BILLINGS — Bailey Boss will lace up her running shoes for the New York City Marathon in about a month, but this race means more than crossing a finish line. She's running to honor her sister-in-law, Lauren Boss, who died from sudden cardiac arrest at age 21.
Boss has transformed her life over the past year, losing 70 pounds and discovering a passion for running that began with struggling to complete a single mile.
See Bailey's transformation below:
"I was probably about 70 pounds heavier than I am right now," Boss said. "I was just so miserable, which is sad, but I just wanted to feel good again."
As a new mother and business owner, Boss found time to work out at D1 Training Billings, and eventually began sharing her workout and running journey online. When she first started documenting her progress, she said it was to hold herself accountable and see how much she would change if she stuck to it.
"I could not run a mile. If I did it was like 13 minutes and it was hard," Boss said. "I knew that where I was starting from was gonna be such a drastic change if I really stuck to it."
In June of this year, Boss ran her first marathon in Missoula.
"It was way harder than I thought, like way harder than I thought it would be," she said.
But she explained that nothing compares to losing her sister-in-law, Lauren Boss, on Oct. 25, 2022. Lauren died from sudden cardiac arrest while in New York, leaving her family devastated.
Kim Boss, Lauren's mother, described her daughter as exceptional.
"Lauren was brilliant, beautiful, healthy," Kim said.
The sudden nature of Lauren's death shocked the family.
"I got a call that her heart just stopped. She was in a parked car," Kim Boss said. "Unfortunately, you see a child go down who's healthy. No one's going right for the heart."
Now Boss runs for Lauren and will be running in the New York City Marathon with the nonprofit Who We Play For. The organization focuses on preventing sudden cardiac deaths in young athletes and individuals.
"Get kids and any athlete any person an EKG so that they can figure out if they have a pre-existing condition or something that can be prevented," Boss said.
Kim hopes the efforts of Who We Play For will prevent other families from experiencing the loss they went through.
"In hopes that this won't happen to anybody else and anybody else's child or have somebody feel the feelings that we have in our family because it's horrific," Kim Boss said.
Boss is raising money for Who We Play For as she prepares for the marathon, with a goal of $5,000.
She believes Lauren would support her mission.
"I think Lauren would be like one of the first people to be excited about this," Boss said.
With every training run, Boss carries Lauren's memory, putting one foot in front of the other for a cause that could save lives.
