She’s a runner, she’s a track star, and after winning the lottery to run in the Berlin Marathon, Mrs. Shover dives deeper into her experience in marathons and traveling. Shover has participated in three of the six World Major marathons, including Chicago, Boston, and New York.

“For the Berlin Marathon, there is a lottery system and I just entered it randomly before thinking anything of it. And there’s a very low percentage of getting picked. I entered it last December or so, and I found out in January that my name was picked,” said Shover. 

While running and training more frequently, Shover is also taking this opportunity to take in the sights with this trip by making stops in Denmark and Copenhagen to see the Lego House, a bicycle tour and much more. 

“I’m trying not to put pressure on myself or have a time goal. I want it to be a fun day. As long as I have fun, then I’m happy with it. We are going to have a fun vacation after and enjoy,” said Shover.

In middle school, Shover got her start running by doing cross country and track. She has now found a love for it and continued to do it through to college. She currently runs around 30 miles a week when not training and 40-50 miles a week when training. Shover says that her fastest marathon time yet is three hours and six minutes.

“I started doing some half marathons, and my sister, who is two years older than me, we went to the same college and ran a lot together. My first marathon was my first year of teaching, so my first year out of college. And my sister moved to Florida, so we trained separately then ran our first marathon together, which I was totally unprepared for,” said Shover.

Although she is not training as intensely as she has for other marathons, Shover is still ready to participate and will do her best. Shover is scheduled to run the Berlin Marathon on September 25th and is planning to be in Germany for four days before traveling to Denmark for another four days for some vacation. She plans to make the most out of the experience by exploring new places and spending time with her family. When back from her trip, Shover is to pick it back up to run in the Monumental half marathon in Indianapolis this November. 

“I feel really prepared. I feel good about it. It’s nice to feel like I’m in good shape but not feel like I have this pressure to perform well,” said Shover.