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Gwendalyn Rehak, a geometry teacher at Columbus Independant School District trained for and completed a marathon on Sunday, May 25, in Dallas.
She ran in the Texas Triple marathon which supports multiple sclerosis, is a 26.2 mile run so Rehak had to train hard.
“My 2025 goal was to run my first marathon. I’ve always been an athlete growing up, playing collegiate volleyball at Temple Junior College,” Rehak said. “But I’ve never endured long distance running. I love to challenge myself, so I thought why not, it’ll be fun.”
She accepted the challenge and ran the 26.2-mile race and came in 20th place overall with a time of five hours and four minutes. She came in 20th place overall in the race but in her age group she finished in 3rd place and 4th place in the female division.
To achieve this goal Rehak had a strict training schedule that saw her have two strength training sessions, three easy or moderate difficulty running sessions, and one long distance running session to build her stamina. She said she allowed herself one rest day a week but if she needed the extra rest, she subbed out one of her lighter running days to give her body more time to recover.
With all of the training she was doing she used up a lot of energy, she was training to run 26.2 miles after all, so it makes sense that she is tired after training. She put emphasis on rest but also put an emphasis on her diet because while she worked so hard in training, she wanted to eat well to ensure her body was receiving all of the nutrition it needed to recover and become even stronger.
It’s the old cliche in sports that 40% of the work is what you do in training and the other 60% comes from rest and what you put in your body. Rehak took that to heart and said her weekly meals consisted of more than her recommended amount of protein, carbohydrates, and vegetables.
She also ate high-carb snacks which sounds crazy given the fact she is trying to get in shape to run 26.2 miles. But in running the body will feed off of stored fats for energy which come from carbs because carbs will break down inside of the body and stick to a person ergo stored fat.
So Rehak made sure to have plenty of high-carb snacks in her so she can make sure she has plenty of energy to get her training done and compete in the race.
This was Rehak’s first marathon, but it certainly is not her last. She has already begun training to compete in her next marathon, which will be the Chevron Houston Marathon on, Jan 11, 2026, in Houston.
