I decided I wanted to run a half-marathon at some point in 2024. 

I have a long and strange relationship to running. When I was 6, I told my parents I would not be playing soccer ever again because of all the running. I was the only one of my friends that didn’t go out for track in seventh grade. My lack of speed was my biggest detriment when I played softball and basketball in high school.

But off and on throughout my life, I experienced spurts of energy where I decided to try running anyway, regardless of the distance I could handle or the time it took. I’d get to a point where I could run 5 or 6 miles at a time without stopping, then I’d lose interest. I was at the beginning of one of those periods of motivation when I reached out to my friends Steven and Kasey Froeschle and told them of my new goal. 

Steven grew up with my husband, Matt, in Davenport, and was a groomsman in our wedding. Kasey is Steven’s wife who quickly became a close friend after we both moved to Davenport in 2021. I knew Steven had created training plans for other runners in his life, so I asked him to guide me on my new adventure. I knew Kasey was a top-notch “girl’s girl” who was going to emotionally and spiritually push me across that finish line. 

Kasey sent me this text message back in March when I was convinced I was going to give up before the half-marathon: “6% of the world runs, and less than that do 5ks, and here you are training for a half. All that matters is that you keep digging and pushing yourself, and in that uncomfortable state is when you surprise yourself.” 

That’s the kind of friend I knew her to be, so it absolutely didn’t surprise me when I learned that she provided that support to a complete stranger as a guide runner in the 2025 New York City Marathon. 

Kasey ran the NYC marathon for the first time as a guide runner for a visually impaired woman through Achilles International, a nonprofit helping athletes with disabilities participate in endurance events. She was paired with a woman who was peripherally blind on her right side and had difficulties seeing in front of her. 

Kasey’s job: protect her athlete’s right side, watch for inconsistencies in the street and ensure no one would cut her off. 

“Some other runners may have a tether between them and their guide, or some people have a few runners around them,” Kasey said. “It can vary athlete to athlete and disability to disability.” 

Kasey had tried to get into the NYC marathon previously. The year she ran a qualifying time, so many people had applied that they reduced the qualifying time by 18 minutes. Steven had qualified this year, and since she would already be there supporting him, she felt running as a guide runner was the perfect opportunity to help someone else while knocking the storied race off her bucket list. 

Kasey regularly trains alongside her sisters-in-law, Katie and Ann, as well as other women friends in the Quad Cities. But running alongside a stranger in this way was a different experience. The two were able to connect beforehand to understand how they could work together.

Naturally, they quickly began to build a supportive relationship.

“We had a phone call to kind of introduce ourselves and talk about our running and our goals,” Kasey said. “Then we would text every now and then leading up to the race, just to check in on how other races had been going, how we’re feeling, things like that.” 

Kasey’s personal record for a marathon is 3 hours and 1 minute. Since she became a guide runner with the intent of helping someone else instead of reaching a time goal, she was paired with a runner who would finish anywhere between 3.5 and 6 hours. 

This allowed her to focus solely on supporting her athlete’s safety. They were able to check in with each other regularly and adjust when they needed. Describing their conversations, I recognized the care Kasey provided to this woman.

“If she was struggling, I’d try to keep her positive and keep her head right,” she said. “We’d chat a little here and there, checking in like, ‘OK, how are you feeling? How does this pace feel to you? Do you need to go to the bathroom?’”

They each decided not to wear headphones during the race to help that communication. Together, they took in the magic of running in the big city. 

“You’ll hear a lot of people talking about the crowds in New York City, and that is 1,000% accurate. There are just so many people out there, and I feel like you’d be missing out on that if you wore headphones,” Kasey said. 

I have seen Kasey finish the Bix7 race in Davenport, a 7-mile race through the city that attracts runners from around the world, and I knew she always gave her all. I wondered what it was like to run a race with the task of caring for someone else rather than herself. 

“That was definitely a bit of a learning curve,” she said. “I realized I needed to be aware of my surroundings, because this isn’t my race. My job here is to get her across that finish line safely. You totally relax just because you do want to kind of be their eyes and ears and look out for them, because that’s what our job is.”

The race was also a unique exercise in getting rid of some self-doubt. Kasey explained to me that she typically puts a bit of pressure on herself during her races, but she was able to find a different headspace alongside her athlete. 

That was especially apparent to her because two weeks before the New York City Marathon, she ran a 100K at the Mines of Spain in Dubuque. 

“I knew it was going to be a different kind of beast, going from the 100K to a marathon a few weeks after, but I just really focused on recovery and taking things easily. I knew physically I’d be able to encompass 26.2 miles; it was just mentally that I needed to be ready to hang in there for a few hours.” 

I thought about what finishing that race must have felt like for the athlete Kasey helped. I knew running with a disability required a certain kind of determination — the courage to accomplish your goals no matter the barriers. It’s the same reason I wanted to run. I have Type 1 diabetes and running a long race required extra care to manage my blood sugar. 

Whether it was her first marathon or her hundredth, I knew she had to feel accomplished and proud. For Kasey, it gave her a new outlook on her sport. 

“Having raced marathons for the last couple of years and being so hell-bent on hitting specific splits, approaching it in a totally different mindset while helping someone out was a different kind of rewarding feeling crossing the finish line,” Kasey said. “Helping someone set out to do something that may be difficult for them to do was a totally humbling feeling and was just a breath of fresh air after racing the marathon for so many years.”