Running can take you farther than you know and on this week’s show, three runners prove it. Taking your running from your first 5K race to a 50K ultra marathon isn’t easy and to think Jenny Pham began running 5 years ago and she didn’t think she’d ever run a full marathon!. Then an Ottawa teacher, shares his experience exploring the neighbourhoods in Thailand. Plus, Kate MacKenzie talks about The Secret Marathon 3K, an even that aims at making running the streets at any hour of the day or night, safer for everyone.
By Noel Paine
Photo Credits: Milos Savic and Ekaternia Moysov
The mile is four laps of an outdoor track. Most runners will struggle to get near to a 6-minute mile. Windsor Ontario’s Corey Bellemore recently broke the 4-minute barrier for the mile; a mark many thought humanly impossible until Roger Bannister broke it in 1954. As fast and impressive as blistering up the track to run under 4-minutes, he has also run the fastest Beer Mile ever (4:33.6) – a feat that involves running the distance and consuming a beer each lap.
The miler (23) was born, raised and learn to run in Windsor, Ontario and is currently only 20-minutes away from home studying at the University of Windsor. He is close to family and he says they, along with the support of his sponsors are what enables him to train without added stress. With his running successes Corey has garnered sponsorship form those such as Adidas Canada and a local brewing company, Flying Monkeys Brewery.
I caught up with the young Canadian runner and found our how he started, how his grandmother inspired his competitive spirit and whether or not he believes he can best his current world record.
iRun: Tell us how did you develop a passion for running.
Corey Bellemore: I loved running from a young age mainly because my parents enjoyed running and I would often bike next to them on their runs. I remember my dad picking my siblings and I up after school and I would always see the cross country team doing laps in the back field of the school. I always thought to myself, I wonder if I can do that…that thought never left. First race ever was in grade 2 where I was too young to be on the actual cross country team but they added a special race at the first meet to allow a few of us to race. Our “rabbit” was a guy on a dirt bike that I anxiously wanted to sprint after. My mom always told me growing up that her mom (my grandma) would tell her to run like there was a tiger chasing her. That’s part of where my competitive running mentality stemmed from. That quote stuck with me.
iRun: How did it feel to go under the magical sub 4-minute barrier for the mile?
CB: Running under the 4min barrier for the mile was always a big goal of mine so to actually do it felt satisfying. With that being said, that satisfaction only lasted so long before I realized I want a lot more than that. It’s definitely a step in the right direction and something that alludes to the hard work I’ve been putting in with my coach, Dennis Fairall.
What are your running plans for 2018?
“My running plans in 2018 are to take advantage of every opportunity that comes my way. It’s a time in my life that I need to enjoy what I have while I have it. I realize running isn’t going to be around forever so while I am young I plan on putting a big effort into seeing where I can go. I really want to continue training the way I am and get into a fast 1500m race where I can show what I am capable of.”
iRun: Do you think your increasing speed will mean a faster beer mile – if you go after again?
CB: I am sure I can run a faster beer mile and I’ll do another at the end of my summer track season at the Beer Mile a World Classic which will take place in Burnaby, BC in August.
iRun: What keeps you pushing yourself and how do you keep the passion for running?
CB: My passion for running will never go away because no matter how hard life gets, it’s going to be there for me to take my mind off things. It’s something I can put all my energy into and control everything about it: my mind, my pain tolerance, my breathing, etc. It’s a therapeutic activity for me that makes life seem a little less busy and a little more simple. I’m appreciative of how many great people I’ve met through running and love hearing different reasons about why people run or how they got into it.
At 23-years old Corey Bellemore has many more years of running to come – keep an eye out for this young Canadian runner.
Noel Paine is a communications professional, running coach, and father based in Ottawa. Paine is a regular iRun contributor and you can also follow his journey on Twitter @NoelPaine.
The thought came from deep within the cloud of confusion that now enveloped my brain as I ran: Soroush might be trying to kill me.
I was a kilometre from the finish line of the 2017 Toronto Marathon, exhausted, sore, and losing speed. My friend, who moments before had been standing at the side of the road with the other spectators, was now on the course, a few metres ahead, turning back regularly to yell at me to run faster. My heart felt as though it might burst. As Soroush yelled, he urged me forward, toward him, with short sweeps of his hand.
To my disbelief, I found a reserve of energy, and my stride quickened to a sprint. My friend jumped back to the sidelines before I approached the chute, and I crossed the finish line in under three hours—a big PB and a Boston qualifier. As I slowed to a stop and tried to get my breathing under control, I tried also to grasp the meaning of his gesture.
Soroush Hatami and I had met just less than a year prior, as members of Marathon Dynamics, a running group in Toronto. Evenly matched, we kept pace with each other during the group’s Wednesday night speedwork sessions and on Sunday-morning long-runs too. Neither of us had ever run the Boston Marathon, and we made it our goal to do it together in 2018. But less than a month after Soroush qualified, at the 2016 Toronto Waterfront Marathon, Donald Trump was elected president of the United States, a result that soon threatened to spoil our Boston plans.
Over the course of the following year, to make good on a campaign-trail promise, Trump attempted several times to ban citizens of select, primarily Muslim, countries from entering the United States. These controversial policies were immediately challenged in court, but one was ultimately allowed to remain in place while it was litigated. Among other things, this meant that Soroush—a permanent resident in Canada with an Iranian passport—would likely be turned back at the border on our way to the race in April.
Amid this uncertainty, we submitted our times to the Boston Athletic Association, were registered for the race, and paid our entry fees. We began training. We began fundraising too, for Muslim Advocates and the International Refugee Assistance Project—two American organizations that have opposed the travel ban with ferocious legal action. We set a target of $1,000 US for every mile of the marathon—$26,200 in total. Soroush also applied to become a Canadian citizen, and his case is moving quickly. He’s passed his citizenship test and is now waiting to be invited to take his oath, after which he can apply for a passport. The marathon is still two months away.
Our fundraising continues regardless. The money we collect will not help Soroush get to Boston, but our hope is that it will benefit others who have suffered far worse than he has because of the travel ban: U.S. residents who are afraid to leave the country, because they might not be allowed back in; families that have been broken apart; refugees unable to escape war.
When I eventually caught my breath after Soroush had guided me down the home stretch of my race, I hobbled to the food tent and collected my thoughts. In a moment of clarity, I understood the lesson in what he had done for me—you don’t leave other people behind when they need your help.
2017 broke my heart twice. First, amid the raucous din of Boylston Street, in the finisher’s chute of the Boston Marathon, a malfunctioning Garmin beeping manically on my wrist. And again, not long after that, on the corner of a quiet residential street in Toronto, orange street lamps illuminating the last page in a bittersweet love story.
Athletes are supposed to be good at heartbreak, and marathoners especially so. Ours is a sport that demands months upon months of gruelling, thankless preparation. Even then, there’s no guarantee that the gods of illness, injury or fair weather will be on your side come race day.
That’s why resilience, for a distance runner, is utterly essential; in the marathon, as in love, you can do everything right and still get burned. But in 2017, in the wake of an epic heartbreak double-feature, I felt my characteristic marathoner resilience start to falter.
Redemption stories have always captivated me. When you look below the surface, it’s incredible how many dazzling accomplishments owe themselves to a doggedness born out of heartbreak and failure. Perhaps nothing in recent memory comes close to Shalane Flanagan’s historic New York City Marathon win this past November, less than a year after a stress fracture forced her to withdraw from Boston — an epic, untouchable moment of redemption, bought with the pain of an unfortunate setback.
When we talk about heartbreak, this is often how we frame it. We’re a culture that’s comfortable with failure in the narrowest possible sense of the word. Failure is a trope, an origin story. It’s the thing that happens during the opening credits of the movie, the inciting incident setting our hero up for a greater triumph yet to come. There’s precious little room in that narrative for the reality of what heartbreak so often brings — for the paralysis that grows out of self-doubt, for sadness or anger, frustration or fear.
Embrace your setbacks, people tell us; use them as fuel and come back stronger. But what happens when what doesn’t kill you doesn’t really make you stronger?
What happens when failure is just failure?
It’s a question I’ve wrestled with a lot this year, while struggling to unpack the subtle, quiet, simultaneous collapse of both my relationship and my race in Boston. It’s a question that’s dogged my road-weary steps through innumerable false starts and first dates, through Netflix binges and missed workouts and halfhearted pledges to “get back at it.”
What does it mean when you can’t find the silver lining?
For the better part of a year, my running devolved from competitive training into what can only described (shudderingly so, I should add) as “jogging”. Out of shape and out of excuses, I eschewed racing in favour of long, contemplative runs through the city at night. I fixated endlessly on the contours of my own heartbreak, struggling to shape them into something redemptive, something that might pass for inspiration.
Resisting the urge to rationalize my failures as part of some bigger plan, I was forced to look at them for what they really were: the end result of a series of random, mostly arbitrary events outside of my control. Boston wasn’t great, but it wasn’t for lack of training. My relationship ended, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. Give me clear sinuses, cooler weather and (let’s face it) slightly better taste in men, and both outcomes might have been entirely different.
Sometimes, the tipping point between success and failure has little or nothing to do with you. In a way, that’s a profoundly scary thought, because if our failures ultimately hinge on chance and luck, that means our accomplishments might, too. And so we plumb our heartbreaks for lessons that aren’t there, instead of celebrating the nobility the attempt. But in the end, we’re all at the mercy of the whims of luck.
And so, if you’re like me, and you’ve had a profoundly unlucky year, I’d like to take this moment to celebrate that: to celebrate every dream job you didn’t get, every PB you didn’t set, every meet-cute that never happened, every spark that failed to fly.
Here’s to quitting (at least you started). Here’s to heartbreak (at least you cared). Here’s to failure (at least you tried). Here’s to you — not your potential, not your goals, not your (still-pending) comeback. Here’s to you, right now, exactly as you are: defeated or down-and-out, injured or just plain cynical.
Here’s to 2017: the year I fell in love (with the wrong guy), the year I ran the Boston Marathon (way off pace). Here’s to the year that broke my heart twice. Here’s to the year that didn’t break me.
We caught up with Lyndsay Tessier to talk about her recent adventures in Kenya and Houston. Image source: Victor Sailer/Canada Running Series.
The Kenyan village of Iten, a good five hours north of Nairobi, has served as a home to and training ground for Edna Kiplagat, Mary Keitany, Wilson Kipsang, and Stephen Cherono.
In running, it’s a place of legend, something like an Olympus (the elevation is 8,000 ft. after all) where those already at the top of their field venture in hopes of capturing some of the fire that gives Kenyan running mythological status.
Lyndsay Tessier still insists that her primary purpose in travelling to Iten was less to do with running and more to do with personal development and a need to maintain a positive outlook on life.
“In a word, Iten is magic,” Lyndsay says. “Life is pared down to the simple. It’s peaceful and so content. You cannot experience the culture, the people, the running, the lifestyle, and the attitudes and not be changed.”
Despite an intense training regimen, days seemed to dissolve and maintain a slow, leisurely quality. A morning run and breakfast was followed by the day’s first chai break and a stroll, which Lyndsay relished as an opportunity to “interact with the people or quietly observe my surroundings.”
Lyndsay(right) and Canadian 10,000m record holder Natasha Wodak (left) shake it out in Houston.
Lunch might be followed by a trip to neighbouring Eldoret, which led into the second chai break of the day. An easy run in the afternoon coupled with strength training would be followed by dinner and some social time before lights out at 9:00.
The nine days spent in Iten were Lyndsay’s second trip to the village. “In Kenya, I feel privileged to talk to and learn from the people I meet,” Lyndsay says. “I get to share meals with complete strangers day after day who, by the end of the trip, feel like friends despite age, ability, or cultural differences. We’re all bonded by this running thing.”
With the joyful disconnect that came after her return from Kenya, January’s Houston Half Marathon snuck up on Lyndsay.
Prior to Houston, Lyndsay describes herself as still being out of the training mindset following her 2:36 personal best at last fall’s Toronto Waterfront Marathon.
Lyndsay recalls, “While I was in Kenya, my mind was lost in the red dirt and I was enjoying being almost completely disconnected. It wasn’t until I returned, jet lagged and facing the 21 eight year olds, that I considered the significant race I was to run in a week’s time.”
As all runners are sometimes apt to do, Lyndsay imagined several worst case scenarios. “I played out conversations in my head I would have with my running mates and thought about the email I would have to send to my coach afterward, explaining why I shit the bed,” Lyndsay says.
Feeling, in her view, out of her league standing at the start line in proximity to American wunderkind Jordan Hasay, Lyndsay says her attitude was especially laissez-faire as the gun went.
Suddenly, however, the elements synced and Lyndsay hung in with a fast pack of women for the first eight miles. “I felt their energy and let it drive me,” she explains. “Rather than letting them go without even trying when they surged, I checked in with how I was feeling and attempted to go with them.”
Lyndsay’s self-described “busted” look as she chases a PB in Houston. Source: Michael Scott Photography.
Though she won’t race at Valencia, the gutsy performance yielded and early 40th birthday present in the form of a 1:14 personal best, which met the 1:16 Athletics Canada standard for the World Half Marathon Championships.
Like Iten, the surroundings and personal experience are Lyndsay’s ultimate takeaways from Houston. As part of a large contingent of Canadian women that included Rachel Cliff, Leslie Sexton, Natasha Wodak, Emily Setlack, Cleo Boyd, Kinsey Middleton, Shelley Doucet, and Melanie Myrand, Lyndsay was one of seven Canadian women to go sub-1:16 in Houston.
Lyndsay says, “Quite honestly, it was a surreal feeling to line up with the athletes I look up to and who I consider my role models.” Lyndsay cites the Saturday morning shakeout run with her compatriots as the highlight of Houston, serving as a chance to “get to know them better—each of them kind, friendly, humble and exceptionally hard working.”
Returning in triumph from Houston, the Toronto school teacher faced down perhaps an even more intimidating beast, the first report cards of the year. Turning the evaluation on herself, Lyndsay summarizes 2018 so far:
“While Lyndsay does not take for granted the incredible opportunity she had to train in Kenya among the best runners on the planet, race with the top runners in the world in Houston, or PB at 39 so far in 2018, she needs to demonstrate a more positive attitude when she is forced to run workouts on the treadmill.”
Running can make you stronger, and help you go farther than you thought possible. For Rachel Cullen, British runner and author of Running for My Life, running became the focal point of her life helping her deal with mental illness throughout. Then, Mark speaks with a friend about the Death Valley Marathon in California. And on a bet with his brother, Phil Troitter ran a half marathon and now, he’s running ultra’s including the Great Canadian Death Race.
Matcha is having a moment and with its solid nutritional profile, the rise in popularity is with good reason. From boosting your metabolism to calming your mind and body matcha has some excellent recovery powers for runners.
By:Ally Shoom
Ingredients
1/2 cup pitted prunes
¼ cup pitted dates
3 TBSP nut butter (I use almond)
1 TBSP maple syrup
3 TBSP unsweetened cacao or cocoa powder
2 TBSP-1/4 cup culinary matcha for dusting
Directions
ONE: In food processor drop prunes and dates through the feed one by one. Scrape the processor bowl and run until the prunes and dates are smooth.
TWO: Add remaining ingredients except for matcha. Run until smooth and scrape bowl as needed.
THREE: Roll the mixture into 12 one-inch balls and roll in culinary matcha to coat/dust. Refrigerate at least 30 minutes.
Ally Shoom is a holistic nutritionist based in Toronto, Ontario, you can follow her on Instagram and at AllyShoom.com
I love to explore new places and am always eager to add another province, state or even country to the list of places I’ve raced. Over the past year, I’ve raced in six different states and two different provinces. I even have some friends who have the lofty goal of running a race in all 50 states and all 10 provinces (plus 3 territories!) as a unique and fun challenge.
But what about the province I live in? Have I actually seen everything it has to offer?
Much to my own surprise, what I’ve come to love the most are those events that allow me to discover a new town or city in my very own province. How many of us can truly say we’ve thoroughly explored the province we call home? So that’s my challenge: to race in as many towns in Québec as possible! And I challenge you to start doing the same in your own provinces as well!
Before I started running in mid-2009, I’d seen very little of Québec apart from a close, 25km radius around home. Now that I think about it, I really knew embarrassingly little about the geography, landscape, culture, industries, beauty and wonderful people that make up my province. My lack of familiarity with Québec even extended to the city in which I went to University and now work full-time: Montréal. I was the worst tour guide for friends from out of town as I knew more about those cities which I’d visited on vacations (such as Paris, London and New York) than I did about the city I spend most of my time in! Running, thankfully, has changed all that and more!
Running has changed my life in so many positive ways. I could write 10 pages on what it has done for my self-confidence, health, and happiness. And 100 more pages on all the amazing lifelong friends I’ve made from all different backgrounds, age groups, and areas in Québec, Canada, the United States and abroad. I am so very grateful for the bonds I’ve formed, the connections I’ve made, and the miles I’ve run alongside these many great athletes and people I am proud to call my “running family”! Beyond that amazing human component, what I value the most is the opportunity running has given me to broaden and create my self-identity as a proud Québécoise!
I have gained a huge amount of pride and admiration for Québec through racing all over its map and I am confident you can do the same in the province you live in! There’s no better way to explore a new town than on foot. Travelling to and participating in a race is a perfect way to do just that! All this to say, sometimes exploring what is right around you is just as exciting and rewarding as venturing farther afield!
The carefully tabulated list of cities in Québec in which I’ve raced has a current total of 59. From Gatineau to Shawinigan, Val Cartier to Yamachiche, Ange-Gardien to Saint-Donat, running has put endless miles of racing in my legs and unforgettable memories in my heart! Where in Québec will my 60th city be? I don’t know yet but wherever it is, I can’t wait to explore it while running!
“We are all very different but everyone can benefit from talking.” – Noel Paine
To help raise awareness about mental health during Bell Let’s Talk Day, I took over iRun‘s Twitter account. A healthy and positive frame of mind is something I have struggled with of over the past year, more or less. I am a running dad and have battled depression – reaching rock bottom when I was googling suicide methods.
Raising awareness and money to help mental health programs is great. The next step is to continue being aware of the issue and to encourage people to talk about it. Those who suffer from mental health problems need to know that there is help, there are programs and that mental issues are as important as physical ailments. People who are plagued by negative thoughts and mental issues often run away from help and others because they are embarrassed, feel unworthy or simply want to be left alone.
Mental health goes hand in hand with physical health
A strong mind can help a strong body
Mental strength can only happen with mental health
If you find yourself struggling with your mental health, from the perspective of another runner and someone who has battled to be positive and mentally healthy – here are some tips.
Take the first step
Depression and anxiety tell you to do nothing, to defeat both, do something
Get out of bed, go out and get a coffee – small steps can have a big impact
It is okay to take sick days to treat your mental health
Talk with someone
Reach out for help
Keeping lacing up and going for a run if you can, remember, small steps
Running has helped me clearmy head and realize I still enjoy something, that I can accomplish something and has helped me battle for positive mental health. It is just one tool in my tool kit. I talk to a psychologist, have a life coach, organized my own retreat, I meditate, have a journal, try and practice positive thinking and share my experiences on my personal blog. Everyone is different – but one thing is the same, you need to talk to someone.
Talking about mental health lets others know it is okay to talk about. Talking encourages those suffering to reach out and this can save a life. Keep running my friends, keep being positive and keep the conversation going.
Noel Paine is a communications professional, running coach, and father based in Ottawa. Paine is a regular iRun contributor and you can also follow his journey on Twitter @NoelPaine.
From building community to getting through the rough winter weather, running can take you farther than you know. First Mark speaks with Moncton runner and mental health advocate Charlotte Flewelling about her involvement in the sport, then Mark Sullivan, a running coach talks about winter running and why those who run in the colder weather might be better off. Then aa Calgary runner sharing a very personal story of how running has helped him through some difficult times in his life.
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