BOSTON -- A runner in last year's Boston Marathon collapsed and died because she was overhydrated. But as the 107th running of the marathon approaches, Cynthia Lucero's family and friends are asking people to remember how she lived.

Video

Runner Remembered As Giving Person CYNTHIA LUCERO Remembering Cynthia Leukemia And Lymphoma Society Team In Training Boston Marathon Charities

NewsCenter 5's Natalie Jacobson reported that Lucero, 28, was in the prime of her life, running her first Boston Marathon. She made it to Brookline's Cleveland Circle, 4 miles from the finish, before collapsing.

"It was devastating," said Lori Muhr, one of her coaches. "It was surreal."

"I ran out of time, unfortunately," said her brother-in-law, Jim Stirling. "You always think you have more time than you do sometimes."

Stirling is married to Lucero's sister, Alexandra. Monday, he will run his first marathon, in memory of Lucero.

"I will feel proud to do it in honor of my sister-in-law," Stirling said.

Her friends said her life was too short, but so vital.

"She worked with troubled kids," Alexandra Stirling said. "She worked with families and victims of substance abuse, battered women."

"There were letters from children in South America that she had sponsored," said her coach, Rick Muhr.

In the month before the marathon, Lucero finished her doctorate program in psychology.

"Her dissertation was the effects of a marathon training program on family members and friends of cancer patients," Rick Muhr said. "She had the need to help people."

That need to help continued after her death.

"Her organs were donated, and there are several lives that have changed because of that, and I think that's her legacy," her sister said.

Lucero inspired a Nova Scotia runner who never met her to write a poem:

"Four miles more you were a Boston finisher/Four miles short you became a heroine, a legend."

"She's not with us in the physical sense, but she is in every cell of our being a constant reminder of the importance of being kind and patient and being inspiring. All those things that we want to be," Jim Stirling said.