A Mom and Son Ran a Marathon in All 50 States Together
Our American Stories
iHeartPodcasts
4.6 • 817 Ratings
🗓️ 24 March 2026
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of Our American Stories, most people set out to run a single marathon and call it a lifetime achievement. Karen Thomson and her son, Joe Meilink, decided to take it much further. Together, they ran a marathon in every state, turning long miles and early mornings into something more than a physical challenge. Along the way, the journey became a shared pursuit, one that brought family closer together and created memories that stretched far beyond the finish line.
Karen and Joe, joined by Joe’s wife Vicky, share how it all started, what kept them going, and what they found in each other over the course of 50 races across the country.
Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)
Support the show: https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.3 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:14.2 | And we continue with our American stories. |
| 0:17.8 | And up next, a listener's story. |
| 0:20.3 | Aaron Thompson and her son, Joe Milink, are the definition of determination. |
| 0:25.2 | Here they are, along with Joe's wife, Vicky, to share their story. |
| 0:42.3 | I've always said we're kind of a strangely competitive family. And the other thing about our family is we're very active. |
| 0:47.3 | Our vacation to us is backpacking. |
| 0:50.3 | I wouldn't say we do extreme sports, but we do like to push it. |
| 0:57.4 | Yeah, it's kind of weird because, you know, it's just something that we did. |
| 1:02.1 | I really enjoy running a lot. |
| 1:06.1 | You know, it's something that we set out to do a while ago. |
| 1:09.0 | You know, we were just running marathonsons and we realized that we had knocked off so many |
| 1:13.3 | states. |
| 1:13.7 | And one moment, we was like, oh, we have, you know, 10 or 12 states already knocked off. |
| 1:20.0 | And that's when Joe said, well, why don't we try to do all 50 states? |
| 1:25.5 | And at the time I said, sure, let's just, yeah, why not? Let's do it. And so what |
| 1:32.3 | happened was kind of before the pandemic, we said, we probably need to pick up the pace. No, |
| 1:38.2 | pun intended there. And then my daughter-in-law, Vicki, is the one who organizes everything. We |
| 1:43.5 | could not have done it without Vicki because she's our pit crew extraordinaire, |
| 1:48.0 | and she lines everything up. |
| 1:50.5 | But we would turn it into, like, many vacations. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from iHeartPodcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of iHeartPodcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.