On a midwinter day in 2020, Sam Good made a quick decision.
“I’m going to do a crazy thing,” she told her husband. “I’m going to apply to ride in the New York City Marathon.”
The announcement shocked them both. It was barely a year since Good had sustained a T11-T12 spinal cord injury in an accident. Everything in her reshaped life felt so different: her body, her clothes, the way she moved through the world.
But she was still the same person.
Before the injury, Good had been an avid runner and enthusiastic athlete, competing in triathlons and long-distance relay races with friends. That drive hadn’t simply disappeared. Tackling the marathon might be crazy — at that moment, Good didn’t even have a hand cycle to practice on — but seemed critical to her recovery.
“Exercise and playing sports were so much part of my life,” she says. “I just wanted to do something.”
And so, she did.
Over the past three years, Good has racked up hundreds of miles on her cycle, not only conquering three marathons — so far — but an epic cross-country road relay that found her riding 165 miles from Denver to Topeka.