Australian marathoner Leanne Pompeani is “still a long way” from full fitness after a horror six months with injury, but is finally approaching light at the end of the tunnel.
Having been one of Australian athletics’ most consistent performers across the local circuit and abroad for several years, the 30-year-old has been virtually unsighted on a start line in 2026.
The Canberra product helped Australia to a fifth-placed finish at the World Athletics Cross Country Championships in Florida in early January, but has battled a “complicated” nerve-related problem ever since.
Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today
Speaking to 7NEWS.com.au at the launch of the Asics Novablast 6 in Melbourne, Pompeani said watching on from the sidelines has been a new experience.
“It’s a slow process and progress for this issue. It’s really complicated,” she said.
“It’s sort of along the lines of chronic pain and the nervous system. It’s called central sensitisation.
“Pretty much my nerves, my parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems, they’re just out of alignment, so essentially I’ve kind of got this alarm system always on, which my brain thinks is still pain.
“It’s reversable, it’s just really hard to reverse. It’s a slow process.
“I was racing a lot, particularly over the past two years, and it is hard to be on the sidelines. You’re already going through something pretty tough.
“I have started getting back out — I got out at Gold Coast. Didn’t race, but just to be part of the Asics crew again, I think it was needed for me, because if you disconnect too much, it’s even worse for your mental health.”
Pompeani has started easing herself back into training, but is yet to introduce any significant intensity.
“Even just jogging, I have to watch what I do because it’s a really fine line for pushing through too much pain,” she said.
“No one can give me a timeline, which is probably one of the hardest parts about this.
“Most muscle, bone or tendon injury, to a degree, has a rough timeline. This, they can make no guarantees, so it’s really hard.
“I’m really looking forward to just getting back into training. I miss training hard. I’d love to have a race before the end of the year.”
The Asics athlete stepped up to the marathon distance only last year, making her debut in the event at Nagoya in March before beating Jess Stenson and Lisa Weightman as the first Aussie across the line at Sydney marathon in August.
Her 2:24.47 effort on the hilly Sydney course placed her seventh overall in the women’s field and gave her the fastest marathon time ever recorded by an Aussie woman on home soil.
But Pompeani said her move to the 42.2km distance as a priority isn’t the reason for her body’s failure this year.
“It’s not necessarily to do with the marathon,” she said.
“I’ve had this problem for about four years, so I’ve been racing through it either side of the step up to the marathon, but the marathon is probably the hardest to cope with it. Just the nature of it: the duration and the intensity, my pain doesn’t like.
“I’m looking forward to running just being hard because running is a hard sport, not hard because you’ve got something else that’s dragging you down. That’s the aim of the game.”
Pompeani has her eyes firmly on the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.
“That is the big plan, LA ‘28,” she said.
“That’s what I said after World Cross in January, and when this injury started going downhill, I said let’s get this fixed now because I really think I can make our team if I’m healthy and running.
“That’s my non-negotiable: I’m ready and firing by December for next year.”
