Susan Karnatz, 49: Raleigh shooting victim loved running, animals and good causes
Susan Karnatz ran at least a mile every day, enough of an athlete to finish the Boston Marathon four times, so dedicated that she once logged 43 miles in a single endurance race and walked away disappointed.
A few years back, she set a goal most runners would find unthinkable: 2,017 miles inside the 2017 calendar year — notching a bit more than 5.5 miles every day.
She made it with a day to spare.
Yet when you ask friends to describe what made her tick, they don’t talk about her best times or her longest runs. They remember how she always stopped to take pictures of deer she spotted on the greenway, or move a snail off the path so other runners wouldn’t step on it, or leave gallons of water along the trail for a homeless man who lived nearby.
Even in her most intense trials, she bothered over other living things.
“You take that track face off, and you find out what a light she is, what a kind person,” said her training partner John Tate. “We always say runners, we clean up well.”
Karnatz, 49, died in the mass shooting that killed five in east Raleigh’s Hedingham neighborhood last week, leaving behind her husband, Tom, and three sons, Malcolm, 14; Oliver, 13; and Everett, 11.
Remembering the victims
Click a name below to read more from the funerals honoring the victims of the Oct. 13, 2022 mass shooting in Raleigh's Hedingham community. This list will update as new services take place.
