A 29-year-old Windsor resident is lacing up for Sunday’s TCS New York City Marathon with a mission that goes well beyond the finish line. Leah Healey, who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age 7, has spent the past 10 months training for the 26.2-mile race while juggling blood-sugar checks, insulin doses and the unpredictable physical toll of marathon training on a body that does not regulate glucose on its own.
Healey is one of 80 runners on this year’s Beyond Type Run team, an official charity partner of the marathon through the New York Road Runners’ Official Charity Partner Program, according to a release from Beyond Type 1. The team, made up of people living with type 1 and type 2 diabetes along with caregivers and supporters, represents the nonprofit’s ninth annual marathon squad. Healey works for Beyond Type 1, a nonprofit dedicated to improving the lives of people impacted by diabetes, and Beyond Type Run operates as one of its programs, as The Denver Post reports.
Healey was inspired to train for the marathon after attending the previous year’s race, the Post’s reporting shows. She says she wants to show people that diabetes does not prevent them from doing hard things or achieving in life and athletics. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease in which the immune system attacks and destroys insulin-producing pancreatic cells, and insulin itself is a hormone that converts sugar from food into energy — meaning people with the condition must replicate, by hand and by machine, a process the body would otherwise manage on its own.
Training Runs Interrupted by the Disease Itself
Healey’s preparation hasn’t gone smoothly. During one long training run, her insulin pump fell out, forcing her to call her husband for a ride home, according to the Post’s account. Her past injuries included torn ligaments in her left knee and a broken foot; she leaned on cross-training, listening to her body and recovery to keep her Sunday goal intact…