Diane Leong runs to remember, encourage and inspire!

     Diane Leong knew she couldn't run away from the heartbreak in her life. But she thought she might be able to run through it. And so she started running, for herself and for The Turtle.
 
     The Turtle was her son, Randy. He suffered from juvenile arthritis and so was a slow mover. His teenage pals nicknamed him "Turtle." But then Randy died, at age 18, on July 4, 1999, from complications of the arthritis and immune/blood problems.
 
     Leong, a senior lab technician in Grossmont College's Health Professions
Department, laced on her first pair of running shoes immediately after Randy's death.
 
     "I needed a focus, to get through my grief," she said.

     There were obstacles. She was a smoker. She quit. And she was a breast cancer survivor, diagnosed in October, 1997. She went through surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, a regimen lasting a year that severely taxes the
body's cardiovascular and immune systems. She recalled many days not being able to get out of bed. It left her worn out. Then Randy died.
 
     But she started anyway. Walking at first, then jogging in the gym. Eventually she was jogging 10 miles a day, all indoors. Encouraged by Jerome Passman, a Cardiovascular Technology colleague and a veteran of the New York Marathon, Diane started running outdoors. She became a familiar sight on the Grossmont track and the perimeter road. Sometimes she ran on the beach, sometimes as far as 18 miles.
 
     Then her running found a goal. In November, 2001, Diane ran in the annual Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation Race for the Cure in Balboa Park. "It was my third anniversary as a breast cancer survivor," she said. In the race, survivors wear special pink T-shirts and caps. "I was overwhelmed by the emotion of it," she said, "being surrounded by survivors, persons that had the same experience as I had."
 
     After that five-kilometer race, she pointed toward a more serious event. She decided to take on a half-marathon, 13.1 miles. She ran in the Carlsbad Half-Marathon in January and on her cap she wore a small plastic turtle. Diane finished the race in 2 hours, 29 minutes.
 
     "I got so much encouragement from the faculty and staff, and from
students," she said. "They would always ask, are you going to run, and how far."
 
     One day she told them she was going to run the marathon, 26.2 miles. She started a specific training regimen, running early in the morning and at night on the track and the perimeter road. Frequently she heard the shouts of students and others, cheering her on. "I think the training was harder than the marathon," she said. But she thought about who she was running for, and she pressed on.
 
     On June 2, Diane Leong lined up with thousands of others at the Balboa Park starting line for the Rock and Roll Marathon, that wound through downtown, up through Mission Valley up to Rose Canyon and then around Mission Bay and finally ending at the old Naval Training Center.
 
     Leong finished in 9,461st place overall, and she laughs timidly about her time of 5:05.45. "So slow," she said. But fast enough for The Turtle. And she wasn't finished. In July she ran in the Coronado 15k, and in August she's entered in the America's Finest City Half-Marathon.
 
     "I will probably never be fast enough to qualify for the 'big ones' like New York or Boston," she said, "but I have the satisfaction of completing a goal I could not have imagined four years ago. And I do hope someday to provide inspiration to others." People around Grossmont have already heard that inspiration, in the cheers that sometimes ring along the perimeter road.
 
     Leong, a Tierra Santa resident, runs as part of a "Team-in-Training" program for runners, walkers, and bicyclists that raises money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Now she is paired with one of her Grossmont College colleagues who is undergoing treatment for Leukemia. Leong's family built a website so everyone can keep up with her at www.marathon.org.
 
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