- December 4, 2025
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Sue McGregor says she's never placed high in the marathons she's been involved in.
However, for much of her life, she's been on the move, and as she prepares to turn 84 on Nov. 7, she's not stopping.
After her hours were reduced at work, the Sarasota resident decided to make plans.
“I thought, 'What am I going to do? What do I love to do? I love to go out and sweat, and so on and so forth."
In the past, she participated in the World Marathon Majors. At the time, there were five races.
Now, she's training for the Athens Authentic Marathon, also known as the Athens Classic Marathon, the race tied to the origins of the word "marathon," on Nov. 9.
The run begins in the town of Marathon, Greece, before heading to Athens and finishing in the place McGregor hopes she will be able to reach, the marble Panathenaic Stadium.
The marathon race and course are inspired by the legend of a run from Marathon to Athens after the Battle of Marathon in 490 B.C.E.
Pheidippides, a messenger in Ancient Greece, allegedly ran the course to announce the Greeks' victory over the Persians, while the event traces its origins back to the Marathon race at the 1896 Olympics.
“The five majors were my goal," McGregor said. "I never dreamed I'd do another one again.”
McGregor first got into running around 30 years ago, in 1996, through the Sarge Fitness Boot Camp while living in Washington, D.C.
At the time, she was working for a meeting planning association before she started her own company, McGregor Management Inc.
Previously, she had been walking in the neighborhood and the gym, but she said walking became too slow.
“I don’t want to say it was competition; it was camaraderie, really,” she said, of what drew her to running.
Participants were divided into maintenance groups, which she says still meet to this day, while the head of the boot camp will be running with her in Athens.
McGregor's first race was an 8K in Kensington, Maryland, in 1998, while her first marathon was the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, D.C. and Arlington County, Virginia, in 2001.
She was worried the latter would be canceled due to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, although the event ultimately went ahead.
McGregor recalls that as she crossed the start line, she dropped something, maybe an energy gel.
“I thought, Oh, my God, I'm not gonna make it," she said.
As other runners came toward her, she had to bend over to pick up the object.
Nonetheless, she continued to run, participating in the prestigious races now known as the Abbott World Marathon Majors, which at the time included five cities.
It started with New York in 2003, after she won the lottery for a spot.
"I woke up one morning, and there it was on the screen. You've got a number. So that began the majors,” she said.
She also ran in London in 2009, Chicago in 2006, Boston in 2010 and Berlin in 2011. After that, Tokyo was added in 2013.
She says she placed "way down" in the numbers, but she enjoyed the experiences, especially the international races.
“I love those crowds,” she said. “It’s just so exhilarating to go to the start of one of these major races.”
McGregor attributes the longevity of her running involvement to a program called ChiRunning.
She took her first class in Washington with its developer, Danny Dreyer, before becoming certified as an instructor.
She still practices that form of running, which is based in the principles of tai chi and purported to reduce the risk of injury.
“People look at me and wonder what I'm doing, quite honestly, because of the stance that you assume to do it,” she said. “It's one of those where you don't put the foot out front. You don't run off from the toe."
When she moved to Sarasota 10 years ago, at which time she lived in The Meadows, she saw people running and walking at Nathan Benderson Park and decided to get re-certified.
She arranged to hold classes at the park for people to learn the technique.
“I've taken 80-year-old women in classes up a hill," she said. "They look at it and say, 'No way, Jose.' And then we go. They're just amazed.”
She says one of the highlights of her running experience was in London, when for the start of the race, she was driven to a field that looked like the one at The Bay in Sarasota and "smelled of newly mowed grass."
She says the international events were especially inspiring, like Berlin, where runners finished under the Brandenburg Gate.
“If you're in a charity group, which I was in Boston, you're one of the last ones,” she said. “So that adds time onto it, but doesn't matter, eventually you get going, and it was amazing.”
However, after Tokyo was added as the sixth race, she had completed her goals.
“I said, I'm not going to Tokyo in February," she said.
While training for the Boston Marathon, she traveled there in the winter to run the course.
However, she says training hasn't been any easier in Sarasota, with the heat she's been enduring after she began in May.
After an incident during a 16-mile run, she ended up changing from a mileage-based format to a time-based one.
During her three weekly training runs, her time reaches from 45 minutes to four hours, in contrast to the six or seven hours she had been running previously.
She also performs recovery runs on other days as well.
McGregor says it's challenging to practice the distance of a marathon in Sarasota.
Another challenge is finding sloping terrain, and the Athens course is known as one of the more difficult marathon races, with a major uphill climb.
One way she has managed is by spending time on the Ringling Causeway.
"I just go over and back, over and back, over and back. And I'll probably do quite a bit of that from here on out," she said.
She also enjoys being involved with clubs in the community.
She recently started attending the new Run & Walk Club for All at The Bay on Saturdays, and also takes the Primetime classes held at the park on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
"The people are so fantastic," she said, stating she enjoys the camaraderie of her experiences there.
McGregor also runs with the Manasota Track Club, which she calls "so outgoing and welcoming" and a factor in her decision to move to Sarasota.
“I know I'm putting in the time, I'm putting in the effort, and I've always felt that the training is the majority of the project, and the race itself is the icing on the cake,” she said. “I mean, you could have a bad day. You could fall at the start line. Who knows?”
With the Athens course open for eight hours, she hopes she'll be able to make it to the finish line, but it's not about winning.
“We'll finish in the stadium, I hope,” she said. “I have no expectations. And if I don't finish, I will have had the experience.”
