After leaving Skye she came late into athletics, at the age of 24 running in the Bath Half Marathon to raise funds for cancer research, from which her father had died.
[2] MacLeod ran the 10,000m at the 1990 Commonwealth Games finishing 12th in a race won by compatriot Liz McColgan.
These performances earned her a place at the 1993 World Championships in Athletics in which she finished 16th and only two minutes behind first Briton Marian Sutton.
[3] In 1994 MacLeod represented Scotland in the Commonwealth Games marathon in Victoria, running a personal best of 2:33:16 finishing fourth and less than a minute behind Yvonne Danson.
She was selected for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, with Liz McColgan and Suzanne Rigg, finishing 45th in a time of 2:42:08, despite at 38 years being one of the oldest in the field.