On 1,000 Days Of Running Toward Your Passion

Not every mile is remarkable, but this one was. In a way, all miles should be remarkable.

Today's first mile was not unlike any of the past 999 days -- my legs were moving, my arms swinging and like most first miles, it feels anywhere from perfect to plodding.

Today, for my 1,000th day of consecutive running,  I marked the 1.61 km point with a tap to my heart with my right hand, as much as feasible in mid stride flying through to 1.62. I was running my fastest split. Of course I was.

This post isn't about the beautiful revelations you get by running every day. I've done that. This post is about skirting convention, about commitment, about longevity and about finding passions in your life and sticking to them.

***

In 2013, in a lot of ways, running saved me. I ran to get back my shape I had lost the prior two years. I ran away from the sadness of losing my mom and a long-time relationship. The miles through that year gave me a new sense of purpose that by the time I had hit November, I had rediscovered my love of faster running, and of racing. By the time I had done Chicago or, as I call it, The Comeback, I knew I wanted to kick up a gear.

By the end of 2013, I signed up with my now current coach and friend Rejean. I casually told him I just started a Runner's World run streak that started on Nov. 27. He shrugged his shoulders and as my first training plan, he had a run for me every day. Now we are here 1,000 days later.

***
I'm not sure what phase of the running boom we are in right now. I've read articles about how running has peaked past its second running boom ushered by the likes of Hal Higdon and John Bingham and lingered on with the formation of running blogs a decade ago, social media five years ago, and with club running and the more recent corporate sponsored movement propelled by the desire to reach young people and stamped by Nike, Reebok, New Balance. Now, running combats against spin classes, CrossFit, obstacle course challenges and bootcamp.

My 1,000 day running streak 

 Today, running can be about vanity, I have a view that running tends to be inward. No one runs your miles for you. No shoe, no logo, no hashtag will make any of that easier. The #nodaysoff movement I've seen pop up over the past year is measured by the easy/hard running conversation. Others talk about balancing running with other sports, finding ways of creating a more perfect athlete.

I got back into running to get back into performance. In these almost three years, I've logged 11003 kilometres (11 km a day average), run 20 races and seven marathons. I've thrown down five Boston qualifiers, run my fastest marathon at age 40. I've never felt better about running.

Running every day taught me that the outcome will not always about the pursuit of PRs. That drive can force you out of love with running. My 11 years of marathoning taught me it is easy to be overtrained, that life will at times will ask you to take away from the roads. Life happens, but so can running.

***

When I read about other streakers, those who been at it at jaw dropping amount, I see a possible path for me to follow. The path means that family, changes of jobs, life stages, other passions will inevitably come calling. When my mom was in her final year, I felt that call and I never regret releasing running for other things. Now, I know it's possible to fit in that mile.

That mile has meant early wakeups, 5 a.m. coffees, 6:05 a.m. run appointments with friends. That mile has meant repeats on a track or a hill or a progressively faster 35 km long run. That mile can be run solo or with a group of like minded individuals who cheer each other on. That mile has meant many new friendships, ones that probably wouldn't have been forced on this solo sport. For that, why would you not want to run every day.

Forcing myself out to get that mile every day has changed my life and my life outlook. I don't hesitate to push myself out the boundaries I set every day. I think it's possible to balance life, work, love, relationships, responsibilities.


My daily runs have transformed my days. I wake up early, I eat healthier, I feel stronger with more endurance, and I make that commitment. Unknown to me 999 days ago, I sleep so much better and that has been a huge benefit.

It may seem so minuscule, to put aside anywhere from 15 minutes to a few hours a day for your passion, but I meet so many people who love to cook, or get back into fitness, or write and read. They have aspirations and lists to fulfill. They have places they want to see and they want to do. I say, pick your passions, and do them. Time isn't fleeting but if you let slip a day away from the things you love, it will soon become two, or three, then you'll stop.

No matter what you goals are, or passions may be, you can't ignore them any longer, I have this one advice.

Never stop running.

Race Report: Toronto Marathon 2016, Project Audacity and the crazy idea

Nine days ago, a day after I got back from Boston, my quads still stinging, my hamstrings sore and my spirit undiminished, I sent my coach Rejean an email with the subject line: "Update and an audacious plan?"

A few days later, my friend Lee, sent me an email titled "My latest crazy idea."

The night after the Boston Marathon, Lee and I commiserated about the day that was not ours. It was too hot, too sunny and just not ideal after a winter of training. Lee was thinking that he'd love to make it back to Boston next year. I was lamenting a strong season of training that resulted in only two races. Over three dollar drafts of PBR, we drowned our sorrows, quietly hatching plans.

I suppose there's something in the water in Boston.

***
Goodlife was 13 days after Boston. And as I saw the forecast shape up, it looked like an ideal forecast. Cool. Like good cool. So I asked Rejean whether he thought I should go for it. I reasoned my Boston, run in 3:23, didn't see me entirely empty the tank. Running 42.2K 13 days out isn't common, but it can be done. We worked on a workout plan to see how my legs were bouncing back.

So over the past week, I threw in a medium run, a few quicker workouts. I was tired, I was sore, but I knew I was still fit. My goal, I presented to Rejean, was to get to 3:10 or faster, which I thought was well within my aerobic capability. And also a good shot at a BQ, which for my age is 3:15. Rej hatched a sensible plan and Lee was on board to run with me as long as we could.

By the time I was making my way to the race start, only five people knew I was racing.

Codenamed Project Audacity.

***
1K-5K


Of course, this seems to be the year where weather throws some challenges at you. It was a light rain, lots of wind and it was cool. Lee and I started together and just ran by feel, mainly. The course takes a north turn where we were able to get a sense of the wind (North East) but we were able to plunge down Yonge Street. We've both run Goodlife on numerous times so we knew what to expect. A big downhill before Hogg's Hollow. We did that split in 4:30 km.

Splits: (4:22, 4:29, 4:28, 4:11, 4:30)

5K-12K
I took a kilometre or two to settle down from Hogg's and I was paying close attention to how my body was responding. To me, the effort felt slightly harder than it should -- i'll take it as fatigue following Boston but when I compare it to my course feel at Boston, this run was way better. I was wearing a double singlet, a visor, arm warmers, gloves and shorts. All were great ideas. I felt I was cool enough, but not risking of hypothermic. I wouldn't sweat too much which would have been my major worry. As well, the stride I was running felt efficient. I was taking careful notice of my left calf which was what seized at Boston and hoped that taking in Gatorade and gels would delay any issues.

The course has a bunch of rollers, then turns around Davisville where you wind your way around UCC. We felt the tailwind for the first time and it was glorious, so we kind of let the feel dictate the pace. By the time we hit 14K I knew we were banking big time with the faster downhill splits.

Splits: (4:31, 4:21, 4:25, 4:21, 4:16, 4:30, 4:28, 4:23)

13K-21K




The Casa Loma to the bottom of Rosedale Valley is what makes Goodlife a fast marathon. You can run it and bank time but also save your cardio. We hammered it where we could but while running down Rosedale Valley Road you could feel the headwind running east. It was noticable, even with the trees as cover.

We ran down Bayview extension and the pace still felt good. Saw my teammate Bart who took this picture and we just kept on chugging.

Lee and I hauling ass.

We hit the half mark at 1:33:22, which was a 3:06:44 pace. We both kinda knew that we'd probably be giving up some of that time so I told Lee I would regulate the pace a bit.

Splits: (4:14, 4:15, 4:28, 4:18, 4:22, 4:22, 4:30, 4:25)

22K - 35K
This section is what I call the 'home course' all the way from Corktown past to Humber Bridge, along the MGT. This year, we had a nice tail wind, sometimes a crosswind, and if we had buildings ahead the wind would bounce off and push us. In all, I was able to bank effort while using the aid to save some energy. As I was hitting the 24K mark, I felt that today, barring wind, I would be able to power through the 30-35K mark with strength.

We entered Ontario Place and out on the trail and Lee then went ahead. I decided not to give chase. In retrospect, maybe I should have taken advantage of the wind and done a stronger run up to 35K but I just was content zeroing in on runners around me. My gloves were soaked, my glasses were fogging up and covered with droplets but at least I was cool. Today I felt I would go for it.


Splits: (4:24, 4:31, Garmin wonky for 2K, 4:22, 4:22, 4:24, 4:31, 4:25, 4:27, 4:24, 4:29, 4:32, 4:26)

35K to 42.2K
Yeah.

The wind.

The 3:10 pacer caught me at 35K tearing around me with a big group. I thought they were going fast so I didn't give chase but I wish I had -- they would have been a good wind block in future miles.

So as we turned back, we were hit with a wall of wind. I can't even describe it but it felt you had a parachute attached to you. I run on the waterfront often and this I would call an exceptionally windy day. I felt my pace suddenly drop. Breathing was hard. And lo and behold, the left calf was strarting to show signs of cramping.

Once we got past a particularly windy section and hit the bridge the wind wasn't as bad -- though horrible, and I forced myself to pick up the pace.

Each kilometre became a negotiation. I was frustrated that my effort was not turning into turnover and speed. I fought impulses to slow down to walk. As each kilometre came (38, 39) I was looking at my watch thinking of all the banked time that was now coming back to me. I knew that if I hit the 40K mark in 3:00 that I could probably hit the 3:10 target.

If only two kilometres could be so easy.

I asked myself if I could run two kilometres. I thought about the marathon and how I committed myself not to run one this fall. This was it. This was my chance to put it in. Taking walk breaks would slow me down, but just keeping my movement on would push me closer to the end. I found a second wind in the final two. It was hard, I won't lie. Running two marathons at effort in two weeks is something I haven't done in awhile. But I saw friends, the crowd and realized that if I just pushed for a few minutes, it would be a difference between hitting 3:10 and a 3:13. It would be the difference of qualifying for Boston with 1 minute of buffer and a lot more than that.

So I pushed. And hit the final corner with a great crowd cheering.

The final stretch. Photo: NightTerrors

I looked down at my watch and laughed. 3:11:00 by my hand. 3:10:59 chip. A 4:01 under my Boston Qualifying time.

Splits: (4:30, 4:46, 4:39, 4:52, 5:07, 4:54, 4:55)



I quickly caught Lee at the end. He hit 3:10:15, and also a big BQ for him as well.

I've run faster and I've closed races much stronger, but of my 33 marathons, this was one I'm proud to have run.  Would I suggest runners try a 'revenge' or 'redemption' race so close to after the one they went wrong. It's probably not for everyone. And it's probably why I've been keeping this under wraps.

But for sheer audaciousness? Absolutely, sometimes, it has to be done.

Lee and I post race. 

First steps

The fire, I felt it in those final miles of the Philadelphia Marathon this past weekend. It was burning in my legs, that tinge to signal effort. It was present in my lungs and I could feel it in my veins.

This morning, five days into my off season, I woke up before my 5 a.m. alarm. I balanced a mug on my lap as I warmed to the thought of the outside. In another half hour, I was outside to confront November, running as darkness reluctantly relinquishes control. On a similar morning, four months ago, I'd be on my front stoop, stretching lightly, babying a niggle on my left hamstring, watching the mid-summer dawn take over the sky. Eight months ago, I was watching the late winter give way to spring.

Today felt like spring. Today was like first day, only that it wasn't.

Run, every day.

The first few steps of every run reignites everything. It may draw out your pains, may expose your lack of sleep or express how fit you truly are. For the past 730 days, I've taken those first steps and it's led me here to this moment.

I'm writing this as I "lap" the second year mark of my run streak. Last year, I wrote a post about the things I've learned about running 365 days, and although not much has changed, my perspective is evolving.

The life of a runner begins with enthusiasm, sparked by fitness gains and early PBs. They're bolstered by bucket list goals, by friends we meet on the trails and the goals we dangle in front of us. Over the years, that early love affair with running changes, not as obvious as a fork in the trail, but there is a point in the path where we decide what running is to us. Is it something we did before life and work and responsibility edges out running.

I've lost count of the number of kilometres or runs I've accumulated in the past 11 years as a long distance runner. Two years ago, in starting this run streak, I had rekindled my love of performance running. Simply, I wanted to get fit again, get as fast as I could, and get to Boston. Within those two years, I achieved that and more, but the unintended outcome -- in its 730th day -- was the unexpected surprise.

Heat map of the last two years of running

That fire I felt in Philly was another rekindling. I was reminded that running in the long term is not unlike every stride you take. Your next step follows the first. You bound through trails, on top of concrete on asphalt on a forward motion -- jumping, really -- that would not have been possible if you hadn't taken the step before that.

We bound, one foot in front of the other, on our daily runs. Over the course of the days and miles and trials, we get stronger. That strength is like a shockwave that travels from your heel right up to your heart. A runner's body changes over the course of the years. Our bones solidify, our muscles extend and tighten, our bodies can get lean, our stride efficiency increases.

There are moments during every run when everything feels fluid. Easy even. But that belies the pain -- forcing legs to move faster than they are capable, pushing the heart to pump out enough oxygen to fuel your needs.

In the middle or end of any hard workout there is a point when you say no more. You think you can't go forward. But you push. And at the end, lungs busting, heart leaping, knee leaning, you are crafting a harder version of yourself.

So I enter into a part of my running life not thinking that the road has run out, but rather that I've taken that brief pause, and now I'm ready to see where the next cycle will take me.

Run streaks are really not about peering from the top of the mountain to appreciate the view, as there is no summit. You're in perpetual motion. Every day resets itself. You get on your shoes and, like any other runner tackling that day, you're taking your first steps. Something fuels that. Ritual, repetition, for sure, and maybe even habit, but I think somewhere in there you need the fire.

They say you don't want to run another marathon until you've forgotten the last one you've run. The pain you experience during those challenging miles, the wall, the cramps, the feeling of exhaustion meted out, drawn out. Why do we do it again?

In those final miles of Philly, a race that didn't go according to plan, I told myself to fight through. I shut any impulse to shut down. For once in the past few months, I embraced the suck.

And when I passed that finish line, I felt a different type of fire. It continues to burn.

The past year has been amazing. What's next?

Why Boston?

So, why Boston?

It's a question you trying to answer while explaining to your friends who don't run at all. You talk with newer runners or those who have been running for years. No doubt, people have heard of this race because it transcends this sport. It is a sporting event bigger than just about any other road race.

In four days, I'm flying out to Boston to run the race of my dreams for the third time. It's been four years, thousands of miles and the culmination of a journey for me so I can start a 26.2 mile race in the small town of Hopkinton.

Why Boston? The standards are tough. When I started running, the prospect of a 3:10 or faster marathon seemed just out of reach. So I strived for many years to get my first Boston Qualifier. It's taken me so many more years, and the journey back, to figure out why Boston.




You hear among many runners the chatter about the BQ. What is your BQ? When you trying for a BQ? What BQ do you need and when do you need to do it?

I think we really try to BQ because it is hard and it is there. Does it separate good runners from great runners? Does BQing when you're young more of an achievement than when time gives you more literal time? Do we really understand what it's all about when we say I want to do Boston? I first set my sights on Boston because it was that holy grail. The qualification stood for personal excellence and it was an important milestone to reach. By reaching the time, you reached Boston. Or not really.

My Pace and Mind team

Boston means so much to many of us for different reasons. I spent years striving, fighting, running, for a chance to run my dream race. When I qualified, I looked back at all my achievements - personal and professional - and put that run among the greatest things I've ever done. Months later, toeing the line at the corral, I was in utter awe. I did not belong here. Everyone was so much better than I was. This was on national TV. How did I make it here?

Once you get your BQ, you get something that probably goes unsaid by those who have done it before. It's something that's hard to capture even in all the pictures I've collected. To those of us who run it year after year, I think I know why you come back. It is a special race, putting aside exclusivity or elitism. The course is technical and it takes a lot of training and heart and tactics to run it well. But it is not just the course. It's the weekend, the 'Marathon Monday' when this event becomes one that's owned by all those communities between Hopkinton and Boston.

So Boston for me is a vivid memory. It's getting to the Toronto airport and seeing all those Boston jackets. It's seeing the banners on the streets, it's visiting the finish line, or holding The Jacket for the first time, or looking up at the signs at the corner of Hereford and Boylston. It's about school bus rides, the village and high fives with kids on trampolines. It's about beer on the course, a kiss at Wellesley and hills that make you remember why it broke someone's heart. It's about the growing crowds, the Citgo sign and Fenway, and noontime baseball. It's about the everything about 26.2 but also what happens alongside that course, and of the days before and after that day.

In the past two years, I've been on my own journey. When two men tried to take my Boston memories away from me, I responded one way I knew I could, by vowing to get back. And to get back, there was only one thing to do -- do it harder, faster and with the purpose and love I've always had for the sport.

The last time I ran Boston in 2011, a mere hour or so after the marathon, I walked into North End for a decadent lobster roll and with the simple medal draped around my neck. I don't often keep them on after most races, but I have for Boston, even for one night. In the space of two hours, a half a dozen people stopped me to congratulate me and ask me about the race. They, Boston citizens, were genuinely happy for me, in a little awe of the event.

For a few hours, once a year, Boylston becomes the hallowed ground for thousands of runners. Boston on this day doesn't become the name of the city. It's the name of the race, run on Patriot's Day, also known by those who line the 26.2 mile route as "Marathon Monday." Citizens and runners alike love the event. No question.

Around the world, and in every other state, it's a Monday. In Boston, that day, Patriot's Day, is Marathon Monday, and it's my Christmas Day.

Because it's not just ours, us runners, it's a Boston thing. In a little way, we're allowed to take centre stage in a spectacle that has gone on for more than 115 years. No matter who shows up to be picked up by those school buses next April or the next 30 Aprils, it'll still be 'Boston'. We'll all come, from different states and countries, for the privilege to be part of that spectacle. BQing gets you a chance to be part of something greater than the 26.2.

*This post is a culmination of some of my thoughts about Boston I've written over the past few years.

Looking back, looking ahead

Last night, the band that has been around my left wrist, serving as motivation through 17 months, snapped. 

Figures, I thought, surprisingly not upset.

I wondered what to lean on as a reminder -- the replacement I have, another band, or nothing at all. The Boston wristband carried me through hundreds of runs, more than 6,000 kms, accompanied me on a year-long (and counting) run streak. I even stopped in the middle of a marathon to pick it up.

I had thought to wear it until this year's Boston Marathon, maybe dropping it in Hopkinton or, more symbolically, after I passed the finish line on Boylston on April 20.

But it was fitting of all days that on Dec. 31 that it had to come off. I didn't need it as a talisman in what has been an emotional and fulfilling running year.

My running:

I set nine personal bests. It's kind of incredible, but I took down records from 2008 in the 5K, 8K, 10 miles, half, 30K (twice), marathon (three times).

I ran the most I've ever run in a year -- 4,400 kilometres, which would take me from Toronto to Vancouver. Last year, a huge running year for me, I put in 3600. Out of the 12 months, in 11 I've surpassed 200 miles. A lot of running

I'm running the strongest. I'm learning to run. I'm loving it even more.

I ran every day this year. Nuff said.

My writing:

This is the ninth year I've had this blog and although I haven't written as much, I think some of my best writing is coming. I think a lot about what I want to write and think about telling stories. My one-year run streak story is one of my most favourite pieces of writing, because I think it resonates with me so well.

Some of my other favourites

• The Beauty Of Training
• Why We Run
• A Revolution On Resolutions
• Where Belief Can Take You
• Fear Is The Greatest Motivator - So Be Fearless
• The Sound Of Quiet
• Rounding Up - On Growing Older And Where Running Fits In
• Mid Stride
• Putting Away The Scale
• 42 Tips For The First-Time Marathoner

My love of running:

I can say at the end of 2014 compared with the beginning that I am even more passionate about running -- the sport, the act, the community it supports.

I've learned to embrace and love team running. It has invigorated the runner in me and I've been so lucky to train with such talented and amazing coaches. In a mere two seasons this year, I got to know Rejean Chiasson and Nicole Stevenson -- learned so much and built friendships with these mentors. Not a bad thing when you get to run with some of the fastest runners this country has produced.

One of the biggest accomplishment for this year is how I met so many new friends through running -- through social media and, more importantly, on the roads every Sunday and on the speed circuits. I must have met more than 50 people, many of whom I would now call close friends. I've worked with so many talented coaches and runners and I feel like it's a family reunion every time I hit the roads.

So where am I going?

I have no intention, for now, of stopping the run streak. I'm on day 400 and I will continue to listen to the body and the body says it is good.

I will aim to "race" my 30th marathon in Boston. It will be emotional. It will be a run to remember. I will attack that course with the respect it deserves.

I will make time goals, run far, but will be smart about how I train -- I'm training with Pace and Mind this year and I'm comfortable with the battle plan. Go get Boston, get faster doing it, then aim at shorter distances for the fall, from the half marathon distance down to the 5K.

I will get stronger -- spin classes, yoga and strength exercises are all on my to-do list for 2015. I've already hit spin and strength with fervour and I'm already a stronger runner for it. I'll also continue to learn how to run.

I will continue to be part of this community -- build friendships, be a positive ambassador for running in my daily life and always drag my running buddies out for runs.

I will continue to turn to this blog, which is now in its TENTH YEAR, for what I used it in 2014 -- a repository for race reports, strategy guides but mostly, as a place where I can write about running for the love of both the sport and of narrative. I've loved crafting stories and I intend to tell more -- there are many more stories to tell.

By the way, I have wristband from Brooks. It says "Run Happy." Haven't put it on yet, though.

Race Report: California International Marathon 2014

The footing was precarious as I gave pursuit around that second lap of our interval workout. It was four days before I was to tackle the rolling hills in Folsom, two days till I boarded a plane for Sacramento, California. But tonight, as the asphalt that was 10 minutes ago wet was now frozen, I gave chase as we curved the down and ups of High Park. I was nursing a sore hamstring but found an extra half gear to power down and up the hill. Chasing a teammate, eventually coming alongside stride for stride, even as we were nearly slipping with every stride. Chasing so we would reach the finish faster.

"Sorry about the weather," the hotel employee said as I checked into the hotel on Friday, my leather jacket draped over my backpack. I was your typical happy Canadian who was escaping the beginnings of winter, where 16C with cloud cover might as well be a heat wave.

The California International Marathon has been on my radar for years and about 12 weeks ago, it became a backup marathon when I pulled my calf and started to look for a later marathon. It features rolling hills, a net downhill course and likens itself as the fastest course in the West. Not that I'd know, as I've never raced any marathons in the west or in December.

My teammate and training partner Julia had pegged the race as her goal marathon - I remember her telling me during a winter training run 11 months ago about this race in Sacramento. One of her friends, and fellow teammate, Naomi was also running it as her first marathon. So when I pulled the calf and started to look at options, CIM became the best choice. Running vacation with friends and enough time to ramp back up if I raced Scotiabank. So on Oct 1, I signed up under their guaranteed entry program.

I ended up racing Scotia in late October, my calf healing enough for me, and I decided to say, screw it, lets go for it. The race was a PB, 3:07:20. Looking back at the summer and year of training, I always felt that I had 3:05 fitness in me. Seven weeks ago as I started to ramp back up to CIM, I had no clue how I would treat that race. I was able to get my mileage back right up to peak form after a recovery week. Julia and I nailed our long runs, doing a 38k and about 35k four weeks out. My calf was getting better and about three weeks ago, I was finally able to pull off faster than 5k pace for the first time since late September. I was, crazy enough, still fit, aside from an upper left hamstring and groin soreness. More important, I was still training to run fast.

On Wednesday I did a quality workout where I was testing 4:05 and 3:55 pace. Some of the runners I was running with were gearing up for a 10k. I worried slightly that I was pushing it right before the final taper but I wanted to see what it felt to run fast. I concluded that I could push, but the next day I felt the pull of my hamstring, the soreness associated with running hard. I took it slow the last three days but still, it felt good to chase.

Waiting for the bus in Sacramento race morning.

Twenty minutes before meeting my coach a few days before the race, an email landed in my inbox from her with my prescribed pace. It called for a faster than Scotia, or a 4:25k for a 3:06:30 finish. We spoke over coffee and after assessing my fitness and condition, she threw in the first of many mild suggestions. "This is a good course to go for a fast time," she said. I told her I was so proud of the work i'd done this year but her point was well taken even if this was a no-pressure race.  Later, a friend at BlackToe who had run CIM before also said the same thing - that CIM was a fast, but beware too fast a start and trust the pacers. I left convinced that I had three choices. Run a controlled marathon at 3:10 to 3:15. Think about running with Julia who in the end needed to run her own race. Or chase a personal best on that course. Chasing was, by Friday morning, a small and gentle voice.

On race morning, the three of us stood in line for the bus that would take us out to the start line in Folsom, as CIM is a point to point course. We sat in the back of the bus and chatted up a Calgarian, and the Canadian contingent was talking about the weather (perfect, 8C climbing to 12C, no wind), the course (downhill but rolling, emphasis on rolling,with a flat final 5 miles), the occasion (it was Jules's birthday) and the portapotties (there were many). Later, someone asked us to push up the window as it was chilly, but for us, it was near perfect for racing.

Exiting the buses we only had around 40 minutes to do a washroom break, a group selfie and then we dropped off Naomi with her pace sign while Jules and I headed to the 3:10 sign. We stood there, hugged, pumped up for a morning of racing. I knew she was situating herself behind the 3:10. I looked at the 3:05 bunny, wondered what if.

Me, Julia and Naomi. 

The sun was rising and I could feel the perfect chill against my shoulder. I was wearing my favourite singlet, tattered and worn in by age and races. I clapped my gloved hands more to pump myself up than warmth. Then it was time to race.

I ran every day for 365 days. Here's what I learned.

I ran today.

Running streaks have to start somewhere and it was a year ago tomorrow, U.S. Thanksgiving Day, I went on a run.

This morning, I ran for the 365th straight day.

This is a post that in theory I've been thinking about writing for hundreds of days. If I had my way, I would write the entire piece while on the run, as opposed to on the couch long after I've put away my running shoes. In front of my laptop, I can't ever match the emotions, sensations, thoughts that I'm having each day while I am out on a run.

I ran today.

Today, I felt speed, as I accelerated while weary of the lights threatening to turn red. Even typing the word "speed" doesn't begin the describe it. How does one feel speed? My head says go fast and my legs respond, firing off those commands to move arm, muscle, bone, leg, feet -- while my lungs suck in extra air that will be parcelled out to areas that need it most. In the span of a few seconds, speed is not just movement that is done rapidly, but speed is expressed as motion executed by a series of strides, only to be spurred on by a series of decisions -- one decision overrode them all. The decision to run. And today I decided to run.

Race Report: Zoo Run 10K

"You're here early," the race volunteer said to us as we piled out of a car more than two and a half hours before a few thousand other runners toed the line at the Zoo Run 10K.

"Really," we said, laughing, mostly at ourselves. We weren't laughing a week earlier.

Racing a 10K four weeks out from the marathon wasn't out of the ordinary. What coach wanted us to do with the run was another matter. The original plan was for us to do the 10K at marathon pace, with the last two Ks hard. Which sounded like a promising idea, targetting 4:20s or so.

But we had also entered the race for the 10K "club championships", sponsored by Black Toe, and I was one of the five guys on the men's team. Coach issued the new instructions a week before. We would RACE the 10K, but we'd have to warm up for 15K before the 8:15 am race start. Then warm down -- up to 30K on the day.

Which is why, at 6 a.m., my Black Toe teammates and I were in the dark, trying to find a route around the zoo. By the time we surveyed the parking lot, we thought it'd be better to do laps of the 1K parking lot, which lead a 1:20 15K, run at 5:03ish pace.


It was a light run, almost went by fast as we lapped the lot while the cars carrying 3500 runners started to arrive.

Selfie with teammates Sam and Cynthia, around 6:15 am.

Having almost an hour after the warmup to the race, we changed clothes, fuelled up and tried to calmly prepare for the race at hand. The pre-race warmup was a lot of fun, us seeing all the elites including Lanni Marchant, Rachel Hannah and Eric Gillis. Great star sightings for us running nerds.

We had a few teams entered into the
The Race: A technical one. Hilly. A lot of turns and, as this year's women's winner Rachel said, "the race is like cross country running on the road." I last ran this race back in 2007 and had to read that race report to remember anything about the race.

The Goal: Go out at 3:55 to 4s, and try to nail the sub 40 on tired legs.


First 5K
I ran out with Mike and Andrew, and we successfully fought the vacuum. I won't bother describing the course (the map below) but suffice it to say, it had, in the first kilometre, six turns, a decline, followed by a hairpin turn, then a long incline up the hill we descended. The course is a lot of fun for watching the elites as it turns on itself at multiple times.

We were working hard, and I was trying to do some pace management into the hills. The sub 4s were not technically hard, as we are able to nail multiple ones in weekly training sessions, but I could feel the course taking a bit of the momentum away.

We were blasting the course, though, feeling good, keeping pace with the strong runners as the field of recreational runners was pretty well stacked. In the first 5K, we were able to maintain pretty much on plan, if not a few seconds faster on some splits. Hit the first 5K in around 19:24, which on its own is a pretty sweet time.

Splits: 3:51, 3:54, 4:01, 3:51, 3:48

Second 5K
The course in the zoo is a winding, hilly and not the greatest for a guy who trains mostly in flat land. I was able to keep the pace but was feeling a little more winded than I'd like. I hit the 6th kilometre in 3:52, then the seventh in 3:58, both showing promise that I could nail a pretty fast race.

Not sure what it was, with two miles to go, I wasn't feeling like I had the drive, but I tried to keep up the pace, hitting the eighth in 4:04, a little slower. Usually late in races, especially marathons, I try to picture myself covering the distance left and use that mental technique to keep me calm. That it wasn't that long to go. But I kept on wishing for the end and it wasn't coming any sooner.

In short, somewhere in the final kilometre, I felt close to redline and for no particular reason, I slowed to a short walk break. Yes, a walk break. Weird, but my head wasn't in it today. I picked it up after counting to 10, and was able to keep it up but then hit another patch when I thought I didn't want to redline. This is something I NEVER ever do in training, in intervals or tempos, so it was a little out of character. In a lot of ways, I think my head really wasn't in it by the end, even if my body could have done it.

So that last kilometre ended up being a slow one -- one where the wheels came off and all those solid sub-4 min kilometres came back. I'm almost glad I didn't go sub-40 on this race -- I simply hadn't earned it.

I ended up with a 40:07, which on this course I will take as my true PB. My fastest 10K, and I haven't really 'raced one' since 2011, was 40:04, but on the downhill Sporting Life 10K. This time hammed my 2007 Zoo Run (which I ran in 41:20), so I will also take as a victory.

The things I do know is that on a fresher pair of legs, maybe one that hadn't run 15K the same morning, would have had a stronger last kilometre. I know that there is a 10K course out for me to show the fitness. I know that I'm on track for my marathon. And I know that every hard raced run that doesn't meet your expectations are just another carrot for the next time you go tackle that distance.

Splits: 3:52, 3:58, 4:04, 4:04, 4:28

Best part was seeing all the clubs coming out for the 10K club championships (results). Our men's team came in first and the Beaches Runners came top overall. The SPR Angels, with two of our coaches racing, won the women's race. Fantastic to see all the crews out. Running is strong in Toronto

With Andrew, Avery, Kyle and Maya, one of the Black Toe owners.

The BlackToe and SPR Angels. 

The beauty of training

"I have to practice running more," a co-worker said to me the other day as I came back from a noon speedwork session.

"Training," I answered her. "You don't practice running, you train."

That word training, it's meaningful to me, even more so than "racing." With "training," I can somehow make a daily excuse to run. Training is how I can feasibly explain to a non-runner why I run 100 kilometres a week. Training is how I've managed to make a run streak that's now almost at 300 days feel almost normal. It's necessary, I say about my running without saying why it's necessary. I'm training.

Races are the shiny, glittery objects of our sport -- we all from time to time, with good reason, succumb to it. We fawn over them, covet them, collect their swag and obsess over them.  Over my bed hangs a few select medals I've collected over the years. The other medals -- taken after I've toed the line at marathons, countless 30Ks, halfs and 10Ks, are still stuffed haphazardly in a cardboard box with the Sharpie-scrawled "medals" that the movers hauled into my spare bedroom. It hasn't moved since I placed it on a shelf a year ago. While I keep my medals, I'm not a fan of the bling. I've never quite understood why these massive medals need to be created. I see people asking about medals before they will commit to running a race and I really don't get it, as if it's the swag that's the make-or-break reason why you haul ass for 26.2 miles. Truth is, the more medals I'll earn, the bigger a cardboard box I'll need.

Training though, I can't get enough of it. I love to train. Above all, training, and the process that it forces me into, turns running from chore to routine to just a thing that I do -- no need.

Jeff Adams is a Canadian Paralympian who gave a corporate motivational speech to my company offsite this past summer. Through his speech, he talked about "searching for excellence" in sports and how that relates to the business world. What I connected with the most was when he talked about goal races -- performing on the world's stage, when all cameras and eyes were on him -- he also related to us that he enjoyed the most about the process was the training.

Everyday I train, he told us, six years after he retired from a 20-year career. When you train, you're alone, nothing to drive you but yourself. When you train, you focus on all the parts that need to improve so you can perform at the top of your abilities. But however that goal day unfolds -- race day, Olympics medal day, your first marathon -- it's every day before and every day after that defines you.

While the often-euphoric feeling associated with race day magic is hard to be beat, it's the every other day that nurtures the runner in me. I thought it was a rare thought at first, but the more runners I'm meeting, I'm hearing similar themes.

Training gets me up at 5:30 a.m. to fit in a run before work. Training gets me to put on my running gear right after the work day is complete. It gets me to flush out the schedule, urges me out the door on an early Sunday morning, and training makes -20C runs seem not only doable, but logical. Running offseason is wonderful, but it lacks the structure that the type-A self needs. I liken it to doing a strength workout without a good idea of what your sets or routine look like.

Committing to training is even more important than following a schedule. Training I associate with the words "commitment," "dedication" and "passion" even as I think of the words "escape," "pain," "hard work" and "disconnecting." Training pushes me beyond my comfort level. It has made me a better runner but at the same time turned me into a runner who loves running as much for the hard work as it is to simply run. In training partners, I'm finding people who feel the same. I no longer feel like the lone guy who just loves to run -- there are many more of us.

The sound of quiet

I was on the road between Eugene and Portland. The phone was flashing an E, seeking data, those bits and bytes that connect us. Content to save the battery, I put the phone on airplane mode. I did the same again a day later as I entered a trail in Portland, emerging from the forest more than five hours later. Just me, my thoughts and my legs. 

The past few days I've been surrounded by quiet. From the moment I landed in Eugene, I barely had a conversation with anyone, save two waitresses, a hotel concierge and a taxi driver. The driver relayed to me how laid back it was there. Is it quiet on a Sunday, I asked. Yes. Good. 

I flew across the country to find the quiet. True, I came for the trails, the coffee and food, to see yet another city on my list of cities to see, but I got on two planes so I could find that thing we all seek, in bits here, a bite of it when we can chew out for ourselves, some time.   

Setting foot on Pre's Trail

Don't worry, I told my coworker when she heard I was going to Portland the other day, I'm not doing the Into The Wild, where I would grow out my hair, seek north with no destination in mind other than self discovery. She laughed, but now, three days later, I was sitting on an Amtrak bus, writing while peering ahead at the young man in the seat in front of me. He had three studded earrings on his left ear, one bearing a white and black peace sign, the ear he pressed against the window after trying for 30 minutes to make it through the introduction of Short Stories By Leo Tolstoy. I watched him underline sentences with a borrowed pen and felt sympathy. Outside, far more interesting, I watched the mountain ranges go by, a hitchhiker waving his arms as if he's flagging down a cab instead of asking for a free ride. And I was on a bus, not having checked work email in two days, social media for more than a few hours, feeling the urge to write as I watched the dust bowl of a farmfield, stirred up by a tractor in this unseasonably dry and warm summer. In my 2.5 hour ride up to Portland, I suppressed the urge to turn on the phone. 

Rounding up

There was a time when every run started and ended with a zero. If my 12K run was in progress, I would not be content with a 11.95K, so for the last few minutes, I'd pay less attention to the road, waiting for my wrist to signal when I should stop. If I had to shuffle back and forth, or take a turn around the corner to make up the extra few hundred metres, I'd do it. I didn't want to round up.

This post is about getting older and how you tackle that, take stock of it. It's about peering back and facing forward. It's about evolving your view of all that and, surprise, it has something to do about running. What sparks it is that I'm turning 40 this week. It's not easy to make the public declaration from someone who hides his birthday on Facebook, who would rather spend a birthday not at work and alone with my thoughts, who cringes at attention. But everyone knows. They're expecting me to make a big deal so I am -- here.

Milestones can be weights -- weights we pile on ourselves, of things we want to achieve, things left undone or things you regret. They are, in the end, just things. 

I've been never one for birthdays. As an August kid, birthdays melded into that final summer month just as pre-school anxiety starts to spike. I remember August more for working at the burger stand that my family operated at the CNE for 15 years, where as a child I stood by the monster toaster, shifting from foot to foot on a grease-smeared floor tile for hours, mastering the few deft moves it took to open a bag, dumping the bread into a pile, splitting a bun open and watching them get charred. I was nicknamed "bun boy," only realizing now how silly that sounds. In subsequent Augusts, when I moved into more 'acceptable' working age, I graduated to grill master or fry cook, then manned the till while building my customer service skills at age 11, entrusted with the family's daily earnings. I was rewarded with rolls of quarters I'd empty into the midway's video game booths. I swear I spent many a birthday working 12-hour shifts in my orange and brown Chef Burger T-shirt.

Birthdays in my household were treated much like Christmas -- my immigrant parents tried to interpret these Hallmark holidays or 'Canadian traditions' and went through the motions without really grasping why these milestones were meaningful as if they were learning about assembling food and decorations from an Ikea instruction manual -- they got the gist but never built it right, and there were always leftover parts: A plastic tree with ornaments, sure, lets try this; wrapping birthday gifts, they do that? What does a kid want for a birthday? I usually ended up with a few "new" pair of socks every year, one at Christmas, the other at my birthday, tossed in my general direction as if to say, "congrats, another year since you've been alive. Happy Birthday." In later teen years, I started to buy myself a gift, but by then I had already realized that it really didn't matter much.

Learning to run

Running those loops were endless, it seemed, back in the Grade-school days before I knew what running gear was or even that running was a thing to do outside of school-time Participaction. Our gym/Grade 5 teacher sent us off on that 2.2K loop around my school and I now wonder what kind of running shoes my parents bought me, more likely acquired when my mom visited the local Bi-Way -- she was, after all, famous for scourging sales, the dregs from the the discount bin where she could mysteriously find matching outfits for my brother and I just in time for school pictures.

The loops that we ran on random mornings was part of "training" for our meagre cross-country team. I was third and also the slowest of my group of boys. The loops didn't prepare me for race day that saw me try to crest a stupid hill -- there are hills and grass in cross country?  I had advanced through the first set of local races and found myself toeing the line of a city-wide cross-country race where for all but me it was really a run until my fitness was compromised. To this day, I remember distinctly the hill, trying to run to the top it and realizing the best thing next to starting a run at a full sprint was taking a walk break.

How did I come to run? Who made me do this? How do I do this running thing anyways?

***

They say that running is what we are meant to do. They also say that running with shoes is against nature, just ask anyone seeking a refund from Vibram what natural running really is. In truth, we like to say that if you want to see someone run without abandon, watch a kid run, and while that is good enough to see what type of joy you can have on a grassy field, do we really know how to run?

I've been asking myself that more recently as I pound out year after year on asphalt, trails and concrete. I've been wondering why -- talent and effort aside -- are others more efficient, why do elite runners look so perfect when we do not.

Mid stride

Mid stride, you just don't care about all of those things.

On a normal day, many "things" start to grate. Some things pile on, weight to my shoulders, tasks to complete, more challenges to tackle. Work, life obligations, they come at me and I have little choice but to sidestep, or to take it head on.

The first few strides are floating, always. They happen usually after I see the lights turn green, or after I close the gate of my townhouse. The first few strides are heaven. It's as if with the swing of the arms and my soles slapping pavement, or concrete, or grass, that I am unshackled.

Today felt like many of those days. Too much in my thoughts, too many things left undone, the to-do is so long that I have to scroll down for pages to catch all of the things.

After work, I'll often pick a city route. There, unlike the uninterrupted waterfront trails where I can run for miles and minutes and to the horizon, I'm constantly interrupted. I'm stopped at a stoplight, my hands on my hip, breathing hard, waiting to hit the start button again. I'm swerving pedestrians, people who have similar to-do lists and weights on their shoulders. I'm running into the road, giving way to oncoming cyclists and in-a-hurry cars that are trying to beat the city traffic. I'm running along side, and toward, other runners, sharing a wave, a nod.

Running in the city, on side walks, on roads, watching a busy life stream by but somehow transcending it, makes me feel like I'm floating above all of it -- as if I'm watching the 'city life' stream around me as I do the unlikely thing: run while they are commuting, run while they are entering a restaurant, run while they are toting their briefcase to the next destination, run while they are slogging. Run.

Race report: Sulphur Springs Trail Run 25K

About 200 metres into yet another race, a noise drowned out all others, and I knew I'd be in for a transformational experience. Up until the 7:30 a.m. starting time of today's 25K, it was really not that different from the 97 previous times I'd been at road races -- at 5Ks, half marathons and 27 marathons. All of them were done on roads -- at major cities with thousands of others, or in a city park with a few hundred.

But none of those were like the 98th. None of them were like today. And I'm left thinking why it took so long.

Today, I had abandoned my Asics road shoes for New Balance trails. Today, I had no idea what a good pace would look like, much like the first race 97 start lines ago. Today, under the canopy of trees on a much-delayed Spring, I could hear the difference -- the thud of our trail shoes on pine needles and later sucking mud, and then then sound of birds.

New shoes now broken in.

The sound of birds chirping overtook the footfalls of a few hundred runners. As I was letting gravity help plunge me deeper into the trails before I'd have to climb the coming hills, I knew I was already falling in love.

This won't read like any traditional race report. I really don't know how to write it for trails, maybe one day I will. I will refer you to Russell's excellent course preview of the Sulphur Springs race.

The race is made up of varied distances, a 10K, 25K, 50K, 50 miler, 100 miler and a 100 mile relay. So from the 10K (done the fastest in 34 blistering minutes) to the 100 miler, which will take some as much as 30 hours, there are hundreds of runners doing this course in Ancaster, Ontario, just outside of Hamilton. (Results for 10K, 25K, 50K, 50 Mile, 100 Mile Relay)

Race report: Toronto Goodlife Marathon 2014

I had to rip those arm warmers off. A kilometre earlier, they were shielding my limbs that are apt to get cold in the gusting wind, but now I was running into the sunshine, a honest tailwind behind me, they were getting on my nerves, big time. You don't want any negative thoughts this late in a race.

A few clumsy motions later, they were off, but not without a casualty.

I had dropped the wristband. 

How could I leave it behind, after it carried me for so far?

So I stopped dead in my tracks, 36K behind me, less than an hour away from The Goal. I turned, risking sudden cramps. I wasn't going to lose it, it meant too much to me.

***

Most marathon experts advise even paced marathons -- run the first half pretty much the same time as the second. By doing so, you do not risk getting up to your lactate threshold levels until late (or never). The race will get harder as the miles pile on -- they always do, but if you try to bank too much, you are likely to blow up. I know this feeling, having had marathons where marathon pace was going great, and a kilometre later, you were going 30 seconds slower per kilometre. Then you took a few walk breaks. Then it was over.

My last two marathons, I ran two negative splits, where you actually run the second half faster. In Chicago, where I hit a 3:18, I ran the second half 9 seconds faster than the first. In New York, which I ran three weeks later, I ran the last 21.1K about 30 seconds off the first.

But this weekend called for anything but a negative split. The first half features a net huge downhill that even I'd advise runners bank a minute or more.

And then there was that wind.

***

The Toronto Marathon is where I PBed and qualified for Boston back in 2009. It's a net downhill course in the first half but it doesn't always necessarily make it fast. But it is a fast course and if you run it right, it can pay huge dividends. I put Toronto on my race calendar when I signed up with BlackToe Running in December. I told the coach that I wanted to get back to Boston. When he asked what time that was, I told him 3:10. In reality, I needed a 3:15, but Boston had a cutoff last year of around 1:28, which meant you needed a 3:13:30 to get in.

Buffer, I told him. I wanted a buffer and 3:10 would get me that.

I've written about the crazy training in this extreme winter. I had, up to marathon day, also been on a 157-day running streak, had hit 200 miles or more per month for four months, and had set new personal bests in the 8K, half marathon and 30K. In my mind, being three for three in races was a massive deal, but there was really only one race that mattered -- the marathon distance.

Through the winter, my group got faster, that by the time were were talking marathon pace, the coach was starting to assign us 4:25 kilometres, or 3:07, or three minutes faster than that 3:10.

Dare to dream, right?

Our Boston on 4.15.14

About a year ago, I put on my blues and yellows, and did something I don't often do: I went out for a Tuesday run with a bunch of strangers. We did a few laps around Queen's Park. I saw others who looked familiar on my waterfront paths, only we were standing still, marking a moment of silence in the brilliant later afternoon sun. I then saw a friend who had just flown back from Boston. We traded a big hug.

About three weeks later, a friend of mine came back from the States and -- on the usual intersection where we met for an after-work run -- he slipped a blue and yellow wristband into my hand. "A souvenir," he said. I'm not much for wristbands, but this one said "RUN NOW" and "BOSTON 4.15.13."

I haven't gone on a run without it ever since.

I've worked my entire career in the media. We love anniversaries. It's a news hook, easy to fill space and poignant enough usually to preplan in an environment that can always change. A year ago, before the bombs hit Boston, it was a usual Monday morning for my colleagues, but it was Patriot's Day for me. I was tracking a bunch of friends, tuning my computer-side TV to the sports channel to listen to the sounds of Hopkinton, that starting point for the 26.2 mile race.

Hours later, feeling sick, I went home and off to bed. I was woken up by a phone call from the office. Bombs had gone off, and my staff was covering the story. Shaking off the grogginess, I checked my email and found messages, from friends who had finished okay and were accounted for, and friends who thought I was at the race. Within an hour, I was interviewing Toronto runners, writing a news story, writing a blog post in shell shock about our Boston.

Our Boston.


Boston means so much to many of us for different reasons. I spent years striving, fighting, running, for a chance to run my dream race. When I qualified, I looked back at all my achievements - personal and professional - and put that run among the greatest things I've ever done. Months later, toeing the line at the corral, I was in utter awe. I did not belong here. Everyone was so much better than I was. This was on national TV. How did I make it here?

The second time I ran Boston, I stood at the back of Wave 1 and savoured the crowd. I shivered, not from that tail wind, but from the chills of knowing I was somewhere special. It was one of those lifetime moments. I didn't take it for granted, but tried to take slow motion snapshots in my mind's eye. If I never ran Boston again, I didn't want to remember nerves or looking at my watch. So I stood and soaked everything in.

So Boston for me is a vivid memory. It's getting to the Toronto airport and seeing all those Boston jackets. It's seeing the banners on the streets, it's visiting the finish line, or holding The Jacket for the first time, or looking up at the signs at the corner of Hereford and Boylston. It's about school bus rides, the village and high fives with kids on trampolines. It's about beer on the course, a kiss at Wellesley and hills that make you remember why it broke someone's heart. It's about the growing crowds, the Citgo sign and Fenway, and noontime baseball. It's about the everything about 26.2 but also what happens alongside that course, and of the days before and after that day.

Around the world, and in every other state, it's a Monday. In Boston, that day, Patriot's Day, is Marathon Monday, and it's my Christmas Day. In the past week, I've been talking to friends who are going. I'm proud they are going to run the race hard, and they would have it no other way. Next Monday, I will be tuning in from Toronto, watching the race, tracking friends and reliving that route from Hopkinton to Boylston.

In the last year, I've been on my own journey. When two men tried to take my Boston memories away from me, I responded one way I knew I could, by vowing to get back. And to get back, there was only one thing to do -- do it harder, faster and with the purpose and love I've always had for the sport. So day after day, through the past 12 months, I've put on my shoes, walked out the front door, and pointed my wrist at the sky. The watch has had plenty of company this year with my blue and yellow band a reminder.

Boston runners, we're proud you'll be there for us this year. May wind be at your back, the cannolis keep you full, the high fives just as hard as the thunderous cheers on that beautiful day that is My Most Favourite Day.

Why #megsmiles? Because we're runners

Meg Menzies was one of us. A tweet informed me of her death a day after it happened. A few searches later, I gleaned the quick facts and as I read, my heart sank. Marathoner. Morning run. Drunk driver.

She could have been any of us. A 4:07 first-time marathoner a decade ago. A 3:05 marathoner in 2011. A Boston marathoner in 2012.

She was taken away from us doing what she loved. And it's a damn shame.

***

Sometimes what separates me and the driver staring back at me is my right hand, pointing. It's a trick I learned a long time ago, a test of trust between runner and driver. Often, going with the green or white walking-man signal, I'll slow my pace slightly, raise my arm, and point.

A connection between a 138-pound runner with a flimsy few layers of gear and the driver, encased in steel, glass and rubber, tonnes of it. I somehow believe that if I point, I'm making a connection, drawing our eyes together, as if to say, "Hi, I see you -- you see me, lets get on with this, I'm running, you're waiting."

There are moments of fear, when I realize that the said driver doesn't have his or her hands hugging the wheel. I know that look, accompanied by the glance down at their smartphones. That finger pointed could easy turn into a lecturing tsk-tsk wave.

The winter takes me out of the waterfront trail and on to the city streets. The short days put me in darkness, hoping that the glow of my Garmin, the blinking red LEDs on my shoulder and my silver-coloured gear is just enough to catch the attention.

***

Meg was one of us, so even though she was from Virginia and we're up here in Canada, there are no borders, no citizenship needed to be embraced or adopted into this running family. The fears we have for safety, the close calls we've all endured and the scorn we often face in the forms of a honked horn, yells or a steering wheel pushed in our direction puts this tragedy into focus. It could have been any of us.

Distance

We hit reset on our watches every day, while the weekly schedules reset and what was a big running week on a Sunday becomes a big fat zero on Monday morning. Running is a sport that lets you accumulate, build, add step by step, then ultimately, we wipe the slate clear.

There are so many other reasons for running, of course, but I find it amazing while running my same routes -- up and down the downtown streets or back and forth on the water's edge, that it actually adds up to something. This morning's run was more than the 10 miles that I logged at the end of a route that saw hills climbed, sidewalk and asphalt passing by and bumping into a running friend at a stop light (we weren't bouncing). At the end of the run I see time (1:15) pace (7:33 miles) and distance (16.12K).

Add it all together, zoom out to the wide view, and you see something much different. Although this was a higher than usual mileage year, most runners training for marathons pile on hundred of miles a season, even up to 200-300 miles a month. Recently I passed the 2,000 mile mark. Today, I passed 2,046, or more than 3,200 kilometres. If I flew the distance, I mapped out where I could have travelled in that one year.




Amazing, isn't it. In about a week, I would have travelled as far as it takes to fly (as crows do) from Toronto to Vancouver, or most of the United States.

Pull out beyond the 50,000 foot view, and you look at the steps and how they add up to something much bigger, something much more impressive to many who may nod when you say you went for a run for an hour, or are on a running streak.

An hour over a day can add up to 16,850 minutes, or two hundred and eighty hours on the roads. A hundred or so calories burned over a mile adds up to 234,618 and while I don't remember many hills, 92K metres kind of seems like a lot.

Why We Run

The slap of the shoe on the pavement, the swing of one's arms, the gag-inducing pace, the hop to clear the curb, the bounce on the balls of the soles as the hill crests. The efficiency and speed, plodding by some, effortless by others. The repetitive motion and the heart rate that is awakened from a slothful existence.

The act of running has me moving at a speed that is so different than on bike, car or transit, and although it's not so much faster than a brisk walk (by scale), the speed in which you travel -- real movement with the heart, legs, muscle in interplay -- have a way of activating my soul.

While I am moving while running, it is running that moves me in deeper ways that meditation could never give me. Running is my way to confront the self, but to find more that is hidden within me. I am seeking, striding, solving, negotiating, hurting, conquering, coping and -- ultimately -- living.

Non-runners don't understand. I get that now. In my years as a long distance runner, I've watched the running community repeatedly dismissed. One old example is Ted McClelland, who wrote in 2007 how the marathon was being ruined by slow runners.

Even as the sport continues to grow, capturing more women, more city dwellers and more participants at races, the naysayers feel compelled to -- shall I say -- dismiss the movement. Oh, you want 26 reasons not to run the marathon?

Just this past week, the Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed by a man who can't stand the 26.2 stickers, the 13.1 labels he sees on car bumpers. Chad Stafko, in essence, says running is an act of self-absorption, for showing off more than anything else.

He writes:

I have a theory. There is no more visible form of strenuous exercise than running. When runners are dashing down a street in the middle of town or through a subdivision, they know that every driver, every pedestrian, every leaf-raker and every person idly staring out a window can see them.

Mark Remy over at Runner's World does a takedown of Chad, much like I did of Ted McClelland in 2007, so there is no need for rebuttal, but I wanted to reinforce a few simple truths, some small reasons why we run.

Race report: Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Half Marathon 2013

I love race day in this city and in the past decade, I've run dozens and dozens of road events in Toronto. Scotiabank, for me, has always been The Big One, I've run it nine straight years, toeing the line for six half marathons and three marathons.

It's this race that first gave me the marathon bug, where I started to set goals for Boson. Scotia, as we call it, very rarely becomes the goal race in my busy fall schedule. The half is usually a ramp up an eventual full. So a week out from running the Chicago Marathon, I found myself with not a lot of goals and fearful that without a mission, I'd potentially race out my legs before doing New York in two weeks.

Then Nicole, my buddy on Daily Mile, reminded me that she'd been asking me to think about pacing her and Sam to a 1:45.

Actually, she wrote this:

But you're here to read about goals. Well, I'm still going to put my "A" goal out there. I'm not entirely sure I will be able to get it, but I'm going to keep the mind strong and go for it. What will help is that Kenny may run with Sam and I as our personal pacer (skirt and socks not required!)!

Okay, so that gave me my goal. 1:45, or 5 minute kilometres.

RACE DAY
I met up with Daily Milers before the race, and met Nicole (who I've seen at other races) and Sam (for the first time in real life). We dropped our bags and proceeded to the start line.

Yes, he chased the cookie through the whole marathon.

The weather was a perfect chilly temperature. It would get no warmer than 13C so there was a chill in the air before the 8:45 start. We lined up right after the 3:25 pacer and in front of the 1:45 and 3:30s. I figured the 1:45s (headed by Fran) would distort the pace since he was going 4:45 pace while doing his 10:1s. Later, I saw the 3:30s way behind us -- no clue why.