathon experience and how she got into the race
- The Tokyo Marathon cutoffs and how she planned for them
-
The bathroom situation in Tokyo
-
What it was like growing up with a rare birth defect and a life expectancy of 15
-
How everyone in her family seems to have a small business and how she became a business owner herself
-
Learning that her health was ok, but that she was out of shape and needed to start exercising
-
Running her first marathon at Twin Cities
-
Becoming the sole owner of and selling a biotechnology company
-
Meeting her husband on a ski trip she organized
-
PTSD from her childhood illness
-
Losing her dad to Alzheimer’s while also helping care for a friend with cancer
-
Cancelled races and race medals
-
Finishing her quest to run marathons in all 50 states
-
Some stories from a few other races she’s done
-
Buying an RV off of someone she met on Craigslist
-
Running a marathon in Antarctica and her quest to see all of the world’s penguins
- Her race spreadsheet
Previous Guests Mentioned
Sponsor Details
- Amazfit - Use ALLYB for 10% off
- Relay Active - Use MILESTONES for 15% off
Other Links
- Sally's Podcast, Unstoppable Stories That Move
- Follow me on Instagram @allytbrett_runs
- Subscribe to Finish Lines & Milestones weekly newsletter
This is a SandyBoy Productions podcast.
Episode Transcript:
Sally Hed Dahlquist: This whole race, my whole career, 177 marathons.
All depends on me getting to mile 24 in 30 minutes.
Ally: Welcome to Finish Lines and Milestones, a podcast for everyday runners. I'm your host, Ali Brett Knocker, and if you run. You're a runner and every runner has a story. Join me each week as I share these stories and we celebrate finish lines and milestones together. This week's episode is brought to you by Amaze Fit.
Amaze Fit is a global, smart, wearable brand that designs smart watches, fitness trackers, and health technology for active lifestyles like ours. Right now, they have a spring sale going on. So when I tell you, now's the time. It really is. You can get up to 27% off certain items. I just got my Helio ring. If you're watching the video, I'll show it to you and it is only $109 and there's no additional subscription required.[00:01:00]
It's all in the zep. App, which I also connect my balance to smartwatch too. So now I don't wear my watch to sleep. I was doing that to track my sleep and it was okay, but I much prefer to sleep in just a ring versus my watch. So if you are looking to upgrade your wearables or your smartwatch, head to a maze fit.com that.
A-M-A-Z-F-I and my code Allie, B-A-L-O-Y-B, will work outside of the sale. So if you would head to the link in the show notes to make your purchase. and thank you amaz fit for supporting this podcast.
Before I get to this week's guest, I wanted to let you know that I have a race recap that is up both in the podcast feed and on my website, athlete bouquets.com on the blog there. So if you prefer to read, you can go there. There's links and pictures if you prefer to listen, you can do that here, wherever you're listening to this, and I share my experience on.
running the St. Jude Rock and Roll DC half Marathon, which was on Saturday, March [00:02:00] 21st. It was really fun and really an honor to experience what it was like to run as a St. Jude Hero. my hope is that it inspires others to do the same. So go check that out if you haven't already.
And now This week's episode is with Sally Head Alquist. She has run 178 marathons. Which is just insane. Let that sink in Marathons. 178 of them, so we talk about some of her race experiences and journeys, which I wish we would've covered more of, frankly, but we just ran out of time.
We talk about how she was not expected to live. Past her teenage years and the impact that that has had on her life. we talk about her recent marathon in Tokyo, a little bit about how she strategized for that race, given all the cutoffs that there are and just her overall experience there, and a non-running related topic we cover is how Sally got out of a hundred thousand dollars in debt, another marathon if you will.
And we chat about how she, after running a marathon in Antarctica, is on a quest to see all of the [00:03:00] different penguin species of the world, which is really cool. So I know you're really gonna enjoy this conversation with Sally.
Alright. Sally, head Alquist fresh off of the Tokyo Marathon.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Yes, woo-hoo, world major. It was my fourth world major
Ally: Wow.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: and 78 Overall. It's crazy.
Ally: Yeah guys, 178 marathons. That's, And, and 200 is not that far away for you.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: You know, your milestones and finish lines. That's my next goal. I, I can see it. It's on the horizon. I'm on my way to 200 you know, with me, I do about one a month, so
Ally: Jesus.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: to finish that. I know 27, 20 28,
Ally: So cool, so incredible. So before I forget right off the bat, I want to thank Christine Anderson for introducing us. She, uh, she is lovely and she is the creator of Pure Fuel, which is one of the fuels I use for running. It's pure Anderson's maple syrup. So [00:04:00] shameless plug for them.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I love that stuff too,
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: the one who got me started on it. Otherwise I was kinda like, well, don't you need these goos and electrolytes and all this stuff? And, this maple syrup actually tastes really good, tastes a lot better, and I think my body knows what to do with it more.
Ally: Right? Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: then I can always add the electrolytes from something else.
Ally: Yep.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: So, so, yeah.
Ally: so Thank you Christine and I actually, I found them, I found. pure Fuel at a race expo. I don't know, I reached out to them or something. Somehow I found my way to Christine and then had her on the podcast. And then next month at the Carmel Marathon, we will meet in person for the first time, which I am so excited about.
So,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Oh,
coming month,
Ally: Yeah. And she's running the full marathon after working the expo, which is inspiring in and of itself. She's nuts. I was like, okay, well, I'll be cheering.
Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: hopefully she's bringing her crew so somebody
Ally: Oh yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: the booth for her.
Ally: Yes. I, I hope she, I'm sure she will have help, but, I, wanna talk about Tokyo first because that is fresh on a lot of people's minds.
Perhaps people who ran, my, my running coach, [00:05:00] Rachel Senders was over there and, and that was her sixth star, so that was big.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Oh yeah, there was something like 2000
Ally: Oh my gosh.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: their six stars.
Ally: that is mind blowing too. so how long did you have your sight set on Tokyo? Because I know it's just kind of hard to get into and do. So did it take a while for you?
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Shockingly, no.
Ally: Oh, tell, tell the people you
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Last summer on a whim, I put my name in the lottery, and then on September 19th I got an email saying I got in.
Ally: did not. Oh,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I couldn't believe it. I'm like, honey, we're going to Tokyo. And we had
Ally: wow.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: to Japan two years before on a ski trip with our friends, and I was like, oh, you know, I'm never gonna get in.
I just gotta keep applying for these things and see. I'm like, okay, we're going back. We're going back now.
Ally: well, somebody listening is gonna be like, well, I've tried 12 times, or whatever, you know, it's weird how that works. That system is crazy. But yeah, I've, I haven't put my name in for Tokyo. I've done it for London before, maybe Berlin. But yeah, I, I, my lottery luck's not that [00:06:00] great, so I don't stew over it too much.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Yeah. Yeah. So my last two then are Chicago and Boston.
Ally: Okay.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: And I'm gonna have to, I didn't apply for those lotteries this year, so now I'm gonna have to start doing that. And of course they have charity bibs,
Ally: Yep.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: something else I am, I'm working on. But yeah, those are lower priority, you know, I just wanna get my 200, have fun
Ally: Just wanna get my 200. Yeah, absolutely. You will no doubt. Unstoppable. You will.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Thanks.
Ally: Well, I wanna hear your experience with, the cutoffs because for so many people, I actually had a former podcast guest, Monique, who unfortunately wasn't able to finish because of the cutoffs. So I know that that was a real fear, a real thing. So maybe talk about that side of the experience too.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Yes. So let me grab my bracelet so I can show you.
Ally: Oh, please.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: so I put all my stuff in a, in a three ring binder that I have, and this is my Tokyo page.
Ally: Okay.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I was super nervous about those cutoffs because I'm a [00:07:00] six hour finisher, you know, five and I should be able to do five and a half, five,
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: of screw around and have a good time and the bathroom and
Ally: Right.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: And so I'm super, super, super nervous about those cutoffs. And so I made two bracelets. Here's the medal
Ally: Oh yeah, that's, let's see the metal. So cool. I love it. Oh,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: but no Japanese characters.
Ally: interesting.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Okay.
Ally: Good.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: And then you also have to wear their bracelet from the
Ally: Okay.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: packet. And then I made two bracelets.
Ally: Okay.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: the red one has all the cutoffs. You know, these
Ally: Wow, that's a lot of cutoffs. How many total?
Sally Hed Dahlquist: they have
Ally: Whew.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: nine cutoffs and they're usually two to three miles apart. Not too bad. The tightest one was between mile 22 and mile 24, and then I made a white one. this was my time goals where I thought I could reasonably be finish this thing. Well within these cutoffs, because technically they have a seven hour cutoff, but the [00:08:00] last person crossed the start line 30 minutes late so.
They only had six and a half hours to finish. I crossed the start line 25 minutes after gun.
Ally: Okay.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: chip time doesn't matter. It's all clock time for these cutoffs. so I know my pace pretty well. I go about five, five miles an hour for the first 10 miles and then four to four and a half after that. And I memorized these as well, but I put 'em on the bracelets because you know how you get marathon brain, you're
Ally: Oh,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: know. Was that 38.5 or 30 38 or what? What? So that cutoff was at 38.5 kilometers. Oh
Ally: okay.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: my, bracelets and kilometers and my times in uh,
Ally: Wow.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: And I really focused on the next two to three miles I had in front of me before the next cutoff the first two cutoffs, I was able to gain 10 minutes of time. So by the time I got to the third cutoff, I had 20 minutes and I felt okay, I can relax a little bit, [00:09:00] but I can't stop because 38.5, you know, mile 24, I'm gonna need extra time. I'm gonna be tired by the time I get to mile 22. And my goal to get to mile 22 was at the, five hour mark.
Ally: Okay.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: So I wanted to get there at five hours. cause I started at 9 35 and I needed to get there at 2 35.
Ally: Okay.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: five hours. and then you think, oh, you got an hour, you know, an hour and a half to finish the last six miles or last four miles, no problem. But
Ally: Mm-hmm.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I was like, I need, I got 30 minutes. When I got to mile 22, according to my, my personal goals, got 30 minutes to go, two miles to get to mile 24. I can do that. No need to panic, stay calm, maintain my steady pace. Walk here and there. You're okay. But I'm like, that is not enough margin of time. And then I look at my Red Bull, sit and go. Oh really? I actually have 45 minutes to get to mile 24. Okay. [00:10:00] problem. still doesn't feel like enough time, could happen.
I could trip my God
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: and then I, and then every once in a while I'd see a volunteer with a little tiny sign that says, next cutoff at. three 20. I'm like, I got an extra five minutes. Wow. I can relax a little bit. No, no, I can't. No, I can't. I could get a cramp. I gotta make it to that 24. This whole race, my whole career, 177 marathons.
All depends on me getting to mile 24 in 30 minutes. I don't make it. All this money, all this planning, all this lottery is just down the crap. knows when I'll get into this race again? I have got make it I cannot stop. I gotta keep, don't panic. Calm down. Just keep going. You can do it. I have never been relieved to get to mile 24 in my life.
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: point, victory was mine. I'm like, I can crawl it in.
Ally: Right.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: [00:11:00] an hour and 10 minutes to finish here. Two miles. I can do it. And it was like. I just wanted to cry. I think I did have a tear or two,
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: cry, you're still running.
Ally: You love this. It's great.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: and I'm like, this is great. I'm here. And at that point, you're at an out and back. So then I could look over the other lane of traffic and see all the people running toward me. the people in my lane at 24 started yelling at the other people, run, you're gonna miss the cutoff. You aren't gonna make it.
Ally: Hmm.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: thousand people behind me. I'm like, oh, just so bad. So the key was having a plan and I started preparing this little plan of my goal pace and comparing it with these, with the cutoff times. Two weeks before I left, you know, I had written out some test bracelets, wanted to make sure that they wouldn't move around. I wanted to have this memorized because like I said, the whole trip is for a waste and God knows when I'm gonna get into this thing
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: the lottery, I can't screw this [00:12:00] up. oh, I gotta, I gotta keep going. so, and the other huge aspect of this was the bathroom situation.
Ally: Okay.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: So I had heard with Tokyo that the bathrooms are far off course, like six blocks. You can't see them from the course. And people miss their cutoffs because they go to the bathroom.
Ally: Oh
Sally Hed Dahlquist: And so people told me that they run this race wearing, depends
Ally: wow.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: what I know people with medical issues do this. I've personally not done it, but I went to Goodwill and got a couple of pairs.
Ally: Did you wear them or did you opt not to?
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I brought them with
Ally: You brought them with you.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: them in my waistband and I ended up not using them. because also at the start corral, they do have a lot of bathrooms, but it was taken people 30 minutes to get through the bathroom line. And I just didn't wanna stand for 30 minutes and wait there. And I thought, oh, I can find a discreet place to do my thing and then throw it in the garbage can. there are too many people around. I mean, if I had waited till my corral was completely [00:13:00] empty and started 30 minutes after the gun time, I could have done that. But I'm like, no, no. And, and I wore a skirt too.
Ally: Oh
Sally Hed Dahlquist: short and I had skirt over it. So like in case I needed to pull it down,
Ally: right?
Sally Hed Dahlquist: know, put the little depends on with no one seeing,
Ally: Yep.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: because I also, or somebody knows, they saw somebody who had made a mess of themselves
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: and they pulled them off and kicked 'em off the
Ally: No.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: They got kicked out. Yeah. For making a mess in their pants.
Ally: Wow. I didn't
Sally Hed Dahlquist: only it's embarrassing,
Ally: Then you.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: finish.
Ally: that's awful. Actually, I didn't never heard of that happening.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I know. and my friend actually saw that happen. So this is like a secondhand account
Ally: Yeah. Whoa,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: so at the beginning of the race, I didn't drink that much in the Stark Corral.
I had like eight ounces of water, eight ounces electrolyte. And I just told myself, I'm not going to the bathroom this whole time. I have done races where I've not gotten to the bathroom, but in case I'm in duress, I've got one of these depends in my
Ally: that's so great. That's so funny.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: [00:14:00] on
Ally: Yep. Ready to go.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I'm ready to go.
I brought some extra Vaseline in case of chafing. and I was doing fine. I was doing fine. I'm like, you know, I really, I don't gotta go. I'm not gonna think about it. I'm just gonna run. I'm gonna sweat it out. It's all good. And on the course they had signs where their bathrooms were, but they were like around a building or somewhere and you couldn't see it, and you didn't know how long the lines were. eventually I connected with a friend and he said that he waited 11 minutes in the bathroom line. I'm like, that's too close. I only have a 20 to 30 minute margin,
Ally: Oh my gosh.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: That's not good enough. but at mile 17, I turned a corner around a park just happened to glance over and there was a building right there on the course, and a guy was coming out of it messing with his pants.
I'm like, that's a park bathroom. Can I go in there? Yes. No line. Just a, the hole
Ally: Wow.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: with the Japanese. I can squatty potty. I know how to do that
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: in and out in three minutes on my way. So great.
Ally: Wow.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I saw my husband and I gave him my skirt and my [00:15:00] extra
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I'm like, I'm good now. I could have made it to the end,
Ally: Wow.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Yeah.
Ally: I don't know what's more impressive running 178 marathons or finding a bathroom with no lines in Tokyo sounds like, I don't know which one's crazier.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: the park bathroom,
Ally: That's amazing.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Yeah. Yeah. And well, I always feel like I have to go to the bathroom, like right at the start line.
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: not doing this. And, and then I'll often eat extra electrolytes the day before and the morning and stuff. And I think that's what makes me go to the bathroom.
So
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: doing that. I'll be fine. I'll just take this stuff while I'm running, I need it, instead of extras in advance. So, yeah,
Ally: How was the weather? Was it warm?
Sally Hed Dahlquist: It was perfect.
Ally: Oh, good.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: It was the low fifties in the morning when we started. You know, you had to wait two hours in your corral before the start eventually it got sunny and maybe 61 degrees Fahrenheit,
Ally: Okay.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: but then there were icy cold breezes that came in. [00:16:00] Fantastic. And you're running through the city, so like New York, you're kind of in and outta the shadows of the buildings.
Ally: Mm-hmm.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: So I was perfectly comfortable. I had just a baseball hat on. I had a little crown of the Statue of Liberty, so my husband could find me.
Ally: That's good. Good idea.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: yeah. And so it was kind of funny listening to people in Japanese, shout at me, statue of Liberty,
Ally: Oh yeah. And there,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: anything that remotely sounded like Liberty. Liberty. I was like,
Ally: yeah, that's me.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: New York. I'm
Ally: And with Tokyo, there's a lot of out and back. So how many times did you get to see your husband?
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Hmm. I saw him three times.
Ally: Wow.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: and that was what, toward the end, one of them for sure was like mile. 18 mile nine and mile 18 are right across from each other.
Ally: That's so nice.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: So it was easy for that. saw him one other time and then I missed him at mile 25. he was right at the end, and I didn't see him. 'cause there was a corner and I always cut the corners,
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: call me lazy,
Ally: Yeah. You're like, no, I'm, It's smart,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: So yeah, he was out there and normally he [00:17:00] brings me a coke, but he didn't, because I was, I'm not counting on him, you know, I'm
Ally: right?
Sally Hed Dahlquist: on my own. I can't count on seeing anyone else. And there are so many convenience stores everywhere in Japan, you know, they love their seven elevens that you could duck in and buy something if you wanted to, which I've done before.
Ally: Oh, that's funny.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: like, cutoffs, time cutoffs, no stopping,
Ally: No messing around.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I, I brought some a a thousand yen with me,
Ally: Okay.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: which is like, what, $6 in case I wanted to buy something. But, yeah, I, I really prepared, like knowing those cutoffs gave me the confidence I can make this, I can do this. And it's exactly my same pace and time. So it was an easy course, but stressful ' cause there really weren't any hills either. the other odd thing about it is that I've never touched so many people in a marathon before. Like it was so, so crowded that I was just politely, Hey, I'm coming. Hey, I'm next to you. Just kind of constantly like brushing the shoulder of someone next to me,
Ally: Wow.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: even through. Like mile 15, it was still kinda [00:18:00] shoulder to shoulder and you had two lanes of the road to use. And then the other people had the other two lanes. So it was pretty wide in places, but it was still shoulder to shoulder.
Ally: Wow.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: then, from a 22 to 24, I was like, I gotta get around these
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: They are in my way. Just let me just get out of my way. I will go around you.
Ally: And you did. And you made it. Ugh.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I did and I made it to 24 and then I just relaxed, but I kept going. I finished the last. Two and a half in 30 minutes. I met all of my time goals 100% and I finished in
Ally: awesome.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: 55, I was really proud of myself. You know, I didn't completely slack off those last couple miles. I'm like, I still wanna make my personal
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: 55.
And I met all of them up till 24. Don't blow it on the last two, so, yeah.
Ally: And did you collect all of the bath salts at the end? I saw videos of bath salts.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: yeah. Kind of a weird giveaway at the end, [00:19:00] you
Ally: Very,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Yeah. '
Ally: Cause there wasn't just one bath salt, there were multiple, which I found just fascinating.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Yes. They gave out bath salts at the end, and of course they're heavy, but they did something super awesome is they gave everybody a little plastic baggie to
Ally: Oh yeah. That's key.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: went through the line, and you got these bath salt, and you got shampoo and conditioner, you know, a
Ally: Mm-hmm.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: and you got. Fabric softener and some random Japanese food. And like, oh, this is heavy, you know? and then I was in the, at the end, my changing area, my meeting area was the light green area, which turns out is that it's a kilometer away from the finish line.
Ally: Oh yeah, man.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: and they have people with signs directing you. I'm like, where is this place, you know, when you're snaking through
Ally: Hmm. Yeah,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: buildings and finally get to it and this, you know, this cute area And they have the, the drop bags there. Well, and then people could go into the building and clean up. So I think that's why it ended up being far away.
'cause they [00:20:00] wanted all these different, I think they had six different areas where people could go, where they could actually go in and clean up. But I'm like, come on dude, my marathon as soon as I crossed that line. 'cause you had to keep walking to get your
Ally: yeah. Oh no. Yeah, that's tough.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: the drop bags there. It's right across the street from Tokyo Station. So
Ally: Hmm.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: drop bag and go,
Ally: Yeah,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: known it was that far away, I probably wouldn't have used it
Ally: yeah, yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: felt pointless. And then I had to walk back to Tokyo Station. I sound, I'm whining a little bit.
Ally: Well, it's so hard after a marathon. I just think of my personal experience would be the New York City Marathon was like, you walk a million miles after, so,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: That's exactly what it was
Ally: Yeah. It's tough.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: yeah, so almost everything about the Tokyo Marathon was great because they have so much signs and it was also the cleanest marathon I've ever been to. They had little volunteers out there with little, little baggies that you could just put your stuff in all the time, you know?
And they had 'em, they were holding 'em out. It was like. clean. I love Japan. I think every society should be like
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I [00:21:00] think all the, little hoodlums in the United States need to go to Japan to see how the good people live.
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: they're so polite and clean and there's no graffiti. And know, the downside of that is that people might feel like they don't have as much personal freedom, but it's nice,
Ally: Yeah, it sounds, it sounds really nice. I've actually never been to Japan, so that's gotta go. Gotta go sometime.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: you gotta
Ally: Mm-hmm.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: when we were there the first time we were skiing in the Huck Valley, which is west of Tokyo, so out in the country. So we got to see the countryside and it turns out that Japan is actually kind of going through a little bit of an. recession there. instead of their economy growing, it's contracting a little bit because their population is down. And so all of the people who live in the rural areas, the farming communities, that younger generation wants to go to Tokyo, which is like 33 million people. So they have 600,000 abandoned farmhouses in rural Japan are being decayed. [00:22:00] And the older neighbors are now taking care of these farmhouses as well as the farms.
And so they're starting a program. where foreigners could come in and live in these houses for six months and take care of the properties. And so if you're doing remote work, you wanna see life in Japan, go on a little adventure, you can go live in these houses and help take care of them and. It's nice, they're nice communities. they had one high school that they said at one point had 700 students, and now it's down to 70. I
Ally: Whoa. That is.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Yeah. And each of the regions is trying to promote their special thing like $20 apples or fantastic almonds or these amazing oranges or honey, you know.
So they're trying to market themselves for, a niche that they're known for,
Ally: Yeah. Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: And these apples have something like when it freezes the sugar inside them of solidifies. And then when it thaws again, you have these little. Swirls of sweet [00:23:00] apples, apple juice inside the apples you bite into them are fantastic.
Ally: Sounds really good.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Yeah, yeah. And now they're trying to do this thing, this Tokyo banana, which I think is like a twine. They were giving those out too.
Ally: Oh my gosh.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: yeah. So, and on this trip now, we stayed more in the cities and we started with Hiroshima,
Ally: Hmm.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: was amazing. We stayed at this place called the World Friendship Center.
It's kind of like a youth hostile, but for all ages adults. And they pair you up with survivors of the a bombing. So there are 90,000 people still alive who have survived this bombing. one of them came in and he told us his story. these people are called the he, he boka. This whole community of people.
They said after the war, they were actually discriminated against because other people knew they had been exposed to the radiation. they said two weeks after the abo, the area was still And anybody who was in that area and two weeks after the bombing is considered a survivor, a hika. And you know, they have all [00:24:00] these health problems, of course.
Not to get, uh, too far into that weeds. I mean, that's a, that's a pretty amazing story. You know, seeing it firsthand just
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: makes it real. And these people are on a mission that all nuclear weapons should be banned. They just say, you know, what happened to us was so inhumane. It's a crime against humanity. That mass destruction of their entire community and how much the people suffered is just beyond unacceptable. You know, no one should ever go through that again. So that's, that's their mission, you know, and it's, really, know, bittersweet to see that.
Ally: Yeah. How far is that from Tokyo? Is that like a driving distance or is that a plane ride?
Sally Hed Dahlquist: it, both, it was, uh, four hours on the
Ally: Okay.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: train and we, we could have flown there in an hour and a half, but it would've made our travel schedule harder
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: So then after that we went to Kyoto and Osaka and back
Ally: Wow.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: So we saw
Ally: Wow.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: things.
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: feel like we got a, a pretty good feel for Japan and everywhere we went is just beautiful.
The people are amazing. Recommend it.
Ally: [00:25:00] Yeah, I gotta go.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: There goes tourism Japan.
Ally: Yeah. Yeah. There's my spiel. Well, I think you gave me a, an opening for a good segue into kinda more of your, more of your story. And that is not that you are necessarily discriminated against or have been, but you had a tough upbringing in your, with your health, you know, like,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: yeah,
Ally: and, going through what you did.
so would you be open to talking about that now?
Sally Hed Dahlquist: yeah, yeah. So that, that was, that was tough, but a tough childhood. simply because I was sick as a kid I had this weird birth defect that. It was really bad, I'll avoid the gory details because then people are like, oh, well then it becomes all about
Ally: That
Sally Hed Dahlquist: the problem, the disease,
Ally: yes.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: rather than more kind of about the emotional after effects.
And I think a, a lot of sick kids can relate to what I went through at the time I thought I was, I thought there was only 23 people in the world that had my problem somehow along the way. That's what the doctors had told me. turns out that's not really true. But I grew [00:26:00] up feeling like this complete medical freak and my parents told everybody, and every time I went somewhere, that's all people wanted to know about.
That's all they wanted to talk about. That's all they asked me about. And so I felt like this freak and that was my medical identity, and I hated that. I was like, I just want to get away from this as fast as I can. So with this medical problem I had, said that I would be lucky to make it to age 15. I got three years to live this. This really sucks. And when I was 13, they did this treatment. And I said, well, we kind of showed everything together. We didn't have to put any artificial parts in there.
You know, you still got your own own equipment, original equipment, but you know, this might only last another 20 years and if not, we'll put you on the transplant list. I was like, you know, fuck that. This really sucks. I mean, 'cause this was from age five to age 15 of in and out of all these appointments.
And they were awful. And my parents weren't mean, but they just really [00:27:00] sensitive or helpful. I never felt like anybody cared. And I'm like, I am never, ever coming back to this hospital. I'm gonna walk outta this hospital. I'm gonna get through school as fast as I can. I'm going to get a job and it make some money.
I'm gonna travel the world and meet friends from all over. And I'm never getting married and having kids because I don't want any kid to have the same problem that I do. And no one will ever love me anyway because I'm this, you know, this freak, totally unworthy of anything. and I'm gonna be rich someday. that seems highly unlikely and totally un, unimportant. I created these goals. I, you know, I just saw this in an instant, flash through my, like I'm in the hospital, in the mirror, cause this is the first time I can get outta bed and be in the bathroom by myself, you know? Otherwise you always see these people around you all the time and you're still connected to all these tubes and wires. I'm just standing in the bathroom going, gotta get the fuck outta here. What the fuck just happened to me? You know? You know, oh my, yeah, this treatment's [00:28:00] kind of worse than the disease, you know, which it wasn't. know, considering I didn't die.
Ally: Oh my gosh.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I made it out. I started college at 16 and when I went to college, I realized nobody knows me here. I walked through those college doors and went to the classroom. Somebody said hi to me and I was like, this person doesn't, doesn't know anything about me. I can be anything I want to this person. Wow, I can start over. I don't have to be this sick freak that everybody knows about. Wow. Amazing. It was like this breakthrough. I was like, You know? So then it kinda started this, I felt like I had had a, a split personality a little bit. Like, well, I can pretend to be a normal girl. I can pretend to be like everybody else, but I have this little secret inside that, you know, that I keep private, And that was really part of protecting myself from. that had really been so traumatic. And I also just wanted to go out and have a good time. Like, I'm gonna party, I'm gonna meet people, I'm gonna date, I'm gonna have all this fun and live it up. And I did. That
Ally: Yeah.[00:29:00]
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I'm gonna do all these risky things and reckless behavior. 'cause I only have 20 years to live. It doesn't matter. It's awesome. So, uh, I also wanted to kinda give back and make things, if I could make things better for the other kids. But I never wanted to be a doctor. I hate hospitals. I don't wanna work there. I don't wanna be an md. I don't wanna be a nurse. I'm like, I just can't do that to other kids. And now today, they're much better about it and the kids have counselors and all this stuff.
Ally: Yeah,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: hopefully people won't be ashamed as I was about the problem. Whatever problems they're having, I think there's a lot more support system for kids these days. and you know, I graduated from college. I got a BS in genetics and cell biology
Ally: geez.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: worked. Awesome. and I worked for this one company and met a couple guys who had started their own company on the side. And it was a service company laboratory where we were developing tests for other people, like an AIDS test, a home pregnancy test, test. And they asked me if I wanted to join them [00:30:00] a lab assistant. And their offer was, well come work for us in a bad neighborhood pay. Quit your cushy job. but you know. Kind of work, work for yourself, work for us, you know, have this free schedule. And I said, if you pay my health insurance and gimme 30% of the company, I'll do it.
Ally: There we go.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: And, and they did. I was like, this is great. You know? So I had kind of a free schedule and quickly realized that they weren't doing enough marketing. And everybody in my family, on both sides, my mom's side of my dad's side, everybody has a small business. So it's plastics manufacturing. It is metal welding shops, it is computer sales. You know, at that time, computer
Ally: Right.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: deal. my cousins make bicycle wheels, you know, the head disc wheels, that's my
Ally: And by the way, where is your family from Minnesota or somewhere else?
Sally Hed Dahlquist: in Minnesota. I'm currently in Afton, Minnesota, which is just east of the MSP airport.
Ally: Okay.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: , central Minnesota is where I grew up. you know, the core thing was we all wanted to make an independent living as a scientist and we were having a [00:31:00] good time doing it.
We'd go out for lunch every day, screw around joke. It was super fun. And, but we weren't really making enough money to pay all the bills, so we all borrowed money. Every single one of us, my business partners put their houses up and they got second mortgages. we were doing all this great stuff.
And for me, I got to the point where I was a hundred thousand dollars and dead and I'm like 32 years old and I'm like, I can't.
Ally: Oh my gosh.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I have spent it all, and this is crazy. in the meantime I'm feeling kind of tired. I'm, you know, going up and down the stairs panting like a dog. I'm like, oh fuck. You know, it's time for that transplant. You know, it's been a couple years. I should, I should probably go back to the doctor and see how things are going. Okay. I hate this. So I go back to the doctor and, she says, we can't tell there's anything wrong with you. You, you're doing great. Every, everything seems to be working just fine. We think you're outta shape.
Ally: Oh.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: What [00:32:00] Maybe you should try exercising. What are you kidding me? Physical therapy exercise.
Nobody ever said anything about that.
Ally: Wow.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Well, you know, and I was never a couch potato, so I always played tennis and I rode my bike and always walked really fast. I would always walk around the legs. I could run for five minutes, but it's not like I was out there sprinting or anything. And, and she's again, if you ever wanted to have a baby someday, that's like spending nine months on the treadmill.
So think of that, I'm like, well, you know, it's probably not gonna happen. Don't feel like that's in the card for me. So I started taking weightlifting for women through Bloomington, Minnesota Community Ed. And the instructor there, Kathy, made us run on the treadmill for five minutes to warm up. I was like, I can, you know, I can do five minutes, you know, and then I kept going. I kept going, and then I would go early to class and I'd run around the block.
And the weightlifting was great. Turns out it's the gym where the Bloomington Volunteer Fire Department works out.
Ally: That's motivating.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I know, right? Uh, and I was one of the younger ones in the class, [00:33:00] so, you know, me and the 80-year-old ladies and the firemen, I was great. the ladies would tell me how they were, had their new boyfriends in the old folks home. It
Ally: Oh,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: cute.
Ally: that's so fun.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: lady, this lady said, no matter how old you are, you still want this love in your life. And I'm
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: you know, no one's ever gonna love me, but okay. And then she's like, oh, that'll happen. I'm like, no, I'm never getting married.
Ally: Famous last words.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Yeah. Spoiler alert. I did get married when I was 47. so I'm taking this class and I'm feeling better and I'm running around the lakes in Minneapolis, are three miles each, and you can easily go 10, 20 miles running around the, all these lakes. It's great. Eight. And I got lost. And when I got home I realized I had run 17 miles and I
Ally: Wow. What,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: was like,
Ally: did you run any, any sort of race before that? Like a half marathon or you literally just got lost and ran 17 miles.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: a 5K when I was 18 years old and came in the last place, the [00:34:00] Montgomery, Minnesota Kades. Fun run
Ally: Wow.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: that was my 5K. I was panting like a dog for that one. I still have a t-shirt.
Ally: That's funny.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Yeah. And run the 17 miles and in the meantime my best friend was training for a marathon. She also was a regular girl. Not super athletic, not a couch potato, but she had some guys from her work that were running the marathons who had done it many times. And so she started training with them and it was her goal from New Year's Eve, and I knew she was gonna do it. I knew she was gonna finish it, you know?
So I helped her and I watched her a little bit, once she finished that Twin Cities Marathon and I had run that 17 miles, I was like, you know, I think I can do this. I think I can give it a try. And so I spent another year training. I signed up through
Ally: Wow.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: room, you know Jeff Galloway's program?
He just
Ally: Uh, yes. Uh, such a loss.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I know. And so I ran with them and finished my first one in five 19. I couldn't believe it. My dad came out and took pictures. It was amazing. I finished it. I never thought I would do that. It was
Ally: And that was Twin [00:35:00] Cities was your first, okay.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: And you're running the course, and part of the course is mile 19, where you go over the Miss Mississippi River, this Franklin Avenue Bridge.
It's a long bridge, you know, like two or three blocks. But when you're going over the bridge and you look left, there's University of Minnesota Hospitals and clinic, and I can see the rooms, was a patient, where'd received all this treatment. And here I am running past and I realized, you know, that that very first Twin Cities marathon in 1982 was just a week before I'd had this miracle cure. And I was like, you know what? I never, never would've considered that I would be out here this. It, it was just, was never something I thought about, you know, something that, you know, other people did.
Mm-hmm. You know, you know, of course it goes in one ear and out the other and you don't think about it again. And there I wasn't like, wow, this is amazing. and then I signed up for grandma's
Ally: Right away. Okay. Yeah. Six months later. What year was this your first marathon? Sally.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: 2004. So I
Ally: Okay.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: 2004, grandma's 2005 was the following [00:36:00] June. So October to June. then I did one a year, two a year for a while. you know, I can, I feel pretty good. This is a pretty good part of my training. I'm not super fast. should do a few more. So I think the first six years I'd done eight and now it feels like such a waste of time.
Oh my, I could have gotten so many more in if
Ally: Could have been at three.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I know, I know. I could have been at 300. yeah. So, so that's what got me into it. And when I was doing what. me doing it is because it makes me feel healthy. That it makes me feel like, yeah, my problem really is solved. You know? 'cause sometimes I feel tired, still get those same feelings that make me feel sick. When I get those feelings, I kind of have a little bit of a panic attack and gotta go, you know, I'm fine, it's okay, it's been a long time. If it was gonna come back, it probably would've come back by now. you know, people will, well, you know, when cancer patients will get the kind of the five year all clear,
Ally: right.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: but it never really goes away. It's always in the back of your mind. You always worry about it. You just have [00:37:00] to learn how to cope with of these problems that might be coming back. I'm like, okay, so running the marathons and staying that active makes me feel like of conquered this beast, that I'm still healthy and I gotta maintain and I'm gut.
I'm good. Like how much
Ally: Yeah,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: do I need?
Ally: I'm like thinking. I'm just thinking. Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: So what do you think that's a dysfunctional reason? A little screwed up. It's helpful to me.
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: feel good,
Ally: Well, gosh, you're in good company, man,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: you know, it's such a personal reason for me to run these races and when I think about the charity causes and people run for that, I'm like, don't know if I wanna let people down.
You know? Definitely have to do it in a way where if I didn't finish, it's still okay. People would still gimme the money, you know? 'cause I'm trying to raise a million dollars for medical research myself.
Ally: is
outstanding.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Yeah. So, you know, I always feel like there's always more I can do, you know, with my, oh, So we could go back to the business if you want.
Ally: Right. Well, yeah. 'cause then that bus, [00:38:00] did that business end up going away? Did you end up owning that or building your own? Yeah. What happened with the business?
Sally Hed Dahlquist: to work. You know, I had taken this huge risk, and so I joined these guys in 96 and we were, had ramped up and we were doing pretty well. But, know, nine years later I am in debt, a hundred thousand dollars in debt. I owe $40,000 in taxes. That's fucking scary.
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: am terrified of the tax man. And when you owe taxes, you can only be on the payment plan for one year at a time.
Ally: Yeah,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: and so we were always juggling this. And, and technically we never went bankrupt.
We didn't, because if I had gone bankrupt, we would've had to sell the whole thing, and that would've been a done deal. and the projects we were working on were just too good. So it's nine years later, I'm in debt, I get this news that I'm gonna live, should exercise more. I'm like, well, fuck, now I gotta pay back this debt.
Ally: I'm not gonna die with this debt anymore. Damnit. Can't do that.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: you know, I thought bankrupt estate [00:39:00] would, it would all just go away.
Ally: Yeah. Interesting. Right? I mean,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: you know, some people have a midlife crisis and they go spend all the money. Well, I kind of had like an early crisis
Ally: Yeah. Wow.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: and that was when I was. Starting to run more. And so running was moving meditation for me
Ally: Hmm.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: and it would help me work on some of these business problems that we were having. And, you know, we were bringing in enough money to kind of keep the lights on and we were always reinvesting in the products that we were developing. And everything looked great. products were working really, really well. We had a lot of them.
One application is cancer research. a doctor would take a biopsy of a tumor, they'd grow it in a couple of Petri dishes, and then they'd try different chemotherapy, And then they would come on with my products, my color molecules, to see if those tumor cells were dying. So using these molecules, we could determine the effectiveness of chemotherapy by whether or not they were killing the tumor cells. And it was great, you know, and I'm, my God, I gotta figure this out.
I'm so far in debt, I can't, I [00:40:00] cannot quit. The data we have is just too good, so. What do you do? What do you do when you're in debt? Well, I remembered my boyfriend at college had gotten into debt and his mom sent him to a consumer counseling service, and so that's what I did. I found a nonprofit place that helps people fix their finances and get back on your feet again. So the place I found is called Family Means. They're based in Stillwater, Minnesota. They're a nonprofit consumer credit counseling service. So just Google that. If you need this, don't go with one.
That's a for-profit. Don't go one that consolidates your debt. Don't go with one that loans you more money. Those are all
Ally: Oh yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: So unless you're living in a bad neighborhood in squalor, you can't get away from this debt. Bankruptcy doesn't solve all your debt problems.
You still have to come up with a plan for repaying it. And, uh, with the nonprofit consumer credit counseling service, have five years to pay off your debt. You come up with a plan, you live within your means, and [00:41:00] you, make your payments to them. They're just managing the debt and your creditors on your behalf. So I had $50,000 of credit card debt and we came up with a plan. It would take me five years to pay it off, and then it would take me another years to pay off my student loans. And then during that time I would figure out some, I with my business partners to pay the taxes and I was like, God, this is gonna take me forever.
It's never gonna be out of debt. But, this is, this is a light at the end of the tunnel. This is something I can do this. so instead of paying $1,200 a month to my creditors directly, and I'm only making $300 of progress, I paid $800 to the counseling service and made $600 worth of progress. So I was actually less money each month paying down the debt twice as fast.
Ally: Wow.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: and you know, but that was another thing.
I was always kind of hiding from people and, you know, kind of pretending thing everything's okay. And I had this great boyfriend and I. I hid it from him. And, you know, he knew things were wrong, but didn't quite know [00:42:00] why. And, it wasn't good, you know. So my boyfriend left me, I lost my car, I lost my apartment.
I had to put my cat to sleep. Another the lowest of the low of my life. I'm like, you know, this just sucks, and that was the same month that I started on this program. within two months I could really see a difference. I am like, this is working. I'm still living within my means. I'm not acquiring any debt. It's working. it really motivated me keep doing more about it. And I took all these weird, odd jobs like. I started organizing a lot of the club trips so I could go skiing in Qua Valley for a week for $400 because then I was the trip chair and planned everything. organizer gets a free hotel and a free plane ticket.
Ally: There you go.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I can do this. This is how I can travel. So this is a great hack that people don't realize.
When you join a club and you start organizing things, you get a four and five star trip at a three star [00:43:00] price. And if you're the organizer, it's almost free. like, I can't pass this up. This is a fun thing for me to do on the side. It makes me feel good. and I don't have anything on my own that I can really give to people, but I can with my time. So I was doing that and I came clean to my family. said, 10 years, nobody's getting any presents. I'm not buying anybody Christmas presents. You know, I gotta focus on this debt. And my mom said. That's okay. I don't wanna buy presents for you people.
Ally: Yeah,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I'm just like, that's fine. Let's just play games.
Ally: that is, that is great.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: family has continued this tradition, but you know, we just play this dice game. You roll the dice, you get triples, you grab a
Ally: Mm-hmm.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Typical gifts might, might be alcohol or a funny t-shirt. It's
Ally: yeah,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: fun.
Ally: yeah,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: with it. And I didn't realize how much stress that took off my life so starting in October when they have all these ads about this gift, buy that gift, you all those ads are about stress. You are running around, you're stressful. Buy all your gifts
Ally: yeah. Ugh.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Walmart or go to Kohl's and buy somebody a sweater. Just ignore all of [00:44:00] that. None of it matters. don't participate in it. And all of a sudden, my life's the light easier. We're like, just show up. If you decorate, great, bring some food. Great. Nothing has to be perfect. Alls that matter is that you get your butt over here for dinner and a game. That's it. expectations, you know, it's so fun.
So I changed, you know, with this debt, with the business, I changed,
Marker
Ally: Quick break in the show to tell you about another sponsor. Relay Active Relay Active is a women's activewear brand, sorry guys. created for running. It is a small woman-owned business. 1% of all orders go to Animal Rescue, so it's a great brand to support. I love, love this brand.
I've been buying from them for years, actually, before I got the chance to partner with them, the fabric that she uses is so soft and high quality. My favorite products are the the Kella Pocket Crop Top, and the Rachel Pocket [00:45:00] shorts. The pocket crop top has a pocket for your phone, And you also must know that there are two new colorways that just dropped for the spring, which I just placed an order and the next day I got an announcement of the new colors. So now I'm probably gonna place another order because you cannot have enough. And the new colors are amethyst, this beautiful pastel purple and spearmint, which is a lighter teal.
Both perfect for spring and spring training, which a lot of us are in. So if you wanna shop Relay Active, you can go to relay active.com. You can use Code Milestones for 15% off of your order. Again, that's relay active.com. Thank you Relay active for supporting this podcast.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: So I changed, you know, with this debt, with the business, I changed, you know, I had to fix this problem and we became a lot more focused at work and I, We had all these great products you know, and we just needed to increase sales, just like any other business problem that you have. The meantime, my business partners wanted to [00:46:00] retire, and I was still working on that debt. I was focused and paying it off. So instead of taking me five years to pay off my credit cards, it Took me 23 months to pay a $50,000 in debt. And I did that because I moved in with my friends and was paying $200 a month in rent. my car, drove a shitty car. I, took odd jobs. I sold all my stuff. I wasn't spending money on trips, I wasn't buying gifts, I wasn't doing anything extra bag. And I focused and living with my friends for that 23 months. Was worth $60,000. how much I paid off in addition to, because in addition to paying that 50,000, I saved $10,000. During that time. I gotta do something here. I have to change, you know, I'm gonna live,
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: gotta start saving money.
Maybe I'd retire someday. I dunno. That was a concept we started a 401k. Oh, no.
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: little tip also, if you start your own small business, start a 401k immediately because that money is protected from bankruptcy.
Ally: Yeah,
in the [00:47:00] timeline here compared to like when you paid off the credit card debts, what year is this like alongside your running journey?
Sally Hed Dahlquist: So my first marathon was 2004.
Ally: Mm-hmm.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I started with a consumer credit counseling service in 2007, I had all my credit cards, student loans, and my tax problems solved in 2011. So essentially four and a half years of hitting it hard, know, I'm running, running a lot, I'm doing good, I'm doing these fun things on the side, taking odd jobs, all the stuff. The business is. Taken off. It's doing great. I'm living with my friends. They're super fun In uptown. Uptown is this kinda this fun, trendy neighborhood in Minneapolis and it's where all the lakes are so I can just walk, to the lakes and go rollerblading or biking or running. Life is good and I've been saving money and of a sudden interest rates drop to 3%. I was like, my God, I could buy a house. During this time, I have managed to save $80,000.
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: [00:48:00] could buy a house. I never thought I'd be able to buy a house. So I bought my own house in 2012 and then my, buying out my business partners in 2013, was the first one. And so in 2016, I said 20 years of working, I was finally the sole owner of the company, woman owned biotechnology company. And we were doing really good and we had these great color molecules for the cancer research and we had these, all these other products you needed for a diagnostic test. Just like the blue line on the COVID test. Right. And during this time when my last business partner was retiring, lot of people, and we had approached a lot of financial people about having an outside company buy us, know, are you interested in the company? Here's the fit, here's the financial people. We got a lot of really bad offers. I've gotten a lot of really, really bad offers over the years to buy my company. After all this work, I'm not doing that. so finally, I started telling him, Hey, you know, you may not think my company's worth anything, or you don't want me to think it's worth anything, but I think it's worth [00:49:00] dollars and I'm not gonna sell it for any less than that. So when you think my company is worth X amount of dollars, you call me.
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: in 2020, they all called. And by this time I had gotten married in 2017 and my husband has a pension, which includes health insurance for his wife. Hello.
Ally: Mm-hmm.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: So now I'm feeling super secure
Ally: how'd you meet your husband?
Sally Hed Dahlquist: on a ski trip
Ally: Oh.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: a trip organizer and we were driving the, a bus up to Michigan the up and I sat next to him on the bus.
Ally: wow. There you go.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Yeah. And I, and I asked him, he's the new guy, new guy on the trip. There's an empty seat next to him. I'm like, Hey, can I sit next to you? And he said, yes. So he has sole responsibility for this. Yeah. And I had gone through some counseling when I was 25, I went to a counselor to help with my emotional
Ally: Right? Yeah. Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: And that was a breakthrough. And they had said. Your symptoms are PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, all the way, all these things you're doing, all these coping skills, [00:50:00] everything that you've done is related to post-traumatic stress disorder. And now they call it medical trauma. There's a term. I was like, wow,
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: And so just getting that clarification and diagnosis really helped me a lot. And by the time I met him, it was right when I bought my own house. And so I was feeling pretty good about myself, you know, and running these marathons. so we'd gotten married and that also changed me. Like, I didn't realize how much security I needed. Like I'm, you know, I'm independent. I can do it all. I can do it all myself. I don't need any help. I'm a, you know, a strong, independent woman, whatever. And I, meet this guy and I'm like, he's the one. Because it turns out that frequently happens with women who are sick. Is that I don't need a man who's a rock. I need a mountain. I need a guy I can really count on because I know something could very easily go wrong with me and who's gonna take care of me. And that's a big ask. And up to this point, you know, I'd kind of been dating all the wrong guys, the fun guys, the party guys, all this stuff. some of 'em are really great.
And I [00:51:00] completely screwed up those relationships. Oh, I'm the nutty girlfriend and I met my husband Mike. I'm like, oh, I'm not gonna screw this one up. just too good, you know? And he's fresh off a divorce, feeling kind of bad about himself, living with his mom in his mom's basement. oh, I can't scare this one away.
And I know what it's like to live in your friend's basement. You
Ally: yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: you gotta rebuild your life.
Ally: Mm-hmm.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: And a lot of people in his position, of restarting their life, looking out for new friends, tend to join a club. You know, they
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: like all their kids are grown. Maybe their
Ally: Mm-hmm.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: they wanna get out more. So I met him when he was actually open to meeting new people. And so I just played it real cool. didn't do all the crazy stuff that Cosmo tells you to do. I followed the old fashioned rules. I waited for him to call me, waited for him to kiss me, Yeah. Old fashioned tools. It worked. so once, once he and I had gotten married, I just had this profound sense of security that I'd never had before.
Ally: Yeah,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: And he was like, wow, this is [00:52:00] nice. You know, I didn't realize how much I was missing this until I got it. I, I'm like, wow, this is great. This is really good. So he's working, he's, he's an engineer for the Army Corps of Engineers.
They work on dams and flood protection and Hurricane Katrina was one of their projects for the St. Paul office. They work on the Mississippi River. very secure job. Turns out
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: that ' cause I'm highly risky, but maybe not so much anymore. Sold the company in December, 2020. Worked really hard the next year with the transition and packed everything up and we moved the company to California. And meanwhile, concurrently, my dad was dying.
He got Alzheimer's, really bad. Like he had a breakdown, you know, he, he was going down this road, but then it was a crisis moment, you know, he tried to kill my mom and
Ally: Oh, geez. Gosh. Alzheimer's is I think, the worst,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Yeah. And we didn't realize how bad it was for my mom until that happened and we're like, oh my God, oh my god. You know?
And then she doesn't wanna call the police because she doesn't want him to get
Ally: right? Well, yeah. [00:53:00] That's crazy too. Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: call the police, you call the ambulance and they're not gonna arrest him. They know he's an old man with Alzheimer's.
Ally: Yeah. Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: right. You know, but it just really scared her and all of us. And anyway, so he ended up in. Memory care in, in the va. And then I have an another person close to me who has, cancer. And so I am working during the day, wrapping things up, stuff. Some of my team by now has found other jobs and moved on. And, uh, then at night I'm going to see my dad. And then on other days I'm gonna help this other person with their cancer journey. And I've never worked that hard in like, the last five years.
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: like I worked 20 days in a row, including Thanksgiving, and also seeing my dad because fortunately, geographically everything was pretty close together. know, my work and my dad were 45 minutes away from my house and they were only 10 minutes apart.
Um,
Ally: Hmm.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: so I could do that.
Ally: When would, when would you [00:54:00] run, because I mean, you're still doing
Sally Hed Dahlquist: oh my
Ally: one or two marathons at least a year. So like, were you a morning runner during that season of your life,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Yes. Yeah. So I need to get up and go for the run first thing. So I would just run on the weekends and then throw in an occasional marathon.
Ally: right?
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Yeah. So I ran Hawaii. It's Yeah. and run during the summer. And because I own my own business, it's pretty flexible.
I could take my time off. I took about six weeks off a year, six to eight weeks off.
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: yeah, so that was really the best thing is that I wanted my own schedule and the freedom to travel, freedom to meet all these people
Ally: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: is
Ally: Right.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: then I was meeting all these scientific people because we would go to scientific conferences and I'd go to a conference and I'd run the Atlanta Marathon at the same time.
I'd go
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: and I'd,
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I ran Richmond, Virginia when we were in Washington DC for a trade show. So, yeah. So I'd like Christine work on a trade show
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: a marathon. Yeah. Been there, done. The, key is to make sure on your trade show booth that you have
Ally: Sit down. Oh yeah. That or that? Yeah,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: yeah.
Ally: yeah,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: mats, the cushy[00:55:00]
Ally: yeah.
When did you run your first international race?
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Paris 2011.
Ally: Wow.
20 20. You sold the company. 2011. You paid off your debt. You were done.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I paid off my debt. So in. of 2010, my parents gave each of us a thousand dollars. And I said,
Ally: Wow.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: to Paris with this money. Like immediately. I don't know why. That's just what I said. And the Paris Marathon was in April of 2011. And I got in through some tour company outta Florida,
Ally: Wow.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: friend came over from Nancy of two best friends.
And, um, she came over to meet me she met me. She ran in the finish line with her and they gave her a medal too.
Ally: Oh,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: And she's like, man, I just ran a mile. I'm exhausted. I'm like, Nancy, Nancy, Nancy. So she still has, she tried to give it back.
Ally: oh, that's funny. Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: got her honorary medal. Yeah. So 2011 I did Paris, and then,
Ally: We'll pause really quick because of la just pausing because people were up in arms about the 18 mile medal situation, which I was like, oh, you did not. Okay. So it was like 80 to 90 degrees. The weather [00:56:00] was awful. It was yesterday, the marathon as, as we record this. Hot it was gonna be, the race organizers were like, okay, instead of canceling the race, we're gonna give people an out.
if you get to mile 18. You can take a medal and you can be done. And because it was such bad weather. And so for me, me personally, I wouldn't take the medal unless I ran the 26.2. But I don't give a shit what other people want to do. if that's what they wanna do, that's fine, whatever.
But it's divided the internet if you, if you will, because people are like, no, absolutely not a marathon, it's a marathon. You should not give them a medal. I just think, I don't care if, if people want the medal maybe for motivation or maybe because they spent thousands of dollars and you know, months and months of training and they just wanna have that as a memory.
It's not like they're going around saying that they are a marathoner and ran the full race. I just, people care too much about what other people do sometimes. So anyway. Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: on how I felt that day and what the heat would've been like, I would've run that 18 miles and I would've taken the medal, [00:57:00] but it would not have gone on my rack. It would go on my other rack, my bag of, of marathons that I didn't finish or were canceled, like Minneapolis Marathon. to cancel it at the beginning for Lightning and they gave everybody the medals, twin Cities was canceled because of the heat a couple years ago and you could go pick up your medal.
My husband went and picked up the medal. So on my spreadsheet it's A-D-N-F-D-N-S did not finish. Did not start.
Ally: Yeah,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: a, put a little sticker on the back of it with my time and it doesn't count, but I still have the medal. And so those are the medals that I'll bring with me somewhere if I need to give a talk or something.
'cause if I
Ally: right.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: it, I don't care.
Ally: Yeah. Yeah. But exactly. Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: so then I've seen that too, where they've canceled races and then people go out and run anyway.
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: for Twin Cities, when they canceled it and that Minneapolis one, come to town, they're ready, they're prepared. I mean, I even ran 12 miles on the day the Minneapolis one was canceled because I'm like, ah, you know, I ate all these electrolytes. used the bathroom already. I'm good to go.
Ally: [00:58:00] Yeah, yeah,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I'll just go these extra
Ally: yeah. The caramel marathon was canceled last year, which is where I live, for storms. That came through just freak kind of thing, bad timing. And then even this weekend we were supposed to have a six miler for the indie mini training series, and they canceled that because of weather. So yeah, I don't know.
I just don't
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Yeah.
Ally: like the race director went around and anybody local, he like literally delivered, hand delivered medals to people, which was like so sweet. but yeah, I just, I dunno why people care so much. but it was a very big debate,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: They're probably concerned more about that. You take, take credit for it. Stolen valor is what they call it in the
Ally: stolen valor.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: know?
Ally: And, which I appreciate if somebody takes the medal, they didn't run it and they lie and say they did like, yeah. Don't, don't do that.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I know.
Ally: Stolen valor. That's funny. Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Yeah. I have, uh, four medals that I count as marathons, even though for some random reason they technically don't count as a marathon. I can't use 'em for my 50 stays. I can't use 'em for my a hundred club. But, you know, I completed the race. [00:59:00] one that's most frustrating is the, Garmin Marathon in Olathe, Kansas from a couple years ago where they mismeasured the course sponsored by Garmin
Ally: Shut the front door.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Point one miles. 6,000 people got a DNF. I'm like, just go into the bathroom. Before the race, after the race, during the race, I made that 0.1 miles. So somebody had put the
Ally: Wow.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: in the wrong spot where a turnaround was. Apparently they used last year's spot instead of this year's spot. And we noticed it all.
We all noticed it right away on our watches. Like, wow, that was a fast mile. Something. just shut up. Don't say anything.
Ally: Yeah. Oh.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: were asking, ah. And then Garmin sends out a letter afterwards throwing the city under the bus.
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: we weren't responsible for measuring the course. It was the city manager person who was
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: that, blah, blah, blah.
I'm like, yeah, but your name is all over this course.
Ally: Right.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: The irony. The
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: what you
Ally: That,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: they know.
Ally: yeah, that's, that's pretty bad. Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: [01:00:00] Yeah. Yeah. So I got the medal, I got the pictures. I still count it, it's not official, so,
Ally: I mean, that situation,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: so
Ally: yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: to go back to Kansas and ran the, what is it called? One of 'em was like the Kansas extravaganza rail trail race at the end of October, so I could get my 50 states,
Ally: Right.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: finished.
And with Christine Anderson, she came with me, she was so
Ally: Oh,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: to finish West Virginia.
Ally: oh,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: brought, balloons that said 50, and she had special little candles with 50. It was so
Ally: That's so perfect. Okay, and so it just happened to be West Virginia for you? Just as kind of the how the Everything shook out.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Yep. Yep, yep. Yeah, I'd been trying to get in all my states, I ran something like 10 marathons pretty quickly last year in 2026, like I had to do all of New England, Maine, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, all New Jersey,
Ally: Mm-hmm.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: and then West Virginia Oh, and Colorado, which I did, Aspen [01:01:00] Valley. so, you know, I had my sights on those 50 states. I'm like, I should be able to do this. You've got time. Yeah. And West Virginia, just with a schedule ended up being the last one. And then I had my backup, West Virginia in Marshall. So I did my, finish my 50 states in August and then had my backup race in November, just in
Ally: Right.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: make it, because, you know, sometimes there's lightning,
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: they cancel it, sometimes you don't finish.
You might get sick.
Ally: Yeah. Gosh. And after the number of races that you've done, Sally, of course, odds are that something can happen across that whole amount of time. For sure. So is the a hundred club, the a hundred club, the a hundred marathons that you've done, and then 50, is the 50 states, and are you, well, I guess if you just finished 50 states, do you think you'll end up doing that again just as a byproduct of continuing to race a lot, or now you focus more on international stuff, or how do you plan what you're gonna do?
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Yeah, a lot of people are on round two or round
Ally: Yeah,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: states. I could
Ally: which,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: doing that eventually. but now I think I should do Canada. a little more [01:02:00] interesting, you know, and, and there's a lot of races in within an easy drive of me. You know, I'm in
Ally: good point. Mm-hmm.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: area, Wisconsin has a lot of races, and I've repeated a lot of races. I have one friend who's never repeated a race, and he's run. 200. I'm like, that takes a lot of effort. So I think doing, ones I haven't done before that I've always found interesting.
Ally: Mm-hmm.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: the tunnel light marathon in, near Seattle, Washington
Ally: I just had a guest on, two weeks ago, two or three weeks ago, Carly did the tunnel marathon, and she's doing it again this year, actually. So, yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: And then I've done two overnight ones.
Ally: Oh yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: one is that moonlight on the falls is the West Virginia one with Christine
Ally: Well,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: at midnight, it was pouring rain
Ally: whoa.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: overnight.
Ally: Okay.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: being super fun. And then I did the ET midnight marathon in Nevada, which was overnight and the desert. So it was like 70 degrees you
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: a hundred degrees in Vegas during the day.
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: more interesting ones like that. There's one in Colorado in Denver that goes around this lake [01:03:00] and. starts on the hour. So you have an hour to go three miles or so and everybody starts on the hour. And there's one like that also in West Virginia. I think that's more interesting.
Ally: Yeah, like a backyard Ultra format. Is it like the 4.167 miles, because typically, or is it
Okay,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: It's Sloane Lake. And
Ally: it's name.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: three miles.
Ally: Okay, interesting.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: And apparently there's a rumor that there's some kind of monster in Sloane Lake. So it's a hunt. You're trying to find the monster.
Ally: There you go.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: around the lake and then everybody waits at the end of the hour to see what kind of evidence you have.
And then you run around again, and you do that till
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: the marathon
Ally: Yeah. Interesting.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: runs
Ally: Mm.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: and I could see myself doing another 50 k. I've only done one 50 k
Ally: Okay.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: and so maybe
Ally: Only. It's just funny. I've never done one. It's, you know, it's all relative, but you're like Yeah. Just one.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Yeah. So you do a lot of halves.
Ally: I I like the half marathon a lot. Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: are you at for halves now?
Ally: Uh, I actually, I think I'm gonna do one this [01:04:00] weekend too, and it'll be 68.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Okay.
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: how many marathons?
Ally: Nine.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Nine. That's great.
Ally: you know, it's funny, it feels small compared like, when I'm like looking at your journey, but at the same time, like most people don't run marathons at all, so
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I know,
Ally: it's wild.
This world that we're in is, is crazy.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: know.
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: It's, I catch myself saying to my friend, Tom, oh, you've only run 25 marathons. That's great. It's like, I really try
Ally: Measly. Um, yeah, measly number of marathons.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: a huge accomplishment. I mean, I remember when. Three miles was hard, a 5K was. I remember running those five minutes being on the treadmills, what my sprinting through the airport, exhausted, you know, those kind of things.
It takes long time sometimes to build up your fitness and
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: takes a lot of effort to it. And you know, a lot of people hate it because they never get past the point where they're suffering. you know, you sprint a mile here and then maybe a month later you do it again. And it's still hard because you
Ally: Mm-hmm.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: base.
You have to, if you're sprinting a mile, you gotta sprint two miles in order for one mile to feel easy, you know?
Ally: [01:05:00] Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: to push yourself. so yeah, so I train, I do a lot of cross training. I like to do different things. So I ride my bike, I go rollerblading. I go, go to swim class. I try to go at least once a week. and. Weightlifting's Good. I don't do it as much as I used to. And same with yoga. I love yoga, but I know you're having trouble stretching.
Ally: yeah. Always.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Yep, yep. So my goal has always been able to put my hand flat on the floor, you know,
Ally: Oh God.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: bend over.
Ally: Mm.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Uh, when I, when I brush my teeth every night, I put my foot on the counter to stretch my legs.
Ally: That's smart. Yeah, like see, that's what I should do, is like work it into things I'm already doing. Just do it a little differently. I'm just such a bad stretcher.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: yeah, So I kind of fidget around sometimes and my husband's like, what are you doing? Like, well, I'm stretching my inner thighs.
Ally: What? Duh. You know?
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Yeah, I know. Can't you tell.
Ally: So has Mike ever done any races or any running in his life?
Sally Hed Dahlquist: No, he hates running. He won't run if there's a fire. He
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: But he
Ally: That's fair.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: and he loves skiing and he likes being outside and being active and he loves [01:06:00] boating. He loves anything involving a water. So
Ally: Hmm.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: to, we go on trips together, I try to involve a water activity. Even a ferry ride
Ally: Right. That's nice. Yeah. So does he come to most of your races or how does that work?
Sally Hed Dahlquist: He'll come to the big ones,
Ally: Okay.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: but if I'm driving to Wisconsin or something,
Ally: Yeah,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: you know, we have a camper van, so I'll just drive the camper van myself and then
Ally: that's fun.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: street next to the star line. Oh my God. I love it. I
Ally: That actually is, that's a pro, that's a pro move right there.
Just find a parking spot. Don't need to worry about hotels or, yeah. Hmm.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: yeah,
Ally: Yeah,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: line, I just, you know, pop out like a queen and I'm good to go.
Ally: there you go. Yeah, I've got a, I was gonna say, I've got a guy, who is, is planning this summer to do 55 Ks in 50 states in 50 days. So, and him and his wife, his name's Sean Conlin, and so he, him and his wife lived in an RV for a number of years as well. So that's what they're gonna do. They're essentially like, gonna take an RV and drive around the country and yeah.
I, I just think that's really cool. What a fun, fun way to do [01:07:00] it.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: So when I sold the company, you know, I started saying, you know, I, an rv. I want one of these
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: love these vans. You know, these are super cool. And he kind of blew me off. And, and then I started looking, you know, rv trader.com.
You know, to get an idea of pricing and all this stuff is doing my research. And I finally found one on Craigslist of all places
Ally: Wow.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: , And my old roommate, JT lives down there and
so then I wired all this money to a guy I never met on, like from Craigslist to some random bank account in Salt Lake City. And JT picked up the keys for me and we went down two months later and got it.
Ally: That's amazing.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: We drove home via the Grand Canyon and Moab.
'cause I think if you get a camper, it's mandatory that you go to Utah on your very first trip.
Ally: Well, yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: to Utah. It's amazing. And he didn't really get it that I wanted this van until I was like. Well, I gotta finish my 50 states. And then he went, aha.
The lights went off. It was like, I needed a justification for him to get it, for him to be on board with it.
Ally: Yeah,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: so [01:08:00] we did, you know, and I thought we would be driving it to Maine. The plan was to drive it to Maine, leave it there with a friend, and then do all these little states.
Ally: yeah,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Well, it just didn't work out with our schedule and the timing and all
Ally: yeah,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: And, so I ended up flying back and forth by myself. And, but he did come with me to Maine. We ran Sugarloaf, which was dangerous on a single highway, but Okay. I finished,
Ally: yeah. Whew.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: so yeah, so he'll come on. A lot of adventures with me. And then I have a lot of marathon friends, like Christine and, the people in my club are great. And then you meet people on the
Ally: Yes.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: like in Japan, I was trying to hook up with 20 people, and I know you told me your coach was there and another person that you knew. And, uh, so there's like 20 people on my list that I'm
Ally: Right.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: of, and I saw three of them
Ally: That's pretty impressive actually. That's impressive that you got to three. 'cause
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Yeah.
Ally: I get it. It's a lot. It.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: And then I saw the one, one guy, Tom, during the race, after his bathroom, he had gotten behind me and then he found me ahead of him.
Ally: Ah,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: for like
Ally: that's nice.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: yeah. Yeah. So traveling has just [01:09:00] been such a huge fun part of it. It does give you a purpose to see the country
Ally: Mm-hmm.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: different areas.
Ally: Yeah, I've been to every state in the United States. Yeah,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: yes.
Ally: we did RV trips as a, when I was a kid, so I haven't run in every state, but
Sally Hed Dahlquist: mm-hmm.
Ally: someday that'll happen. We'll see that.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Yeah. Is your husband going with you too?
Ally: Um, he, he will sometimes. Yeah. Kind of similar where he, he used to be a runner. Not as much now, but Yeah. But
Sally Hed Dahlquist: did some marathons with you.
Ally: he did one, the one and done.
So we'll take it. I'll take it.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: done?
Ally: I'm gonna try to get him back. We'll see. We'll see. But, I wanna talk to you before I forget, and before we run outta time, I wanna talk to you about, Antarctica and penguins.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Oh, yes.
Ally: okay. So, because when it was really cold, which I shouldn't talk to somebody who's from Minnesota about the cold, but it was like negative 10 and I did a run and it was really cold, and we're just all talking. We're like, how do people run a marathon in Antarctica? How does that even happen?
Like, what do you wear? how does it work? So I would love to hear from you how, what that experience was like and what year did [01:10:00] you go there?
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I went in January of 2024. Yeah.
Ally: Okay.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I'm sorry. I went in March of 2024.
Ally: Okay. And did you do boat or plane?
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I did the boat through marathon tours, and I was on their
Ally: What?
Sally Hed Dahlquist: three years. So
Ally: What?
Sally Hed Dahlquist: my company, I signed up for this waiting list for Antarctica.
Ally: Oh my gosh. PSA for anybody who's thinking about that. Yeah. Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Sign
Ally: friend Christie.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: yeah, so there's a couple options you can take through some other different companies like a plane and depending on where they go also.
So we flew down to Bueno Air. In fact, this little shirt I have is from Bueno
Ally: Oh,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: So
Ally: amazing.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Made in Argentina. I like to buy souvenirs that I would actually wear,
Ally: I like that idea. Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: instead of a trinket. so yeah, we flew down with marathon tours, bueno series, and to, to usia on the, on the tip. And then we got on a boat,
Ally: I can't imagine the boat.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: the Drake
Ally: No. Mm-hmm.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: we had the Drake Lake.
It was flat for our trip. A
Ally: Oh, okay. I've seen videos of the, what do they call it? The Drake Shake, where you're like 35 foot [01:11:00] waves. I'm just watching that and thinking like, Ugh,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: we did not have that.
Ally: that's,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: But we still took the seasickness pills
Ally: yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: when we arrived in Antarctica on Sunday, they said, stop taking your pills so you can do the marathon the next day on Monday.
Ally: Right. Yeah. Makes sense. Yeah, they do.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: during the penguin lecture.
Ally: Oh no.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I know, I know.
The penguins down there are adorable. They're so cute. Like, I just wanna go up and give them a big hug.
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: so cute.
Ally: Is that where you fell in love with penguins when you went to an Antarctica? Or did you already have that Love of penguins?
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Well, of course, of course. I always thought they were super cute, but seeing them in person just reinforces that.
Ally: Right.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: of made this funny goal that I should go see all the penguins in the world. There's 19 species of penguins and they're all in the southern hemisphere. The ones. in the Galapagos.
There are only one degree below the southern hemisphere
Ally: Okay.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: in the Galapagos, but we didn't go to that island and I was so mad 'cause there's seven islands there you can visit. we have to go
Ally: [01:12:00] Yeah. Geez.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: And there are some places you can volunteer for the penguins. Like in South Africa, they have a pro where you go in there and you count the penguins
Ally: Oh, sign me up.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: to maintain the, you know, some ecology program.
Like I'm a biologist, I can do this,
Ally: Yeah. Cool. Mm-hmm.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: but I also kinda like the, the giant turtles everywhere, which is why I wanna go to the Galapagos and
Ally: Wow.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: and that's why the reptile gardens in, rapid City, South Dakota is my favorite zoo.
Ally: Okay.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Always
Ally: even heard of it.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: gardens. It's small. You can get through it in an hour and really cool.
Ally: That's interesting.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: so yeah. So I love the penguins and so we went down in March, which is, The end of springtime for them. So it's fall
Ally: Okay.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: the southern hemisphere. I think. Uh, the tourist season is January through March and so it was only like some degrees when we did the race and it was a little foggy, misty. and so I had on shorts with wind
Ally: Okay.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: them, comfortable the whole time. And then I have [01:13:00] a sweatshirt with a big hoodie that covers my face if I want. So I get wind
Ally: Okay.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: then I wear clear goggles 'cause it was cloudy. And then I have a hat, hat with a brim.
Ally: Nice.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: So when we first started, I got damp because from all the fog,
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: then the fog started burning off and I started getting drier and I was able to take my jacket off and run without that.
Ally: Wow.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: uh, so it wasn't a problem at all where I'm not running in the cold. I know there are some other parts of Antarctic, like they go off the coast of South Africa it's in the snow and it's wind blowing and it's cold. And so you talked about running in 10 degrees below zero. So
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: marathon was 10 degrees below zero
Ally: Marathon
Sally Hed Dahlquist: yeah, full marathon in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Ally: Whoa,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Day Marathon, it was February 2nd,
Ally: whoa.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: my age group.
Ally: Hey, there you go.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: yeah, but it was also super beautiful because it had been so cold. All the fog crystallized on the trees, so they were white
Ally: I can picture it.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: It was amazing. and the key [01:14:00] for when it gets that cold. I wear pants underneath my wind pants.
What the keys, I think is wind pants because that keeps the wind from blowing the heat away.
Ally: Yeah,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: people get sweaty, but wind pants work for me. long tights, wind pants. And on that time I did put toe warmers inside my shoes, but I don't put 'em under my
Ally: right. That would be too hard. Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I put ' em on the tops of my toes.
Ally: Mm-hmm.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: wearing shoes with a, a thicker sole will
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Um, and then I have the hot pocket heat warmers for my hands as well. Uh, and then again, I have, an under layer short, a warm layer, a sweatshirt on top of that, and then lighter jacket that's wind resistant. You know, with pockets and that'll often end up unzipping. um, for me it's keeping my face warm. So I wear a full ski mask and ski goggles when it's that cold.
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: And then of course have the hat on top, and then I can pull up my hoodie if I want. so I keep perfectly toasty,
Ally: [01:15:00] Wow. Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: and my face mask and my goggles are on, I'm good.
I have a pair of ski goggles that an old pair
Ally: Mm-hmm.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: all broke and everything, they're perfect
Ally: Yeah. You're like perfect. Yeah, absolutely.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: So I have
Ally: Hmm.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: outfit for every 10 degrees of temperature difference, and I have a long coat that I bought, got from Costco is their cheap $20 Eddie Bauer coat with minimal, fill in it. And I find that that is perfect when it starts getting 20 degrees or colder because it's long enough where it covers my hips, it's my hips that get cold
Ally: Right. Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: and actually in that race I started out with an a little insulated skirt on first to keep my hips a little warmer, and then took that off before the halfway mark.
and this, this cheapo coat from Costco. Yeah, it's just long enough to keep my hips warm, but light enough or I don't really get sweaty. And if
Ally: Mm-hmm.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: it protects from that. And it has a hood, you know, it doesn't cover my face, but it goes over your
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I [01:16:00] experiment with a lot of that kind of combination.
Ally: Makes sense.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: you know, tight are shorts, wind pants, if it's around 30 degrees, shorts and a wind pants work the best
Ally: Hmm.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: if it's 20 degrees long pants and wind pants.
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: So
Ally: Man, I can't believe you ran a marathon in, in negative 10. It's crazy. Um, I, I wanna ask a quick question and then I'm gonna ask, the end of the podcast questions, I'm curious about your spreadsheet, Sally, because I have a spreadsheet as well. Um, but I really just keep, like, it's like what, what the race was, and then I have column for each year and then I have, I put in the times, but that's really it.
What does your spreadsheet include
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Yeah. My, my spreadsheet is, you know, a line item for each marathon, chronological order. And then I have the number, and then I have the unofficial number, my number. 'cause you know, like I said, I have four now that don't count.
Ally: right?
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I got the official count. I had to add a column for the unofficial count, my personal account. and then I added [01:17:00] state, country, marathon, continent. So these little, which
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: So I have on four continents. I have to do South Africa, south America, and Australia. Yet.
Ally: Okay.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: So hoping to do Queenstown New Zealand
Ally: Ooh. Yeah, man.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: bucket list there.
Ally: Yeah. So do you put in notes or anything? Either.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I
Ally: Okay. That's smart.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: have um, you know, the race city state, time bib and then I used to put on the call, I'm like, do I have the race certificate? know you need the paper certificate,
Ally: Oh, right.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: so yes or no. Did I get a certificate? And now it's all like, ah, yeah I got the PDF. So for my 50 states, I actually have to submit paper copies of all my finished times. they won't accept an Excel spreadsheet.
Ally: Okay. Wow.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Yeah,
Ally: pretty wild.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: a form, there's an application you have to apply.
And then Betty, she checks
Ally: God bless Betty. She keeps you honest. Wow.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: staters.
Ally: That's cool.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I still have to do that even though I finished in August. I haven't filled out the paperwork yet.
Ally: Yeah. Well, [01:18:00] that sounds daunting. Okay.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: fishy state. And then I have a notes column you know, that usually kind of started out, did I register, did I not register, did I, and now it's like, yeah, I signed up. drive the van, I'm gonna meet Levi there at the start. We're gonna stay at this hotel. And on the way, I met Christine and Allie and we're doing this and we're staying there. And so now it's a whole thing. And then after the race, I have a big, usually have a big recap. And again, the recap goes in that same column. And now for Tokyo, I read, like, I read, like wrote something, like three pages of recap for my Tokyo,
Ally: Right. Well, you would, I mean, when I do race recaps, yeah. It's depends. I, I like to do it so that I can Yeah. Remember what happened.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: yeah, yeah. 'cause you always learn something,
Ally: Mm-hmm.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: you know? I learned that only having basically 16 ounces of liquid before the race was just fine.
Ally: Yeah. There you go.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: not having all those electrolytes the night before. Was fine.
Ally: Mm-hmm.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: there's things you change over the years and you start doing and [01:19:00] you kind of become a habit.
Habit. And so maybe I'm doing all these extra things that I don't really need to,
Ally: Right,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: and I always tend to carry more stuff with me than I need, and so do I really need to do that anymore?
Ally: right.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Yeah.
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: yeah, during a race, I really tried to go without a waist belt, but because I had, that depends with me.
Ally: It was necessary. Yeah. That's so good.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I like, I can't stuff that into my shorts without it looking really
Ally: Really ridiculous. Yeah, they're gonna be like, wow, look at this lady. She's pregnant, running the race, you know? Got it all shoved in your shorts.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: what
Ally: Yeah. Yeah. okay, so I'm gonna ask you the end of the podcast questions. There's, I mean, shoot, I should have just had you open your spreadsheet and we just like go line by line just to hear a tidbit about all your races, but, maybe some other time.
Okay. So I'm gonna ask you the end of the podcast questions and then we'll fill in anything else you feel like you left out or you you wanna speak on. But, the first one is, what is your running mantra and or song?
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Oh my, my song Mariah Carey, make it happen.
Ally: Which I haven't, I don't know if [01:20:00] I've heard that song or have I, and I just don't know that that's what it's called.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: make it happen.
Ally: don't know. I don't know if I have.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: part of the song is, uh, one, one time She have enough to eat, you know, was desperate to be as successful. You just gotta make it happen.
Ally: I am gonna, I'll let do it. I'm sure I've heard it.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I should know these lyrics. I've
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: thousand times, right?
Ally: Well, I'm putting you on the spot. Um,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: yeah. You
Ally: and then do you use a mantra at all?
Sally Hed Dahlquist: for Tokyo, my mantra was. Run your race, keep your same pace, don't hurry, calm down, relax. You can do this. You've got this, you can do this. You know, so that I, I usually don't have much of a mantra, but I really needed it for that race. So, could stay calm. I was like, you've thought everything through, you have your time chart and your goals. don't have to get anxious about this. Just take it easy,
Ally: Yes, make it happen. Just make it happen.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I planned a lot, I'm good. So, yeah, that's an important, [01:21:00] and you know, things like, oh, you're okay. You can keep
Ally: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: uh, a lot of marathons, it's, it's just a 20 mile training run with an extra six.
Ally: Right. That's, that's a good one. I like that because it's kind of, it's true, you know, just training run and then a little 10 k, that's it.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Yeah. Yeah. The easy peasy. You're
Ally: Yeah, yeah, no problem. okay. And then next finish line or milestone. So obviously we've talked about the big milestone of 200 marathons that's out there. What is your very next race?
Sally Hed Dahlquist: biggie. well, I'm still planning that. I am looking at maybe there's got, there's some here in March that I'm looking at, but, it could be Champagne, Illinois. That's the
Ally: Okay,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: April.
Ally: I've done the half there.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: It's like before or after the mini, the Indie
Ally: Uh, it should be be, it'll be before the mini, yeah,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Because I was looking at doing that
Ally: yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: little, little trade show booth. I think it'd be super fun to see you in person
Ally: Oh yeah. Yes,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: so I'm hoping I can do the Indie Mini
Ally: yes. This will come out, um, before the end of, of March. So, yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: [01:22:00] Cool. So I'm hoping I can do the Indie Mini 'cause it sounds so fun. And my brother's a total Motorhead and we were
Ally: Perfect.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: last year, so I wanna make that happen.
Ally: Yeah. But it's only quote unquote only a half, you know?
Sally Hed Dahlquist: It's only a half, but you know, it's a great training run. But if I do champagne, Illinois the Sunday before
Ally: Right.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: then
Ally: It's just,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: workout.
Ally: a little cool, cool down. Yeah. Right.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: down. Yeah. So I could
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: you know, I could drive the van, drive the camper to champagne, then head over to Indianapolis and
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: and then go home,
Ally: Or you can go, then you can go to Cincinnati and run the Flying Pig the next day after the Indy Mini.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: flying Pig, is that one full? I've heard really good things about
Ally: I don't, I don't think it's, I don't think they sell out this early. I would check it out. It's very hilly, but it's, people love it.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I've heard.
Ally: Yeah. Yeah. So I've never done it, but it looks fun.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Okay.
Ally: So,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: is Carmel, you said
Ally: um, it is April 18th, so it's coming up. Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: That could work in my schedule too.
Ally: There you go.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Uh, for sure. The big one's [01:23:00] coming up, uh, signed up for Grandma's Marathon in
Ally: Mm.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: It's like June 20th and then Twin Cities Marathon is, like October 1st or something. I signed up for that one. my nephew is currently in Slovenia
Ally: Interesting.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: and so I'm trying to find a race over there
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: that I can hop over to Slovenia and run a marathon along the way.
Ally: Right. Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: in his studio.
Ally: There you go. That's funny. Well, that's a great excuse to go.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: Yeah. Yeah. So, so my husband says, do you have to run a marathon on every vacation? Yeah. Why would you not?
Ally: Yeah. And do you know me? Have you met me? You know?
Sally Hed Dahlquist: you met me? You know, I was doing this before we
Ally: Yeah. Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: the deal. I love it when he comes to see me on the course and he
Ally: That is really special. Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: places that have bike trails. So I'm always trying to sell him on, well this one has a bike trail and this one has a downtown and this one has a little marina.
he's a good sport. It's a really good [01:24:00] sport.
Ally: That is good. All right. Well I'm so glad that we got to do this. , Is there anything else you wanna add before I wrap?
Sally Hed Dahlquist: I am raising a million dollars for medical research to help these kids. because you can't have the cures unless you have the background r and d going along. And I've seen that my entire career, the success of all these scientists. And we're currently, supporting one of the labs at the University of Minnesota that is working on pediatric brain cancer.
Ally: Wow.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: they have, some treatments that are really promising.
but this treatment is shown to work in pediatric brain cancer and it's also shown to work in, breast cancer that has metastasized into the brain. And that truly is a game changer,
Ally: Yeah.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: since they're still trying, they're still looking at it
Ally: Mm-hmm.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: cancers. So this could have a huge domino effect with other cancers that metastasize into the brain.
Ally: Wow.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: consider making a donation at Unstoppable stories@move.com.
Ally: Here we go. All right, well, thank you so much, Sally, for doing this,
Sally Hed Dahlquist: yes.
Ally: and thank you.
Sally Hed Dahlquist: It's been
Ally: Absolutely. Yeah. And thank you to everybody who has [01:25:00] listened to this and happy running.
Ally: If you enjoyed this episode of Finish Lines and Milestones from Sandy Boy Productions, please share rate review. This helps others find the show and I so appreciate your support in helping me spread the word so that we can share more of these incredible stories. I will see you again next week. Bye.