Going the distance: Avid runners ready to tackle 26.2 miles in Deseret News Marathon

Dawn Lauti is something of an accidental marathon runner.

She started running after having her second child in order to lose weight.

"I was never a runner, and it never really even crossed my mind," said the 35-year-old mother of five who hopes to run 12 marathons in 12 months. She will tackle her second race of 12 this weekend in one of the oldest races in the country — the Deseret News Marathon. "I had never even met anyone who'd ever run a marathon. But I had a friend who wanted to do it. We were silly and young and we thought, 'Hey, let's try a marathon.' "

They signed up for the St. George Marathon, but her friend stopped training halfway through.

"I just kept with it," she said of training.

Her longest training run was 18 miles — just eight miles short of the marathon race distance. Race day rolled around, and the result, well, it wasn't pretty.

"It was awful," she said, laughing. "I had all the mental games going. I was mad at myself, mad at the people passing me, trying to figure out what did I do wrong. I didn't know all the tricks. I didn't eat the gels; I didn't do water and Gatorade right."

She said the experience was so sour, she decided she had to do another race and get it right.

It might have taken awhile to find her running bliss, but over time, the sport became her friend — physically and mentally.

"I stuck with it because it was great for my weight loss," she said. "I stuck with it because I couldn't let that be it."

Over the years, she ran marathons in between having children. Now she's finished having kids and was seeking something a little more challenging. Then she had the idea that running a marathon every month might just be the goal that takes her on a new journey.

"I don't know where it came from," she said of her 12-marathons-in-12-months goal, which she blogs about on www.racingdawn.blogspot.com. "I just thought it would be something fun and exceptional to do."

She has learned a lot by trial and error and shares those lessons on her blog.

"I am always looking for tips and information," she said.

She hopes training more consistently will bring her faster times. She went from five hours and twenty minutes that first marathon to four hours and twenty minutes just a year later.