Fifty States, No Objections

After braving extreme temperatures, venomous wildlife and—perhaps most harrowing of all—intense chafing, Debra Saltz ran a marathon in all 50 states.

“For me, nothing has matched the difficulty of this,” says the Annapolis attorney. “And I try murder cases.”

Her journey began in 2006. Approaching her 40th birthday and wanting to improve her fitness, Saltz committed to training for a marathon, the pirate-themed Gasparilla Distance Classic in Tampa, Florida. After completing the 26.2-mile slog, Saltz immediately signed up for another race—and another. She then upped the ante, throwing two Ironmans into the mix (each requiring a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride and full marathon). 

“I just couldn’t stop,” Saltz says of those early days, adding that she’d never participated in a sport before. “I’m not an athlete at all.”

Following her 10th distance event, Saltz qualified for entry into the 50 States Marathon Club, an online platform connecting runners intent on pounding the pavement nationwide. Her objective was set. And her long, winding training runs? Productive in more ways than one.

“Sometimes, I would spend 20 miles thinking about a single case,” she says. “I composed opening statements and closing arguments in my head. I got a ton of work done.” 

Near the Beaverhead Mountains in Idaho, Saltz ran alongside a spawning event in the Salmon River watershed. In Hawaii, she watched humpback whales breach the Pacific Ocean from an Oahu cliffside at sunrise. 

Some marathons proved cathartic: Running in Boston, her hometown, felt reclamatory after an experience spectating the 2013 event and narrowly escaping bombs at the finish line. Other races weren’t steeped in gravitas, but comic relief. In Kansas, for a Wizard of Oz-themed race that launched from a cornfield, Saltz dressed as the Wicked Witch of the West, complete with a black tutu and hat. In Arkansas, a priest spritzed her with holy water as she ran by his church: “I’m Jewish but I loved it!”

But the journey to 50 states wasn’t all positivity and personal records (4:15 in Milwaukee, by the way). Sometimes, reaching her goal meant encountering poisonous rattlesnakes in remote locations, or slogging through frozen, horizontal rain. In Maryland, Saltz endured falling snow and knee-deep water, taking breaks to sit on a curb and cry. Just as she would for an 11th-hour cross-examination because of late-breaking testimony, she rallied and finished the course. In Georgia, after a fellow runner suffered a heart attack, race officials canceled the Savannah race—but not before Saltz had logged more than 20 miles.

“I refused to get off the course and ended up being chased by police,” she says. 

If brutal weather and terrain weren’t enough, one marathon came with the threat of nuclear annihilation. While in the Aloha State, Saltz and some friends received an emergency alert on their phones: BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. NOT A DRILL. This turned out to be a false alarm, but for 38 agonizing minutes, as the group called loved ones and sought shelter in a shopping center, “it was absolute insanity,” she recalls.

The plus side to all this trauma?

“It makes everything else in life feel more manageable,” Saltz says. “When a judge is ruling against me, someone is yelling and a client is giving me grief, I close my eyes and think: You’ve been through so much worse.” 

It would be easy in this line of work, she adds, to adopt a hardboiled view of life—seeing people at their lowest moment is a recipe for cynicism. But running restores faith in humanity. “Everyone on a given course is there to better themselves or the world,” says Saltz, whose own marathoning raised $30,000 for ALS and cancer research. In all her miles, Saltz has never witnessed a runner pass by someone having difficulty, and that compassion is also hugely important in the world of criminal defense.

“Your client might not have anyone else in their corner,” she says. “It’s possible everyone has given up, and you’re the only one still fighting. You have to keep going.” 

In 2018—after 10 years, hundreds of shoes and countless air miles—Saltz checked off her 50th state. (Alaska, where curious onlookers included a moose.) She celebrated the landmark by signing up for yet another race, the Paris Marathon, and hiking the Grand Canyon from rim to rim. 

“As long as I have two legs, I’ll keep running,” she says. “Even on my toughest days, when I’m crying and begging to go back to the car, I know I’m lucky I get to do this.”