A well known running instructor has revealed her post-marathon must-have as she is set to tick off her final World Major.
Susie Chan, one of Peloton’s famous running instructors, is in Australia for the Sydney Marathon on Sunday, which recently became the seventh World Major in the marathon world.
Speaking to news.com.au, Chan, who is now 50, revealed how she ran her first half marathon after her little brother forced her to complete one with him 15 years ago.
“I was a single mum. I did love my job, but it was not a well paying job. I was a bit skint all the time. We were fine, happy and healthy,” she said.
But she felt rudderless, and decided to give it a go.
“I genuinely didn’t know how far that was or what it entailed but he was very persuasive. I thought maybe I could do with getting a bit fitter,” she said.
“I was 35 and I thought I better start now.”
Chan started training for the half marathon — but when the day rolled around, she refused to show up.
Eventually, her brother managed to coax her out of the door and the pair turned up on the start line five minutes before the race began.
It wasn’t her fastest time ever but she did it, and amazingly, she said it was nowhere near as bad as she thought.
That run changed the course of her life. After running 21km, something she credits to the encouraging nature of the community, Chan said she felt like she could do more.
Chan, who describes herself as a positive person, began to document her running journey on her social media, which eventually saw her completing ultra-marathons.
Then she got a direct message from Peloton in 2021.
“It said, ‘We like you. Do you want to test out to be a new instructor’,” Chan recalled.
“I asked if they knew how old I was, because somewhere in my mind I thought it was a young 20-somethings game, and they said ‘We do, we love you and we want someone who is authentic and loves running’.
“And that was me.”
After various auditions, she landed the job.
“It’s never not a joy, which really struck me in the first few months,” she said.
“When I started at Peloton I realised there were so many different fitness abilities. It made me remember my own running journey.”
She said she regularly gets messages from Peloton users who have run their first mile with her, or been inspired to take it to the next step and try a marathon. She said she was “lucky” people trusted her with that.
Chan called the idea that people of a certain age can’t try new things such as running “codswallop” and that she didn’t believe it. She said when she started running at 35, she had no confidence, but she liked to think she could now encourage people to take that first step.
“Age is not a barrier. I know this from some of my friends who have started running a bit later on,” she said.
“Some of my friends now — who are in their 50s, 60s and 70s — still do extraordinary things. It’s no barrier. You don’t have to run a marathon. You can go for a brisk walk and try a 10-second run.
“Small steps is a good place to start. Don’t worry about other people and what they’re doing.”
However, her running career hasn’t been without hurdles as she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2017.
“It was a shock. I was doing all these big races, like multi stage ultras. I didn’t think I was invincible but it was the last thing on my mind,” she said.
“At the finish line of the Sixth World Major when I realised something was wrong with me. I hadn’t been feeling off and on for a few weeks but the symptoms were so vague.”
She said she put it down to being tired, or running too much, but then she collapsed at the end of the Chicago marathon.
Her friend knew it wasn’t normal and pushed Chan to go to the doctor.
“They found this huge lump in my neck. I remember thinking, ‘Are you sure?’ It knocked how I viewed myself,” she said.
Thankfully, it was a “simple” cancer and after a handful of operations, she went straight back into running, finishing a half marathon two weeks later. Not long after she did Marathon des Sables. It helped her trust her body again.
During her running career, Chan has broken the 12-hour treadmill World Record, completed the Marathon des Sables four times, and done all six World Marathon Majors — with Sydney set to be ticking the final one off of her list.
Chan said because she’s done so many marathons, and as she is older and perimenopause, her goals are fun based and not time based. She is looking forward to her post race tradition of a salty pizza, usually featuring anchovies, olives and pineapple, fries and a beer.
“I tried to avoid things like lucky socks, because it’s not them that runs the race, it’s you,” she said.
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