Author Spotlight
Rose Kanaley
Associate principal Dr. Susan Leonard was never a runner. She thought her high school soccer team’s two-to-three-mile loop around the school was torture and that her friends who ran cross country were insane.
But Nov. 3, Leonard finished the New York Marathon — her first marathon — alongside her running partner of nine years and East parent, Leigh Eck.
Leonard learned to love running for the closeness it brought her with Eck and other friends she’d run with. As a young teacher, Leonard started running because it was the easiest and cheapest workout option to fit into her schedule, plus it brought the social aspect of running with a friend.
Even after finding an appreciation for running, a marathon still seemed completely out of her scope. She made up every excuse she could think of not to, from not being in good enough shape to saying she’d only do a marathon in New York (she is a Jersey girl after all). She knew entering the drawing to get in the New York Marathon — the main process used for people out-of-state with less serious intentions to enter the marathon — has about a 16% success rate.
But Eck pushed her to at least keep submitting her name to the ballot, and when Leonard got the email last January — she knew it was a sign they had to begin the hard part: training. They’d been running together before the marathon training, but began running a few days a week after finding out Leonard was accepted in January and officially started training in June.
The two used Hal Higdon, a renowned runner’s, famous marathon training program to find a schedule to train that worked for them. Both with busy work schedules as an associate principal and endocrinologist, Leonard and Eck went with a three-day-a-week training plan with the more intense runs on two weekdays and longer runs leading up to 20 miles on Saturdays.
“What was kind of exciting was that once we had passed 13 [miles] on those Saturday long runs, every single time I ran on a Saturday, I was running further than I’d ever run in my whole life,” Leonard said. “And we would laugh, the adrenaline is amazing. You’d finish it and the rest of the day would be crazy — I’d crash and probably go to bed at 9 p.m. or something, but I would be so happy.”
Even with wake-ups as early as 4:30 a.m. to run before a day of work at East, Leonard felt energized after the runs and excited to keep going. Running wasn’t a chore, it became something she looked forward to.
Not just looking forward to the run, Leonard looked forward to building her friendship with Eck and other friends she ran with. She’s been able to find importance in the strong female friendships that running has helped her form, especially with Eck. Whether it was just showing up to meet for a run while it was still dark or pushing the other to keep a faster pace even when they were tired, their friendship motivated them.
“As far as good girl friendships, I am running faster than I’ve ever run before and I know it’s because of her,” Leonard said.
The training took up three of their mornings every week, but Leonard’s son CJ didn’t find that it changed their family dynamic very much, saying she was gone and already home before school.
While it was hard for Leonard to drag herself out of bed as early as early as 4:30 a.m. on a weekday morning, she knew she had to go meet Eck.
“There are mornings when I don’t want to get up, but Leigh is waiting for me,” Leonard said. “And I hope that some days she doesn’t want to get up and she knows I’m waiting for her.”
The two’s training went from five miles that had become their favorite route around Mission Hills and through the Village to planning 20-mile runs through the area, asking friends to leave water bottles or Gatorade on their door steps so they wouldn’t get dehydrated.
Leonard and Eck found how supportive their friends were with this, finding kind notes and snacks left along their running route along with the drinks.
The adjustment of running and pacing herself wasn’t easy for Leonard. She was often hard on herself about maintaining a faster pace, but once she stopped focusing on the details, she learned to enjoy running.
“There were days that it felt terrible and there were days that it felt good, but most of all it gives you confidence to not overthink it, like if there are bad days,” Leonard said. “There’s good ones coming too. I’ve gotten a lot better about not beating myself up when the pace is bad, like whatever, it was a hard day. Move on.”
The hard training and fast paces weren’t the only hard parts of the preparation for the marathon.
Eck didn’t get into the marathon through lottery like Leonard did, and since the two knew they had to run it together Eck decided to get in through one of the alternatives — raising $3,000 and running for a nonprofit organization.
With Eck working as an endocrinologist and Leonard’s niece having Type 1 Diabetes, the nonprofit choice was easy: the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF).
“So then it became a cause we really cared about too,” Leonard said. “We raised money so she got her entry and we’ve been training since.”
They reached out to friends and family via texts, letters and emails to ask for support and donations for the JDRF. Although both felt uncomfortable asking for money, they knew raising money to run with the JDRF was Eck’s only other opportunity to get in the marathon, and the marathon wouldn’t be the same if only Leonard could run it.
They wanted to commit the time and effort to raising money for the JDRF, and their friendship through running the marathon.
“There were times when I’d see [Leonard] from our runs more often than my kids or family, “ Eck said. “But we’ve been friends for a long time now, so it’s a big deal that we’re doing this together.”
Leonard was especially excited for the marathon on Nov. 3, to run through all five boroughs and see the city in a way she’d never seen it before during her run. But most of all, she couldn’t wait to pass the iconic “Last Damn Bridge” sign on the Madison Avenue Bridge — and know that she was almost to the finish line of her first marathon. Leonard and Eck’s husbands came to support them, while their kids stayed at home.
They decided to set A, B and C goals for their marathon time so they would have optimistic and realistic goals for the race. Their goals were under four hours, under four and a half hours, or just to finish it overall. The two ran the first 13 miles together before drifting apart for the second 13. Leonard finished in four hours and 20 minutes, meeting their B goal, and Eck was just within their A goal with a time of three hours and 58 minutes.
For Leonard and Eck, the mornings of sweating through Mission Hills were worth it. But in the end, it was about more than just the marathon.
“Now that I’m at the end of it, looking back, I’m nostalgic like the journey has been as good as the marathon will be in a lot of ways,” Leonard said. “I can’t believe I did that but I did it! It just kind of teaches you that sometimes things seem impossible, but you can do it.”
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