Diane Hawkins
For Diane Hawkins, running began as a way to relieve stress from an intense career as an actress, but the sport became much more, opening doors and introducing her to people around the world.
She’d been exposed to running before – first as a kid who could beat the neighborhood boys in races and then running the L’eggs Mini Marathon while working as a model.
After the L’eggs Mini Marathon
“Years later, I'm an actress and it's very stressful, and … one day I woke up and I said, this is crazy. I need to do something besides my dancing to help me relax and focus and just get away from the busyness of my career,” she said.
At the time, she lived along First Avenue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
“I would look out my window every marathon and see them running,” she said. “I said, ‘All those people are so strong. I want to be one of them.’”
She set a goal to run the New York City Marathon and found that the training helped her be more focused and confident in auditions.
Soon, she had new friends from the running community and was spending hours training in Central Park. She ran L’eggs Mini Marathon again and the San Francisco Marathon and then, a few months later, the 1983 New York City Marathon.
With teammates, Mary and Amy
She went on to run the New York City Marathon six times, the Boston Marathon 11 times, and countless other races.
“It changed my life tremendously. I have all these new friends who are runners. … It helped me focus more in my work. You could really get upset about an audition and think about, ‘Oh, if I don’t get this…,’ but because the running made me feel so happy and so good, it really was something wonderful that I added to my life and it became a big part,” she said.
Diane first hopped in a 50K in Central Park to get in a long run and placed among the top runners, setting the stage for her career in ultramarathons.
She won the U.S. women’s 50-mile championship four times in the mid-1980s and was named Ultramarathoner of the Year three times in a row. The races were run around a four-mile loop in Central Park.
In addition to boxing – she was one of the earliest female amateur boxers and trained at Gleason’s Gym – Diane swam to supplement her training.
At Gleason’s gym
“I thought, well, if I could swim an hour and a half in a pool, then I could run for five, six hours because you're just looking down at the bottom of the pool, whereas when you're running, you've got the scenery,” she said.
Even after she turned her attention to ultramarathons, Diane never stopped running short races around New York City: New York Road Runners records show she ran more than 100 races put on by that organization alone, from the mile up to the marathon.
Diane eventually ran 24-hour races and competed in multi-day races in France, where she lived for several years. She raced all over Europe and traveled to South Africa for the Comrades Marathon in Cape Town with her teammates from the Millrose Athletic Association.
Diane also wrote about running and fitness for the New York Daily News and other publications and later worked as a coach at Green Mountain Running Camp for several years.
Diane still runs today and meets up with the Millrose Athletic Association for workouts when she’s in New York.
Laura Fay is a journalist and runner based in Philadelphia.
