SAFETY HARBOR, Fla. — Sheila Scott has run 17 marathons, raised two kids, and now — as an empty nester — she has finally crossed another finish line: publishing a book.
Scott recently completed the London Marathon and has spent years drawing connections between the endurance of long-distance running and the endurance of motherhood.
"I would come back and write down all these notes about this idea of how running is so similar to motherhood because there's injuries, there's pain, there's happy, and there's joy," Scott said.
Her two children are now a freshman and a junior at the University of Alabama — a milestone she describes as one of the hardest but most rewarding parts of being a mom.
Scott uses the running concept of "negative splits" — finishing the second half of a race faster than the first — as a metaphor for parenting.
"The thought of negative splits, that's a runner term. We want to finish the second half, second half of our race faster than the first half of our race. And I thought about the timing with kids and how fast it really does go, and especially at that tail end when they're coming into graduation and looking into colleges and things like that, all of a sudden the time speeds up. So it's a good thing in a way, not so great when you're having to say goodbye to them," Scott said.
Balancing marathon training with raising kids and managing a household required creativity. Scott found a simple solution that kept her on track.
"When I used to drop them off at school in the morning, I would park at their school and then just start my run because then, before the errands get in the way, before the projects at the house get in the way, you still get your miles in," Scott said.
With her children now out of the house, Scott channeled her newfound time into finishing the book she had been writing for years.
"Because I wrote the book so long ago and just, as an empty nester, finally got the courage to push it over the finish line, pun intended, I called the epilogue 'moving up an age group.' So, they're moving up age groups, and so are we, too," Scott said.
The most meaningful moment came when her daughter read it.
"Mom, I remember all of these memories from my memory bank. It was neat to hear them from your side and kind of see the behind-the-scenes of some of the things that I remember. So hearing her reaction, it just made it all totally worthwhile," Scott said.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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