It wasn’t a bad cold. It wasn’t pneumonia or tuberculosis.

It was lung secretion, a rare bacterial infection that required surgery and the removal of 20 percent of her right lung.

Some 19 months later, Mina Casey-Pang will give her recovery the ultimate talk test. The 36-year-old is competing in her fourth Honolulu Marathon — and her 10th marathon overall — on Sunday.

The goal, as always, is to finish. But for someone who has a personal best of 3 hours and 9 minutes (2005 Grandma’s Marathon), the proof that she is back would be to turn in a sub-3-hour time.

"I did the Marathon Readiness Series and it’s been going pretty well," said Casey-Pang, an outreach counselor at Kamehameha Schools. "My doctor didn’t know how the surgery would affect my running, but I did 3 miles straight two weeks after surgery.

"I had been running for so long and I’m fairly competitive. I didn’t know if I would ever run again. I’m happy that I can."

Casey-Pang, a 1992 Mililani High graduate, didn’t start running until she was a freshman at the University of Hawaii. One of her friends from the dorm got her into it, first around the UH campus "and I could barely run a mile," she said.

She began entering local races, starting with 10Ks. Soon, running 26.2 miles seemed realistic.

That decision changed her life. She met her future husband, Jason Pang, at the Honolulu Marathon Clinic. (They married in 2001).

Jonathan Lyau, her coach since 1999, noticed her potential right away.

"We went to San Diego, she did pretty well (3:12) and hadn’t really trained for a marathon," Lyau said. "I began thinking she could maybe do a sub-3."

After her PR in 2005, Casey-Pang finished the Boston Marathon in 3:12. It was her "last good effort" before starting her family, with her son, Devin, born in 2006 and her daughter, Logan, in 2008.

Eight weeks after giving birth to Logan, she became ill, with a fever that reached 106 degrees. Doctors diagnosed her with lung secretion and wanted Casey-Pang to have immediate surgery.

She refused, wanting to continue breast-feeding her daughter and seek a second opinion.

"I had a hard time believing (surgery) was necessary," Casey-Pang said. "It was so rare, the doctors said they had only read about it."

A year after first being diagnosed, Dr. Paul Morris performed the surgery in June 2009.

"It is a different type of breathing and it took about seven months of training for me to adjust," Casey-Pang said. "I’ve been improving slowly.

"Jon (Lyau) thinks 3:30. I’d be satisfied with at least 3:45, the qualifying time for my age group in the Boston Marathon."

"I think she’s being conservative; she hasn’t run a marathon in a while," Lyau said. "I’m thinking a 3:20.

"She has surprised her doctor, doing things way faster than expected. I wasn’t surprised because she was in such great shape before the surgery."

Casey-Pang said her priorities have changed since having her children and her surgery.

"Before kids, you have more time to rest," she said. "And I want to be a good role model for my children. I want them to think of fitness as a healthy lifestyle.

"We have a double-jogger (stroller) and we go out running with the kids. One of my criteria when we were looking for a place to live was to be close to the races. I didn’t want to have to drive just to go run."

The family lives just a few blocks from where Sunday’s race begins. Casey-Pang said she’ll walk down around 4:30 a.m., take a deep breath and continue on her road to recovery.