Finding Balance

For years, whenever Doug Leonard ran, he ran long—marathon long. As the miles accumulated beneath his feet, his body switched to autopilot. His mind grew quiet, steeped in the motivational tapes he carried that inspired him to lead a positive life. Then life took its own, devastating turn.

On September 12, 2001, mere hours after the nation was plunged into a powerful, collective grief, Leonard lay down for a nap in his Houston home, suffered a massive seizure, and awoke in the hospital, nauseous and doped up on strong, antiseizure medication. Monitored closely for the next 3 years, the 50-year-old software designer never had another seizure, but his daily meds kept him feeling sick, tired, and incapable of maintaining his former 75-mile-a-week running schedule. His fitness naturally declined. Then, on June 30, 2004, it bit the dust.

That was the day Leonard had surgery to remove a cyst from his brain—the interloper that caused his initial seizure—and the operation and the meds that followed erased his sense of balance. The four-time marathoner could barely walk, much less run.

He tripped over slight cracks and small dips in sidewalks. He couldn’t ride a bike. He lost the upper-body strength to rise unassisted from a seated position or to exit a car. Once athletic, outgoing, and optimistic, he felt cloudy and insecure, sidelined from a world moving at a pace he could no longer match. “When your physical balance is off, your mental balance is equally off,” he says.

Eager to feel “on” again, Leonard joined the Brand Boulevard 24 Hour Fitness in Glendale, Colorado, in January 2007, shortly after his doctors reduced his meds. Still, he couldn’t balance on one leg for more than 1 or 2 seconds or raise more than a 3-pound weight above his head. Trainer Courtney Shelby remembers the face of the man who sat before her, asking for help; it was tired, drawn, weak. Five months later, it was the face of (near) triumph.

“Doug’s was the fastest transformation I’ve seen in anybody,” says Shelby. To restore his balance, Leonard practiced single-leg step-ups, balancing for a second or two on each leg, with no weights. He did shoulder presses with 3-pound free weights while balancing on a Swiss ball. Shelby emphasized good posture, stretching, and massage to strengthen his abs and lower back to further improve balance. Leonard built leg strength with ball squats and sessions of standing from a seated position on a bench, using just his heels.

As we went to press, Leonard was cranking through three sets of 12 step-ups while holding anywhere from 20- to 35-pound weights in each hand and balancing from 5 to 7 seconds on each leg. He can do single-arm shoulder presses with 10- to 20-pound weights. He can leg press 75 to 90 pounds. He’s back on track—literally—walking every day.

Fifteen years ago, Leonard ran part of Angels Landing Trail in Utah’s Zion National Park. The challenging climb offers stunning views of the canyon. Leonard’s goal? To run that trail again.

“When you run in nature, you become a part of it,” he says. “That’s my goal. When that happens, I’ll have totally come back."