MLive · Oct 24, 2018
Former MSU standout runner Leah O'Connor ready for long-awaited return
Leah O'Connor has a knot in her stomach about her first race in more than a year and that's a good thing.
It's that paradoxical comfortable/uncomfortable feeling she welcomes as she prepares for her first step toward rebuilding a multi-talented career that took off and disappeared just as fast.
O'Connor, who set the 1,500- and 3,000-meter steeplechase record at Michigan State and was national NCAA champion at both, has endured a long road from a ruptured plantar fascia in 2016 to anemia-related issues to wondering if her running career was over at age 25.
But a chance meeting at a fun run with an elite athlete with more than his share of injuries and obstacles changed her direction.