Finding Your Pace

It took a while, but I’ve finally figured it out. I know what I want to do when I grow up.

It came to me in a flash, last Friday. I was in St. Catharines, attending an all-day student conference. I’d been asked to deliver a keynote speech, about how reading is, Iike, the greatest thing ever. I gave the speech and none of the kids booed, and then I got to lead some running workshops.

I know: hilarious. The guy who flunked out of gym – teaching kids how to run!

I gave it my best shot. I taught the students about the fantastic four forces of ultra fitness: fuel, fearlessness, focus and fartlek. Yes, fartlek. It’s a Swedish word, meaning speed-play. I.e. Running at high speed in short, controlled bursts. Speed play is important if you want to teach your leg muscles to run faster. “You can do it on a treadmill,” I told the kids, “or you can race up and down a bunch of hills. But hill-running can be brutally boring. I prefer to play…Manhunt.”

Manhunt is the perfect fartlek workout. There`s a lot of hard sprinting, but it`s also easy to sneak in some recovery periods by looping away from the action. So for the next twenty minutes me and twenty surprisingly fast 6th graders sprinted back and forth through a muddy field.

I discovered that there are two types of Manhunt players. Those (like me) who are afraid of mud, and those (much more prevalent) who are definitely not. After the workshop, I noticed that a few of the kids had brown stripes down their backs. Actually, more than a few. A lot. I went to the bathroom and surveyed myself. I resembled a brown skunk too.

Oh well, no point fighting it. I still had two more workshops left to lead. And somewhere along the line I thought to myself: this is what I want to do ALWAYS. I don’t want to be a gym teacher exactly. But I want to inspire kids to learn things I never learned at their age. I want them to know that a healthy body is a gift. That there’s virtually no limit to its powers. And they should know that pain isn`t always something to be avoided. It can also be a reminder that you’re alive.

After the conference ended, I led a group of keeners on what was billed as an “ultra run.” Me and 30 kids, along with an intrepid group of parent volunteers, hit the trails along the banks of 12 Mile Creek. As we ran, I asked the kids about St. Catharines. They used phrases I hadn’t heard in decades: Martindale Pond, the Henley Regatta, the Welland Canal. These kids had been to the Grape and Wine Festival Parade, they understood the sadness of the carousel at Port Dalhousie. There’s a tiny thread between us, I thought, as we ran beneath the Niagara Escarpment; that brittle curtain of limestone that hinges me to this province.

I ran with the fast kids, then alongside the slower kids, then with the middle-of-the-packers. We were out there for an hour or so. When I eventually staggered back to the conference centre, an impish blonde kid was laughing at me.

“Beat you!” she cried.

“But it wasn’t a race,” I said.

She grinned. “It’s always a race.”

I laughed at that. She was right, of course. It is always a race. I loved that she’d figured that out.

Everyone cheered as the last of the runners cruised into the parking lot. We high-fived and fist-bumped and slowly but surely, all the kids climbed into their parents` cars and drove away. I felt a little bit like Wilbur the Pig, watching Charlotte’s baby spiders blow away on the wind. “Goodbye! Goodbye! Goodbye!” they cried. I stood there in the cold wind, all alone, wondering where all my new running buddies had gone.

I got in the car. Raindrops hit the wind-shield and the wipers slashed them away. I drove past my primary school but it wasn’t there anymore. It was just a cluster of townhomes.

For a few moments, I felt sad and gutted. But then I pulled onto the highway and cranked up some tunes. I thought about the kids I’d run with during the day, especially the ones who`d fearlessly charged straight through the puddles.

I massaged my shoulders as I drove. The post-workout burn was kicking in. I wanted a coffee but I didn’t want to stop. I was tired and happy and driving below the speed limit in the slow lane. Sometimes the slow lane is the absolute best – if you can allow yourself to be okay with driving slow.

What Winning Feels Like

A long time ago, when I was in grade seven, I won a public speaking contest. I wrote and performed a seven minute speech on the subject of…radio. I still remember my shock when the president of Port Dalhousie’s Royal Canadian Legion stood up and read out the lucky winner’s name: David Carroll.

I was sure he’d made a mistake. I’d never won anything in my life. No academic awards, no arts awards, and certainly nothing related to sports. At track and field days, I always got the purple ribbon. The pathetic one that all the kids got. The one that said “participant.”

Surely I couldn’t have won that trophy. Could I?

I felt the same way yesterday when, for the first time in my life, I finished FIRST in a sporting event.

It was a 10 kilometer run up and down the diabolical hills of Cavan-Monaghan county. Granted, it’s an out -of-the-way race. And more people were running with strollers or dogs or phalanxes of small children than were running competitively.

But still – I WON! Ask anyone in the greater Ida/Cavan/Pontypool business triangle. I was the talk of the town(s). That day belonged to ME!

All of the credit goes to my brand-new, Medusa-ugly running shoes. You can see them off in the distance there; slicing through the fog like two butt-ugly neon lasers.

The promise of butter tarts at the finish line probably didn’t hurt my finishing time either. And my finishing kick was ignited (as always) by my family, whose cheering is like an adrenaline shot to my legs.

Gotta tell you though: it was a weird feeling, leading the race. Usually I can relax and enjoy the scenery at these events, but once I found out I had the lead, I was determined to hang on to it. So I didn’t relax. Instead, I PUSHED. Which wasn’t easy, given the villainous hills on the course. Hills more evil than…Dick Cheney? Yes, they were Dick Cheney hills.

Later, standing on the podium, I grinned and grinned. I wanted to stay up there forever, waving at my adoring fans. But for some reason, the volunteers, who’d been up baking butter tarts and hoisting tents since 5 a.m. wanted to tear things down and go home for a nap.

WAIT A SECOND, I thought, as they tried to sweep me off the podium. How dare you evict me from this hay-bale stage?! Don’t you know that this is my moment? The moment I’ve been dreaming of all my life? No more purple participant ribbons for me! From now on it’s all —

What’s that? You don’t care?

Okay then, FINE. I’ll take another butter tart, please.

Real Life Superheroes, Part 3

Heroes are everywhere – in comic books, movies, and of course my novel. But real-life superheroes pop up in some pretty surprising places. Like the running track, or even the basketball court.

Check out this video that’s been making the rounds:

So often these days, sports stories have to do with money, or winning-at-all-costs, or banned substances (yeah, I’m looking at you, Lance Armstrong).

But that’s not the whole story. Here’s an entire football team of real-life superheroes:

It doesn’t take much to be heroic. You don’t need X-ray vision, or six-pack abs. All you need is a little kindness.

20 Years of Ultra-Madness

Well, that was something!

The 20th edition of the Haliburton Forest Trail run was held this past weekend. For two decades and counting, race director Helen Malmberg and her crew of unimpeachable wits have put on the best trail race this side of the Rocky Mountains.

Here’s what the starting line looked like, Saturday at 5:59 a.m.

This is how it looked 90 seconds later:

One hundred miles. 160 kilometers. Half a million strides. Starting NOW.

We were about to burn 10,000 calories. Sweat 20 litres of water. Our hearts would beat 1.2 million times.

If you were to add up all the calories that runners have burned in this race over the last twenty years, it would be equivalent to a tower of butter that stretches all the way from here to, oh I don’t know, the moon.

The weather held, despite the dire forecasts. A few brief showers fell throughout the day, but the raindrops stayed mostly in the canopy of trees, and the trails remained firm. Don did a brilliant job (as usual) of marking the route, and the aid stations were exploding with outrageously cheerful volunteers. You know, the kind of people who think nothing of baking a hundred dozen almond-rice bars, draining your blisters, and not even twitching at your repulsive Heed-breath.

Can we talk about me for a second? Awesome. See, I couldn’t find my groove for the first thirty miles or so. The first fifty miles always get me down in this race. They strike me as a prelude; something you have to get out of the way before you can get on with the Real Race, which is miles 51-100. But something else felt off too. I was lonely. I barely saw anyone out there. Later, I’d learn this was because I was farther ahead of the pack than I thought. But at the time I thought it was just low enrollment.

Wrong, wrong, totally wrong. Enrollment was UP. This race keeps getting more and more popular.

Anyway, back to me and my crappy mood. Every part of my body took its turn complaining, as usual. But then, at mile 46, something wonderful happened. A volunteer at aid station 3 greeted me with a huge hug. “Oh my God!” she shouted. “You wrote a novel! And it’s about this race. When can I read it?”

This perked me up considerably. I stood there chatting awhile, basking in the adulation, until I suddenly remembered that I was running a race. I grabbed a couple of potatoes, and got on my way, promising to return with a copy of the book on my second lap. This little exchange turned my race around. Suddenly my legs were spinning like pinwheels. The knee pain I’d been feeling was GONE!

I finished the first 50 miles in nine and a half hours, and met my family at the turnaround, which boosted my spirits even more. I sent a copy of my book out to the volunteer at the third aid station, and by the time I ran back there, she’d already read the first two chapters. Crazy! At aid station 2, I met a young kid who had his nose in the book as well. Double crazy! I wanted to sign his copy, but nobody had a pen.

Oh well, just keep the legs moving! Down Poachers Trail and then on to The Pass. Everywhere I looked, I saw little details that I’d stolen and woven into the book. The Nanaimo bars at aid station 4. The disco ball at aid station 7. The hilarious goings-on at Margaritaville. Even Troutspawn Lane, a gravel road near the entrance to Normac Trail, became the name of my protagonist’s favourite band. It was a surreal experience – like I was running through the pages of my novel. Mind you, I didn’t have any hallucinations, of which there are A LOT in the book.

Of course I suffered the usual pain, and gobbled my fair share of Advil. And I sank into the inevitable fits of depression whenever I foolishly contemplated the insane number of miles I had left to run. But I tried something new in this race. Excuse me if this sounds flaky. But whenever I felt that familiar depression coming on, I would say to myself, yes that’s true, you have a long way left to run, but how do you feel IN THIS EXACT MOMENT, RIGHT NOW? Every time I asked myself that question, I had to admit that I didn’t feel so bad. Once I stripped away my anxiety about the miles that remained, I was left with only the sensations in my body AT THAT MOMENT. My body hurt, of course. How could it not? But it never hurt enough to stop me from running. So I kept the legs moving. And the number on the odometer kept rising.

I crossed the finish line just before 3 a.m. The clouds blew away and the stars came out, and, later, the morning broke cold and clear.

As usual, my favourite part of the race was hanging out at the finishing line campfire, eating Helen’s fried chicken and trading stories with the other runners. Stories about bear sightings and injuries and personal revelations on the trail.

A few people congratulated me on my run. I was thrilled with my time, but I felt awkward about claiming third place. I only got it because some better runners had bad days on the trail. But I guess that’s how it goes sometimes. And I must admit, it was a lark to squeeze onto the podium for once!

Many thanks to Helen, Don and Gary, and all the other volunteers, far too numerous to mention, who gave me and so many other runners such a precious gift. It’s a life-changing experience to run through a forest all night long, and it wouldn’t be possible without caring souls who are willing to watch out for us and cheer us on and put up with our B.O. and queasy stomachs and pain-induced crankiness. You all deserve a finisher’s medal!

Finally, a shout-out to my amazing parents, who gave me the genetic material that allows me to run these crazy races in the first place. Let’s face it, it’s a privilege to have a body that can run for 100 miles straight. Yes, we train hard, and yes, we watch what we eat, and yes, we focus obsessively on our goals. But we couldn’t do any of it if not for that duo who gave us the greatest gift of all.

This one’s for you, Mom and Dad!

Photo hat tip: my brilliant brother, at http://www.flickr.com/photos/andys_camera/

Real Life Superheroes, Part 2

Take a look at the runners in these pictures. Can you tell what makes them all special?

First, there’s America’s Dick Beardsley (on the left):

Up next, Spain’s Fernandez Anaya (in green):

And finally, Ohio track star Meghan Vogel (blonde hair, on the right):

Any guesses? Yes, they’re all runners, and yes, they’re crazy fit. They probably run 100+ miles a week and eat nothing but salads and nuts. But these incredibly healthy human specimens have something much more interesting – and much more valuable – in common.

You’ve got fifteen seconds to figure it out. Tick tick tick tick tick…TIME’S UP!

ANSWER: All of these runners are real-life superheroes. They’re not only fast. They’re also super kind.

Take Meghan Vogel. She was competing in her third race of the day. Ahead of her, a runner crumpled to the ground in the heat. But instead of dashing past her, she lifted her up, helped her to the finish line, and literally pushed her across the finish line.

Fernandez Anaya (the guy in the green shirt) was equally generous. He was running second in his race, a ways behind the race leader, Abel Mutai. As he entered the finishing straight, Fernandez noticed Mutai pull up about 10 metres before the finish line. Mutai thought he’d crossed the finish line, BUT HE HADN’T! He still had 30 feet left to go!

Instead of racing past Mutai for the win, Fernandez slowed down and gestured at him to keep running. He literally helped the OTHER guy win.

Which brings me to the black and white photo of Dick Beardsley at the top. Dick was running the very first London marathon in 1981. He and Norway’s Inge Simonsen spent the race battling for first place. In the finishing stretch, instead of trying to prove who was better than the other, the athletes clasped hands and crossed the finish line together.

How awesome is that? They acknowledged they were evenly matched, and split the first place prize two ways.

Someone should show these videos to Lance Armstrong.

“We Can Always Do Anything”

It’s time for another INSPIRATIONAL THURSDAY!

And I’ll start it off with a question. Is it really possible for a 13 year-old to run a 100-mile race?

I get that question all the time, since that’s what my book is about: a kid who runs the longest of ultra-marathons in an attempt to outrun a tragic family secret.

Is such a thing actually possible?

HECK YEAH!

Of course, I don’t actually know any 13 year-olds who have successfully completed a 100-mile race. But it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if they had. Kids are capable of ANYTHING. There are kids out there who’ve run multiple marathons, and kids who have swum across great lakes.

And then there’s Conner and Cayden Long, who take the word inspiration to a whole new level:

“We can always do anything.” Love that.

Real Life Superheroes, Part 3

Heroes are everywhere – in comic books, movies, and of course MY UPCOMING NOVEL! But real-life superheroes pop up in some pretty surprising places. Like the running track, or even the basketball court.

Check out this video that’s been making the rounds:

So often these days, sports stories have to do with money, or winning-at-all-costs, or banned substances (yeah, I’m looking at YOU, Lance Armstrong).

But that’s not the whole story. Here’s an entire football team of real-life superheroes:

It doesn’t take much to be heroic. You don’t need X-ray vision, or six-pack abs. All you need is a little kindness.