Grab Your Shoes and Fly!

February 14, 2017

Heather Gardner explores the wide open world of destination races.

Your gels are packed, along with a few other of your race day rituals, powdered electrolytes, lucky socks, and unforgettable race hat. Your running gear and traditions have been tried-and-true, but something’s different—this race’s start line is 3,878km away! It’s no longer just about your run, but rather expanding your race experience and many runners are following suit. By travelling the world and living like a local, destination runners get inside what destination race communities have to offer. You and thousands of other Canadian runners are lacing up to take on the world, crush race goals and travel to bucket list destinations. Destination races are booming and traveling runners—including myself—can tell you why.

After returning from my thirteenth destination race in December in Barbados, I know the allure of destination races. Having travelled alone and in large groups, destination races offer runners the obvious subtleties of travelling alongside the thrill of sharing new experiences, accomplishments and bonding with friends. My destination races include: being 1 of 30 runners in a Vancouver race with my run group Tribe, being 1 of 8 runners in a Paris race in 2014 for the Marathon De Paris, and 1 of 4 runners in a Disney World race for the inaugural Dopey Challenge. However my most prized destination race was with my sister in New York City in 2010. The New York City race was our first destination race and our first marathon and really the gateway into the past seven years of endurance sports. The race was a goal I had set for us two years prior, to “race our first marathon, to do it in New York, and to cross the finish line holding hands,” and we did it!

New York City has personal significance to my family. It was my final family trip before the passing of my mum in 2005, and as a runner, it’s one of the world marathon majors known for its epic crowd support and huge participation numbers (51,388 finishers).

I’m not the only one catching the racer’s travel bug. Charlotte Brookes, event director at Canada Running Series shares that, “over 15% of race entries, in adult races, in the 2016 Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon (STWM) were from participants coming outside of Canada, with USA, Mexico, and Great Britain leading the way. Out of province racers also made the trip, with the highest number of registrants travelling from Quebec, Alberta, and British Columbia.” Brookes attributes this to new tour groups and agency packages. For example, groups such as Canadian Affair for U.K. Runners, Your Group from China, and Your Group from Mexico. Combo destination-race tour packages entice runners to go outside of the box. And of course, since it’s 2017, social media has a way of making the world a smaller place. Movements like Bridge The Gap (BTG) are bringing runners together from across the globe. In 2015, STWM was a goal race of the BTG movement resulting in international registration of runners from more than 70 countries at the starting line.

Grace Egan, culture blogger and artist, will be attending her sixth destination race and second BTG event this spring at the Washington Cherry Blossom 10 Mile Run. Egan defines the BTG movement as “an enormous community of wonderful people who love running, meeting others, and generally not taking life too seriously.” Further explaining that the movement is all about “crew love,” a concept her cynical mind scoffed at until she experienced it herself in 2015 at STWM. “We welcomed hundreds of runners from all over the world,” she says. “People stayed in each other’s homes, ate an absurd amount of pasta, ran 21 or 42 kilometres together, danced, and yes—drank a considerable amount of beer.”

For Egan, destination races are not only an opportunity to connect with the global running community, but are also a way to venture off the beaten city path to new and exciting destinations. Egan says, “Every new place I visit, I try to connect with a running group in the city. It’s especially important to find a safe community if you’re a female solo traveller and the running community is perfect for that. No travel magazine or website can compare to sitting down with people who know their hometown and can tell you where you should go and where to avoid.”

It’s this sense of exploration and global accomplishment that keeps registration from international runners high and city doors open. In 2011, Enigma Research conducted an economic impact study for Canada Running Series that estimated an influx of $33.5 million into Toronto as a result of STWM and the Running Health and Fitness Show.

May Stemshorn, a runner with 50 marathons under her race belt, explains how destination races are a great way to explore the sites of a new city. “Running in a different environment is always a challenge and fun,” the 66-year-old says. “You never know what you’ll learn about yourself and running and it’s a way for you to see a great deal of a new city.” Stemshorn remembers a time in New Orleans when a group of friends (that were not racing) went on a city tour while she and others from their group participated in the race. “Racing the marathon covered everything that they saw on the tour!” Stemshorn says. “Plus, pounding pavement in new countries brings on unique sights and smells—who can resist the sight of an ocean-side palm tree?” Stemshorn advises new destination race participants that during destination races, “the key is not to race, but rather to enjoy yourself because if you go too quickly you’ll miss so much of everything that is new around you.”

Travelling these days can be more challenging with heightened security at airports and the cost of flights and hotels, but alternatives do exist, such as booking early and through designated race hotels, or going through accommodation alternatives such as peer-to-peer online homestay networks like Airbnb.

In preparation for the 2016 Airbnb Brooklyn Half Marathon, Airbnb, the title race sponsor, took a closer look at the impact their peer-to-peer network would have on the host city of Brooklyn. In total, they predicted nearly 12,000 guests would be staying with Airbnb hosts over the half-marathon weekend and an increase of approximately US$8 million in economic activity in Brooklyn would occur. This is broken down with US$6 million going directly to the Airbnb hosts and the remaining US$2 million being spent in the community as guests eat and shop in the local area.

Hosts aren’t the only ones benefiting financially, guests in town for the TCS New York City Marathon are saving an average of $200 per night over a race weekend (Friday to Sunday), and are staying for an average of 5.7 nights.

“Running events all over the world are marquee events for cities where Airbnb can add elastic accommodation capacity to cities and provide unique accommodations for runners,” says Aaron Zifkin, Regional Director, Americas Operations at Airbnb. Meanwhile, destination runners are enjoying the impact of their savings and using the extra cash to spend more time travelling and exploring and creating a greater destination race experience.

As a long-time runner, destination races give me something new and exciting to look forward to. The opportunity to travel for a race makes me feel alive and buzzing, counting down the days where I can dip my toes in new sands, explore foreign roads, see historical landmarks and all while doing one of my favourite things—run. Like myself and many other Canadian runners, Grace Egan shares this passion for a destination race. She says they allow her to connect to different runners all over the world. “I can travel to Lyon or New York, meet new people, run with them, practise languages, learn about their lives, and go for coffee after,” she says.

Her race experiences go beyond running, they involve exploring and being engulfed in the culture and life of the places she travels to. Destination races help runners—new and old—experience a destination at a level beyond any guide book or double decker bus. It’s this global connectedness, sense of community and adventure that continues to grow the destination race scene and global running community. When recommending destination races to a friend, Egan suggests thinking of the race as “an excuse to discover somewhere new”—an excuse, now more than ever, runners are making today.

Love and the Long Distance Runner

AttheRaces

February 14, 2017

The greatest relationship advice I’ve ever been given came from my very first marathon.

Like most runners, I lined up for my marathon debut convinced of my own readiness to take on the distance. I had put in the miles. I had visualized my race. And better still, I had a support system (in the form of my then-boyfriend) out on the course to cheer me towards the finish. I felt certain that, with his encouragement, I could handle any pain that lay ahead.

Boy was I wrong.

Here’s the thing that nobody tells you before your first marathon: you’re in this thing alone. Whether your race takes you along deserted country roads or bustling city streets packed with screaming spectators, it’s just you out there. And when you hit the wall at 30K, with dead legs and bleeding feet and less-than-nothing in your tank, all those encouraging voices that you thought you could rely on start to sound a whole lot farther away.

In the end, you run that race alone.

For a girl who grew up in a family of eight, and spent the bulk of her adult life in long-term relationships, doing anything alone—much less something as difficult as running a marathon—was an alien concept.

There are a lot of reasons why my first marathon fell apart in the spectacular way that it did. But I think one of the biggest reasons had to do with my expectations about support. It’s not that my boyfriend wasn’t every bit the enthusiastic, sign-holding, cowbell-ringing spectator I needed him to be—he absolutely was. But I’d come to believe that having him there would somehow lighten my own load a little. And as I’ve since learned, that can be a pretty pernicious expectation.

When we broke up seven months later, in the middle of my second marathon build, one of my first thoughts was, how am I going to do this without him?

But a funny thing happens when a voice of encouragement disappears from your life; your own, internal voice of encouragement starts to get louder. When I ran that second marathon a few months later (and 22 minutes faster), my internal voice didn’t fade away at the 30K mark. After months of training and living solo, I’d learned to rely on myself for the support I’d once looked for in my relationships.

I wasn’t alone out there; I had me.

When you’re on your own, it can sometimes be tempting to idealize relationships—to imagine that, by some unknown mechanism, the love of another person somehow relieves us of the burden of loving ourselves, or chasing our own dreams (or, say, running 26.2 miles like the badass marathoner that you are). Nowhere is this more tempting than on days like Valentine’s Day, when evidence of coupled-up happiness seems to follow us everywhere.

I still consider myself a romantic. But I often wonder if we haven’t been sold a bill of goods about what our relationships really can give us. I think love is an incredible thing, but it won’t relieve you of the sacrifices that your dreams demand. It won’t log your long run for you, or carry you over the last six miles of a marathon. It won’t teach you to make sense of yourself in a way that you cannot.

You won’t make much of a marathoner if you’re afraid to go it alone sometimes. And I could be wrong about this, but I’m beginning to suspect that you won’t make much of a life, either.

For a long while after my debut, I thought that the marathon was an impossible distance, but it’s not. The only really impossible distance is the space between yourself and other people. The reality of love represents a beautiful and incomplete and imperfect closeness. Nobody in this world can make order of your pain for you. Nobody can inspire you to complete a task you otherwise cannot do. That strength comes from you.

But hey, who am I kidding – you’re a runner. You knew that already.

By Amy Friel.

I Am An Elite Female Marathon Runner: Thank You Athletics Canada on More Realistic Qualifying Times

Ben Kaplan

February 13, 2017

Leslie_Header_-_elite_female_runner — Image via Canada Running Series.

My name is Leslie Sexton and I am a Canadian elite marathoner.

At the 2015 Toronto Waterfront I ran 2:33:23, which was faster than the Olympic standard of 2:45, but slower than Canada’s Olympic standard of 2:29:50. At the time, I didn’t think of it as failing to meet Canada’s Olympic standard; I celebrated my performance because I believed it was the fastest I could have possibly run on the day. With Athletics Canada setting their Olympic standard under 2:30, the Olympics were an unrealistic dream for me. I still had hopes of representing Canada at the IAAF World Championships in 2017 or 2019, since Athletics Canada had set a women’s standard of 2:35 for the last two editions of the event.

In October of last year, a few days before the Canadian Marathon Championships at the Toronto Waterfront Marathon, Athletics Canada announced tough standards (2:29:50 for automatic selection and 2:31:30 to be selected at the discretion of the head coach) and a shortened qualifying window for the 2017 World Championship marathon. This news was incredibly disheartening, and reflected a defeatist attitude towards developing long distance talent in Canada. The message was clear: Canadian marathoners would once again have to perform at a higher standard (ie. show the potential to place top-16 in London) to qualify for national teams, leaving little room for developing athletes to represent their country and benefit from the experience of competing at an international championship. For me, it meant possibly letting go of my dreams of racing a marathon in a Team Canada singlet. I love distance running and I have no doubt that I will continue to train for and compete in the marathon whether I make a World team or not. And yet Athletics Canada’s tough standards made it very difficult to justify what I was doing. I can only control how fast I run and it was frustrating that someone else could put more barriers between me and qualifying for a national team.

With Friday’s announcement that Athletics Canada will be using the minimum IAAF standards of 2:19:00 for men and 2:45:00 for women in their selection criteria for the 2017 IAAF World Championships, my hope that I will one day represent Canada at a world championship has been renewed. According to the Athletics Canada rankings, seven women achieved the 2017 World Championship standard within the qualifying window, and twelve have run under 2:45 in the last two years. For Canadian women, simply running the standard will not be enough; only three athletes per country can compete in the marathon at the World Championships. Thus, qualification is still a tough goal for people like me who have run in the mid-2:30s, but one that is achievable and worth chasing. With fewer barriers in front of athletes for national team qualification, marathoners can now feel like the power is back in our hands. It is now up to us to not only better the standard, but also to compete amongst each other for a top-three ranking and national team selection.

A realistic marathon qualification standard will enable more of Canada’s next great marathoners to race at the World Championships and gain valuable championship experience. In 2009, Athletics Canada (with the help of funding from the Ottawa Marathon and the Toronto Waterfront Marathon) sent a team to the IAAF World Championships in Berlin using the minimum marathon standards, which included Reid Coolsaet and Dylan Wykes. Coolsaet later qualified for the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games in marathon, and has credited his experience at the World Championships in 2009 as important to his development.

I believe that using the minimum IAAF standards for the marathon will improve the quality and depth of the event in Canada over the long term. Distance running is a low-paying sport and most of us are working part-time or full-time to fund our dreams of representing Canada at a major championship. Great marathoners aren’t born, they are made though a decade or longer of consistent, tough training. The old Athletics Canada attitude of “if you can’t medal or place top twelve, we won’t send you to a championship” discourages up-and-coming distance runners from continuing to pursue the sport at an elite level. To develop the next group of men and women to represent Canada at future Olympic Games in the marathon, we need to provide them with opportunities to get experience racing at a major championship. Doing so will keep more elite and sub-elite distance runners in the sport for longer, and could lead to more talented runners attempting the marathon. The standards for the 2017 World Championships are a step in the right direction, and I am excited to see Canadian marathoners rise to the occasion with this new opportunity.

Athletics Canada Announces New Marathon Qualifying Times for IAAF World Championships

AttheRaces

February 10, 2017

After the changing of Athletics Canada’s track coach, Peter Ericsson, a new standard has been announced today for marathon qualifying times for the Canadian national team to compete at 2017 IAAF World Championships in Athletics this summer in London.

The new qualifying times for marathoners are the top 3 under 2:19 for men; 2:45 for women, and each team member must run the half marathon either at the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon, the Calgary Half Marathon or participate in the Ottawa 10K national championships.

The previous standards were 2:12:50 for the men and 2:29:50 for the women, then 2:14:10 and 2:31:20 if nobody hit the A goals, which still greatly limited the number of athletes that Canada could send to compete in the high-profile event.

By lowering the times, this will lead to better exposure of our highest profile athletes and more opportunities for greater purses for running athletes operating outside of the sporting world mainstream (the Toronto Raptors and such).

Rejoices from the Canadian running world have percolated online, perhaps best articulated by Canada Running Series director Alan Brookes, who summarized his response in a word: Hallelujah.

The World Championships will be held in London between August 5-August 13, 2017.

Good luck to everyone who runs.

The iRun Great Beau’s Beer Powered Half Marathon Spring Training Program

Training

February 9, 2017

Winter’s cold and the footing is rough and it gets dark early and everyone’s grumpy. Takes a little something extra to get out for a run. But you can do it and it’s a great way to fight back against the climate and re-take the winter as a pleasure palace and a place to run and get in shape and have fun as you go.

So, with that in mind: we present The iRun Great Beau’s Beer Powered Half Marathon Spring Training Program.

Beau’s, like iRun, is a sponsor of the Tamarack Ottawa Race Weekend and when we heard that, we challenged Beau’s CEO Steve Beauchesne to run his first half marathon. At first, he wasn’t too sure. But he’s since come on board, brought his friends and will be reporting back on his training and experiences and offering the occasional free beer incentive prize for anyone else following our program.

This is an overview of the program that we gave Steve and expect him to follow to the letter. (And, when he doesn’t, it’s going to be the training program that we’ll have to revise and revise and. . . )

Please follow along at home and share with us the results of your training and if you have any questions, thoughts or beer recipes we should try. And without further ado, a 15-week training program by iRun General Manager and Feet, Don’t Fail Me Now author Ben Kaplan (pictured), designed especially for runners attempting their first half marathon, enjoy!

The iRun Great Beau’s Beer Powered Half Marathon Spring Training Program.

February 12

4K: establish the habit of running outdoors.

February 15

4K: in the beginning, more important than the distance is the habit-forming. it doesn’t matter how far you go, it only matters that you start getting up and going!

February 19

6K: expect to spend about another 20-minutes outdoors on your run!

February 22

6K: with running just twice a week, we can get you to the half marathon at the end of may, just keep making your running appointments.

February 26

8K = BEER!!!!!!! if we make it through running february, let’s all celebrate and have a group beau’s beer. send us your pictures from sunday’s run and, if you’re of age, you can win a Beau’s Prize Pack.

March 1

10K: this a big milestone to get accomplished. don’t worry if it feels hard, we’re going to focus on 10K for the next two weeks.

March 5

10K: keep at it, build endurance, build mileage.

March 8

10K: still rocking the 10K!

March 12

10K: yep, more 10K.

March 15

7K: good job with all those 10s, now let’s bring it down a bit and rest up for our long run. . . .

March 19

11K: you can do it!

March 22

12K: this is officially our first run in spring—congratulations, you made it running outdoors through the Canadian winter!

March 25: Earth Day

13K: keep it going and reach 13, and then we’ll bring it back down for your last two more long runs.

March 29

9K: remember when 9K was a big deal?

April 2

11K: hang in!

April 5 (Ben’s birthday!)

15K: our second to last long run! and once you can run 15K, you can almost surely hit 21.

April 9

9K: take it slowly after your long run, the point here is to keep up with your training, not slack, and stay loose.

April 12

9K: same idea as Wednesday’s run.

April 16

9K: take it slow, because. . .

April 19

17K: this is the longest we’ll run in training and the big one—you hit 17K, congratulations. the race is a month away and you’re ready, well done. grab a beer.

April 23

9K: recovery run.

April 26

9K: recovery run.

April 30

13K: a little longer than a regular run but nothing that, by now, should bend you too much of shape. take it slowly. remember to breathe.

May 3

7K: from here on in, we taper.

May 7

7K: another easy run to stay loose. the distance on these doesn’t really matter, we just want to keep you fit and fighting.

May 10

11K: stay sharp with a little distance.

May 14

7K: ease your way into race week.

May 17

7K: just keeping the legs moving.

May 21

7K: same idea.

May 24

5K: a beer to assail those race week nerves!

May 28

HALF MARATHON!! YOU CAN DO IT!!

Wherever you’re racing, let us know how it goes. And, if you’re racing Ottawa, meet Ben and Steve after your event at the Beau’s Beer Tent in front of City Hall on Saturday and Sunday. Let’s compare race notes. And drink beer! Good luck.

Ray TV: Building Your Stamina is a Mental Game

RayZahab

February 5, 2017

Building stamina is the ultimate mental test for every runner. Even an ultra-marathoner like Ray Zahab is tested during his epic expeditions. So how does he tough it out? Here’s the mental strategy that gets him through, time and again, and it can work for you too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIegEC4Lx_U

Keep Your Guard Up

TheBuzzonGear

February 3, 2017

Safety is always top of mind when running, but it’s really become even more at the forefront of many female runners’ minds when three women runners in the U.S. were killed in the span of nine days this past summer.

By: Karen Kwan

It’s always smart to change up your route and let someone know where you’re going; those are guidelines we try to follow. We also have been testing out GoGuarded. Jodi Fisher has been selling this self-defense product about one year. The ring features a plastic serrated edge and comes in three colours (black, magenta or blue) and four sizers.

The ring is comfortable to wear (although it’s slightly less convenient to wear with winter gloves on now but thanks to the sizers, it is possible to wear over gloves) and I think it definitely has an advantage over carrying pepper spray since if you are attacked during a run, you won’t have time to get pepper spray out of your fuel belt or backpack, whereas with the ring on, you’ll have it ready to defend yourself. For $15.99 U.S., it seems a small price to pay for a tool that may help save your life.

Karen Kwan is a regular iRun fashion and travel contributor, and you’ll find her running fashion posts every Friday on Instagram. She contributes to a number of publications and you can also follow her travel and running adventures at Health & Swellness.

The Late Bloomers: Designing Woman Cathy Vandergeest

UpToSpeed

February 1, 2017

16409562_10158139588710333_467066404_o — JP's team at the 2016 Beaches Jazz Run. Cathy in the pink tutu. Photo credit: Inge Johnson.

Over the next few months, we’re interested in telling the stories of those who came to running after the age of 40 and what they’ve learned and accomplished in the process. If you’re interested in participating, tweet Ravi and introduce yourself.

Cathy Vandergeest started running in 2013, mainly to tire out her new puppy and fueled by a slight tinge of sibling rivalry when her sister also started running. “Okay, I’ll admit that I was just over fourty,” she says of her late start.

Cathy is the owner of a large format print shop in Toronto’s Beaches alongside her husband. Her background as a designer, hence her social media handle @runningdesigner, has transferred to running, allowing Cathy to quite literally leave her mark on Toronto’s running scene. In 2016, she designed the finisher’s medal for the Tanenbaum 10K hosted by the Beaches Run Club as well as the logo for JP’s Team.

JP’s Team at the 2016 Beaches Jazz Run. Cathy in the pink tutu. Photo credit: Inge Johnson.

Named for 2015 Canadian Runner of the Year Jean-Paul Bedard, JP’s Team describes itself as a community of runners working to raise awareness and funds in support of services for survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

According to Bedard, “When [Canada Running Series Race Director] Alan Brookes approached me about creating a ‘team’ that could assist in my advocacy work, he gave me one critical piece of advice: ‘Make sure you choose one or two people who can help you build this community.” Cathy was one of those people. JP says, “She donated her time and expertise to design our logo and what she produced is in a sense our calling card across North America and graces over 2,000 singlets, shirts, and hoodies.”

It’s an interesting culmination given that in describing her story so far, Cathy seems to make extra effort to mention how much she always hated athletics in general. She describes herself as, “…the kid who didn’t participate in sports and hated running.”

Nonetheless, similar to the envy Cathy experienced when her sister started to run, she admits, “I’d always been jealous of runners being able to get in a fast, good calorie burning workout.” In the leap from those first steps to her longest official run of 30K at Around the Bay 2015, Cathy has changed her tune somewhat, proclaiming, “Running has become somewhat like a need, like eating and sleeping. I never thought I’d say that about anything exercise related!” Much like any cherished relationship, Cathy celebrates her “runniversary” every year by running the route where she first completed 5K without stopping to walk.

The shy, “unathletic” kid still lurks in Cathy somewhat, though it hasn’t deflated her growing love of running and the people she runs with. “My biggest frustration as a runner,” she confesses, “comes when I take walk breaks. No matter the reason, I feel guilty and less of a runner.” With the help of coach and friend Michelle Clarke, Cathy says she’s exercising patience and working from a plan that will support her both aerobically and mentally.

When the physical and mental training that she works on with Coach Clarke sync on race day, it makes for Cathy’s most rewarding experience and affirms how much the young girl growing up in Toronto despising athletics has grown.

“The thing I love most about running,” Cathy says, “is that it’s made me love being active and healthy and given me the courage to try new things.” That courage is bolstered by her comrades on JP’s Team, which has provided Cathy with, “a supportive community, some of whom have become the best friends I’ve ever known.” It doesn’t hurt that it’s also given her, “a skill that impresses my family, friends, and especially myself.”

“Running has become somewhat like a need, like eating and sleeping. I never thought I’d say that about anything exercise related!”

The runs and races with JP’s Team are just as special and Cathy doesn’t mind putting aside her own goals to support her teammates. Fellow JP’s Team member Melly says of Cathy, “She has personal goals but puts friendships first,” adding, “When my body broke down at STWM (Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon) last year, I called her on the course and she stopped to wait for me so we could finish the last four kilometres together. I don’t know many people who would do that.”

For as much as running has given her, Cathy’s relationship with running and her fellow runners is reciprocal and they have certainly taken notice of her generosity. From designing their logo to planning the routes for JP’s Team group runs, JP says, “Cathy gives selflessly to be there for me and others. She basically takes my dreams and ideas and makes them a reality.” Making the abstract real is after all the essence of a great designer.

“As you can tell,” JP adds, “I love Cathy. She’s the sister I never had.”

For someone who says she felt like an impostor at her first few group or community running events, Cathy continues to surprise herself. “Even on the day I tried running,” Cathy says, “I couldn’t even begin to imagine I’d be capable of the things I am now, what I’ve accomplished, or how my life has changed from just one new activity.”

Ravi Singh (@ravimatsingh)

Boost Your Motivation In a New Way

RayZahab

January 26, 2017

Let’s face it we all have days when our motivation just isn’t there. Your head isn’t in the game, and it feels like it may never be. Even an ultra-marathoner like Ray Zahab felt unmotivated during his training. How does he deal? Zahab has a strategy that’s a little different than simply pushing through those downtimes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0Dl26qreew

Weapons of Hope

Ravi Singh

January 25, 2017

The ways in which running can be thought of as a privilege are endless. Seemingly simple factors like time and basic physical capability are not guaranteed to all.

The world over, running and those who pursue it also increasingly have the privilege of being embraced by the surrounding community. Despite the complaints we may overhear or see on social media lamenting road closures on race day, running has become part of the character of so many cities, particularly in the case of the World Marathon Majors.

Today, on Bell Let’s Talk Day, beautiful stories will be told about the power of running. Many of those stories are of individuals and their individual journeys – not always straightforward and not always unfailingly upward, but always in hope of something better they know they deserve.

The Justice League Runners at the 2015 Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon.

Running, so much as it requires privilege, creates it too and runners have embraced and used that privilege to build and strengthen in return the community that embraced them. When it comes to mental health, running is not just something from which we take, but something that has grown to give as well.

JP Hernandez is perhaps one of the most instantly recognizable faces in Toronto running, though the famous face is not his own, but the “bat cowl” he’s now worn in more than a dozen races, whether solo or as a member of the Justice League Runners (JLR). Petja Taivassolo is often right alongside the Dark Knight Runner wielding Thor’s hammer as his blonde locks fly in accordance with his pace.

JLR have run in support of several causes affecting children and youth, most recently supporting Ooolagen Youth Mental Health, a Toronto based mental health agency which provides counselling programs to over 4,000 young people and their families every year.

JP’s motivations were simple. “When I chose to help Oolagen, I did so because our kids face a much tougher world now than when I was a teen.” He adds, “No child or teen, or even adult for that matter, should ever feel they can’t turn to someone for help.”

Oolagen was an obvious choice for Petja as well. As a physical education and health teacher, he says, “I see first hand the battles teens are facing today and helping bring much needed awareness and support to a place that provides a safe and comforting outlet just felt so right.”

As a parent, JP’s greatest goal is to, “…leave a legacy for own my kids to teach them that we can do our part to help our fellow man and woman.” Batman provides the perfect vehicle for that goal. The costume has allowed him to catch the attention of several news outlets each time he races. When a 6-foot plus Latino man built like a linebacker is running a marathon dressed in a superhero costume, people are going to notice.

When the notice falls on him and JLR, JP turns the attention to causes like Oolagen and the young people he hopes to serve. Like Batman, JP himself has no superpowers, but simply, “works harder to be able to do what is right.”

For both runners, who may have started their journey, in Petja’s words, “all about setting times and PB’s,” the sport has come to represent a responsibility, one that they’re both glad to have.

Petja recalls, “Not until I first picked up Thor’s Hammer (Mjölnir) and ran with JLR in the Toronto Yonge St. 10K back in 2014 did I become aware of the incredible privilege and responsibility that we have in bringing awareness and support to our causes.”

Neither JP or Petja runs for himself anymore. In fact, their own struggles seem small as they take on their roles as advocates. According to JP, when he finds himself struggling in the midst of training or a race, “I don’t allow myself the right to complain because I will heal. A baby of 6 months old might be fighting stage 3 cancer, or a teenager is grappling with suicidal thoughts – those demand more attention. That’s how I put all this into perspective.”

A super sized Justice League at the 2016 Toronto Waterfront 10K.

The story of JLR illustrates all that running can become. An educator like Petja sees the running community, “…playing a strong role in getting get kids active and helping them better cope with the challenges they face on a daily basis.” As runners with a theatric style that can resonate with young people like the child who posed with Thor’s hammer at the 2014 Yonge Street 10K, they hopefully light torches of inspiration at every race they run.

Beyond this, however, their efforts are an example of running’s potential to turn attention to causes beyond itself and inspire action on behalf of those affected. Running is not just its own community, but something of a gentler version of Thor’s hammer that gracefully bludgeons surrounding communities into something greater.

Visit Oolagen.org to learn more about the organization’s work with youth in Toronto and how you can support it.

Ravi Singh (@ravimatsingh)

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