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.
Healey has said maintaining stable blood-sugar levels is essential, since levels that run too low or too high can force her to stop running altogether. She described the daily grind of diabetes management as something that can make planning a long run frustrating and discouraging. In her telling, people with diabetes effectively act as an organ themselves, making hundreds of additional decisions about their bodies each day through devices, dosing and constant monitoring.
That kind of mid-run disruption is not unique to Healey. A prior Beyond Type Run participant named Stephanie wrote about having to stop at the medical tent at mile 14 of the 2017 New York City Marathon because her blood sugar had dropped into the 60s and wasn't rising fast enough to continue, according to Beyond Type 1's own account. She finished the race anyway, marking her 20th year living with type 1 diabetes at the time. The same piece notes that managing blood glucose for endurance sports is largely trial and error, and that intense training can actually increase insulin sensitivity — adding another variable runners like Healey have to track.
A Support System Rooted in Northern Colorado
Healey has history with endurance events this year, having run the Bolder Boulder 10K in May and the Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half-Marathon in August, per the Post. In high school, she played club volleyball and tennis, spending two years as the Fort Collins Lambkins' No. 1 singles player. As a kid, she attended a diabetes camp, and she has since used proceeds from jewelry sales to buy insulin pumps for children whose families couldn't afford them.
Cecilia Jamieson, a Berthoud resident and certified diabetes and education specialist who was part of Healey's care team when she was first diagnosed, is running the marathon herself as part of the Beyond Type Run team. Jamieson told the Post that Healey exemplifies how people with type 1 diabetes can do almost anything. Jamieson also pushed back on common misconceptions, saying some people still believe type 1 diabetes is caused by eating the wrong thing or not exercising enough — misunderstandings that run counter to the autoimmune nature of the disease.
Race Day Logistics and a Pace Goal
Healey is aiming to finish the marathon in under six hours, which requires holding a pace of roughly 13 minutes and 40 seconds per mile. The 2026 TCS New York City Marathon kicks off Sunday at 8 a.m. in New York City and is sold out, according to New York Road Runners. Medical aid stations are positioned roughly every mile starting at mile 3 and continuing through the finish — a safety net that matters for runners managing glucose swings over 26.2 miles.
Healey won't be the only athlete balancing elite performance with type 1 diabetes this year. Notable athletes with type 1 diabetes include MLB pitcher Mason Miller, tennis player Alexander Zverev, Ravens tight end Mark Andrews, Brewers center fielder Garrett Mitchell and Chad Muma. Muma, now on the Texans' practice squad, played in the Super Bowl for the Patriots last year.
A Broader Push Against Diabetes Stigma
Beyond Type 1 has framed this year's team as an effort to challenge stigma that it says affects as many as 98% of youth and adolescents with type 1 diabetes, 78% of adults with type 1 diabetes and 70% of adults with type 2 diabetes, per the organization's release. A separate PubMed-indexed record cites the same high-end figures for adults and for youth with type 1 diabetes, while noting that prevalence among youth and adolescents with type 2 diabetes remains unknown.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated that 2.1 million Americans have been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, according to a CDC report cited in the Post's reporting. The New York Road Runders' Official Charity Partner Program, of which Beyond Type Run is a member, has raised nearly $700 million for more than 1,000 nonprofits since 2006. Beyond Type Run is also expanding internationally, with a team planned for the TCS London Marathon in April 2027.
For Healey, Sunday's race is less about a finishing time than about proving a point she's carried since childhood: that a diagnosis at age 7 doesn't have to define what's possible decades later. As she prepares to join 79 teammates at the starting line, her message, according to the Post, remains simple — diabetes doesn't stop you from doing hard things.
