By: Magi Scallion

All summer and fall I’ve been struggling with Plantar Fasciitis, which I thought was also morphing into a stress fracture.  It’s a hateful injury because rest and relaxation seems to be one of the few true roads to recovery… and, as any runner knows, that is a tough road to follow when you like to be outdoors and active.

Little did I consider that the onset of my plantar woes coincided with the time that I got “ultra busy” at work and canned my morning yoga sun salutations.  Let’s be clear that I was not an avid yogi, but I did make an effort to do 5 sun salutations every morning and a few hip opening poses in the evenings.  My total daily stretch routine was probably 15 minutes… so what sort of difference that does that really make?

Well, as it turns out, it does make quite a difference! (I like to learn the hard way, I guess).  I’ve been struggling with my sore feet all summer and fall – icing, rolling, and more… everything but stretching as it turns out.  Two weeks ago I decided to re-start my morning/evening yoga routine and I am suddenly pain free.  It’s amazing.

My lesson from this is that total body flexibility is more important than I thought. It’s important to treat your entire body kindly, even if you are really only hurting in one specific area.  We are entirely connected and sometimes it’s having more open hips that will cure the foot problem you’re struggling with!

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Born in Nova Scotia and emigrating to British Columbia via Ontario and Alberta, Magi has been running the entire way. Primarily defined as a cross country ski racer, Magi has competed nationally and internationally in that sport. The highlight of her career was competing in the World University Games and the World Cup races in Canada in 2007. Cross country skiers rely heavily on running for cross training and Magi has become an accomplished trail and mountain runner, representing Canada at the World Mountain Running Championships in 2005 and the winning numerous national championships medals.

Today Magi runs for fun… and it’s a lot of fun! Epic mountain runs, city cruises with friends, and more keep her happy and occupied outside of work and school.

My husband, Mike has tolerated my shenanigans for 18 years.  Someone, somewhere should give him an award because even sober, I am a handful. He has endured much over the years, and in the moment, it would seem as though he is irritated, annoyed or unimpressed with my latest scheme, but I think in general, he likes my creative approach to life.

Mike met me drunk, in a bar…<shrugs shoulders> what can I say; it was the beginning of a theme.

As I look back, I am grateful he stuck around once his beer goggles wore off. I knew early on that he was a keeper.  He looked out for me and that was a full time job. He also looked out for our friends. My dad actually went on to nickname him “mother hen”.  He’s just that person who is willing to give up a bit of his own fun to make sure nobody loses an eye. He would co-ordinate cab rides to bars for everyone. He would make sure everyone had a drinking buddy to stay safe with and then at the end of the night, he would see to it that everybody headed home safely (with the exception of his bachelor party when the bar staff  did their closing time bathroom check and found him passed out, sitting on the toilet; that time doesn’t count, most of the time he was on duty).

Mike is a non-runner. He will hustle the 60 feet it takes to get from home plate to first base, but that’s it. He is such a non-runner, that I suspect he actually avoids hitting anything other than singles in order to avoid running farther than he has to.

Being a non-runner and having no idea what it’s like to train for a goal race, Mike is strangely, unwaveringly supportive of my dedication to running. Most people that don’t run, don’t get it, somehow, because it’s good for my recovery, Mike is all in. He gets it. He never asks “why?”  He is my number one fan (he even has a shirt that says “go Christa, go”, I hate it when he wears that shirt to Wal-Mart).

My husband wears many hats when I run. During training, his job is part time. His responsibilities are limited, but very important. His duties include knowing my weekly training schedule and not doing anything to screw it up! As soon as you start messing with the plan, you risk missing workouts. It’s hard enough to plan them around work, family and life, let alone altering it once it’s in writing; Job #1-don’t mess me up!

The full time responsibilities start the night before a race. He is in charge of travel details. He organizes departure time, travel route, pit stops (nervous bladder pee breaks) and parking. There have been moments where he attempts to share the details with me, to which I respond unfavorably. I don’t want to know that sh*t. I just want to run. I am a bit like a running diva. I just want to perform. The deets are not my specialty; Job#2-travel director.

On race day, Mike’s portfolio expands (without a pay increase). He becomes my organizer and odd job guy, tending to things like ensuring our dogs are taken care of before departure, making sure I am up on time and out the door on schedule; Job#3-personal assistant.  He will load the car with my shoes and clothes and race bib. He will recheck for a change of clothes and shoes for after the race. He checks my iPod and my Blackberry for charge; Job#4-equipment manager. Mike checks if I have my food, reminding me not to forget a spoon. He will make sure a small cooler is packed with my pre-race drink and my post-race recovery fluids. Do I have enough gels? He makes sure my Fuel Belt is full; Job#5-nutrition specialist. Mike works very hard on race day to see to it that I am allowed to keep my mind on the run. He is excellent at minimizing the pressures of getting to the race. If I start to exhibit some anxiety or doubt, he is quick to talk me down; Job #6-sports psychologist.

Delivering me on time, in proper dress, adequately hydrated, and without undue psychological trauma, is Mike’s light at the end of the tunnel.  Most of his work is done and the rest is up to me. At the start line, he releases me from his care to look on with pride, as I do what I love; Job#7-spectator (the worst job of all).

The sport of running must be the worst sport to watch…really, what’s to see? The runners leave, the runners come back. There’s no ongoing play by play, no line changes or substitutions. There are no glove dropping, bench clearing brawls. Fans and admirers like my husband stand out in the rain, the cold, the snow, before 8am on a prime Saturday or Sunday, just so we know they are there. Beyond the anticipation of the horn blowing and the clock starting, hours pass until the next climactic incident, which is the finish.

The finish…Mike’s near to last job; Job#8-cheerleader. When all things are considered, Mike deserves a raise and a promotion, except when it comes to job#8. In the last 100 meters of every big race I have done, I look for Mike’s face in the crowd; I look for his kind eyes and encouraging smile to get me over the line and to know that I have done it! Poor Mike, he misses my run up the shoot every time. He is never in the right place at the right time and has repeatedly been distracted by other dramatic finishers. This fall, some guy was setting a record for running the farthest and the fastest in a superhero costume and he was doing that just as I was arriving at the finish.  Mike’s first indication of my finish is always a text from me saying “done”.  He is always disappointed.

His final function is getting me out of there, getting me dry, warm and rehydrated; Job#9-recovery specialist. All the way back to the car he mumbles to himself “I can’t believe I missed it again”.

Thank you for always looking out for me, Michael…in sickness and in health…in drunkenness and in sobriety.

“It is a waste of time to be angry about my disability. One has to get on with life and I haven’t done badly. People won’t have time for you if you are always angry or complaining.” ~ Stephen Hawking

VICKY:  Opinionated. Feisty. Brutally honest. Decisive. Confident. Those are some of the adjectives that come to mind when I think of Sarah Reinertsen. In the first part of her book, it was all about her family challenges and her journey to the Paralympics. Both were disappointing experiences for her and clearly helped define her as a person and an athlete.

GRANT:  Really? What made you think that?

VICKY:  Well, she had the following thoughts at page 73:

“I also kept thinking, Screw running. The disappointment of failing at the Paralympics still raged, and whenever I thought about track, I felt defeated.” Then at page 74: “Dad wasn’t interested in helping with my tuition. How did I know? He flat out said, ‘I am not paying for college.’ That blew me away. I’d been a great daughter, and had decent grades, played sports, did all kinds of extracurricular activities, busted my ass to get into a good college, and he was backing out of the deal.”

GRANT:  Holy crap. That’s a lot to deal with on top of everything else.

VICKY:  Page 75:

“Needless to say, I wasn’t in the best head space for my first solo sojourn into the world.”

GRANT:  No doubt.

VICKY:  So despite all of this weight on her shoulders. She still managed to set out and achieve new athletic goals. Once she got back into running, she felt the urge to try something new: the marathon. As she says, it’s the holy grail of running goals.

GRANT:  Yes it is! Although I would argue that running an ultramarathon is pretty up there in terms of ultimate running goals and achievements. So what was her time? Which marathon did she run?

VICKY:  You’ll be jealous.

GRANT:  She ran the New York Marathon didn’t she?

VICKY:  Yup. In 6:32. But she was disqualified.

GRANT:  Because she finished in under 7 hours and started at 8:30 a.m. right?

VICKY:  Correct sir. At page 111 she describes it as follows:

“The next morning I learned that if you take the early 8:30 race start, and you finish in under seven hours, you’re disqualified, because they don’t want the masses taking unfair advantage of the jump on the crowd. So, technically, I had disqualified myself by completing the race in under seven hours. It was a small bummer, but I knew what I had accomplished. (…) According to the official scorekeeper, I didn’t finish the New York Marathon. But if you’re scoring in the real world I definitely finished, and definitely kicked ass.”

GRANT:  Woah! She is feisty eh?

VICKY:  Yes. She is.

GRANT:  Did she run another one after that?

VICKY:  Yes, she ran the L.A. Marathon in 6:15 and did New York again. In fact, at one point she was hired to interview runners at the back of the pack at the New York Marathon as she was running it herself!

GRANT:  Sounds like something you and I would do.

VICKY:  Which part? Running at the back of the pack? Or doing the interviews? LOL. I’m just kidding. So now let’s talk about triathlons.

GRANT:  Ok wait a minute. Didn’t she do an Ironman?

VICKY:  Oh yeah! Go big or go home was her motto my friend! It all started in 1992, she’s waiting at the shop where she gets her artificial leg. The Ironman World Championship in Hawaii is on television. She sees Jim MacLaren, a racer with a prosthetic leg. At page 130 she describes it:

“He smashed the seemingly unsmashable eleven-hour barrier and set a new world record. It blew me away. I thought, Wow, the Paralympics are cool, but if you could do that, that’s over-the-moon extraordinary. That’s the bomb. I want to do that one day. No, I’m going to do that one day. I’m going to make Hawaii mine.”

GRANT:  Did she even know how to swim or ride a bike at that point?

VICKY:  In the book she says she signed up for a pool membership in 2002 to learn how to swim. So, I guess not. It took her 6 months from the day she signed up to actually get in the water because she was so freaked out about what to do with her leg.

GRANT:  This really puts it into perspective doesn’t it? I mean she not only had the fear of looking stupid which we all had the first time we went to a public swimming pool but on top of that, the logistics of her prosthetic leg! Where do you leave it? When do you take it off?

VICKY:  Once she got over that hurdle, she needed to learn how to ride a bike. Heck she needed to find a bike! So off to the sidewalk sales she went.

GRANT:  Really?

VICKY:  Oh yes my friend. She found a little white bike for $75. Now the challenge was learning how to ride a bicycle in New York City! You know, the city where you can barely cross the streets without a taxi taking you down?

GRANT:  Wait a second. What kind of little white bike?

VICKY:  A mountain bike.

GRANT:  She wanted to complete the Hawaii Ironman on a mountain bike? Was she nuts?

VICKY:  No. She was not nuts. She was a motivated person who didn’t have all the information. So anyways, the guy at the bike shop recommended she spin so she bought an indoor stationary bike. By 2004, she felt she was ready to complete her first Ironman.

GRANT:  Wow. That’s crazy Vic!

VICKY:  I know! I loved her sense of humour when she was writing about this because of course it’s crazy talk but at the same time it’s absolutely inspiring. It’s all about setting your mind to it and then just putting in the work.

GRANT:  So what happened at her first Ironman? Did she finish?

VICKY:  Well, here’s a funny excerpt from page 151:

“Step one of Ironman is the body marking. (…) I was number 187, which, it so happens, is Los Angeles police code for a homicide.”

This made me laugh so hard when I read it.

GRANT:  So did she finish?

VICKY:  Unfortunately, they took her timing chip away after the bike portion because she was at 5:35.

GRANT:  Ah yes. The rules. Each course closes after a certain time.

VICKY:  Exactly. So she bounces back by participating in the Amazing Race television adventure show, which ends up motivating her to finish her unfinished Ironman business. So she gets a custom bike that actually works with her prosthetic as opposed to against it like the last time.

GRANT:  I can’t believe she tried it again. I would just be crushed and scared to try it again. I mean you invest so much time, energy and money that it would be devastating to not finish.

VICKY:  Yes but this girl is fiesty and competitive. Remember, she’s been facing challenges all her life and this race is just another obstacle. Her mind is strong and as long as she has that, she can do anything.

GRANT:  You’re right.

VICKY:  So she finished.

GRANT:  Did she really?!

VICKY:  She did. In her words at page 212:

“In the months leading up to the race, I told my friends that if I made it, I was going to walk across the finish line so I could savor every second of it, so I could bask in the moment. But I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t jog. I couldn’t trot. All I could do was sprint. It was a moment I had dreamed of for twelve years, and now I was in it, achieving it, and I felt like I was actually floating. The collective screaming, and clapping, and chanting of ‘Go Sarah, go!’ from the spectators was deafening. (…)”

Her final time was 15:05.

GRANT:  Unbelievable accomplishment after all that she has been through.

VICKY:  It certainly was. On top of doing this for herself, she also made history by becoming the first woman to finish an Ironman on a prosthetic leg. You should read the book 🙂 In the meantime, check out this video about her: oLdi0hMkinM

Congratulations to all the Blog Idol 2.0 participants, and best wishes to the final 5.  Kudos to all .

With the indispensible help of coach Rick Hellard from Zone3Sports, four members of the iRun Gear Test Team led the way as featured members of iRun’s So you want to run a marathon, eh?program.  They set goals, trained hard, learned lots, and yes, ran their first marathon. Here’s how they did:

Carolyn Pleasance  Hamilton, ON

iRun ’cause it’s the only time when nobody wants me to do anything else.

Chip time 6:56:33

Up next: Goofy’s Race and a Half Challenge – Carolyn will travel to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, and run a half marathon on January 13, 2013, followed by a marathon the very next day!

Amy Maheu   Kanata, ON

iRun to maintain balance in my crazy and busy life.

Chip time 5:14:17

Up next: Amy is totally ready to do another marathon and is considering running at Ottawa Race Weekend.

Gerard Raby  Calgary, AB

iRun because I am dedicated to this cause and will pursue it no matter how difficult it will be. 

Chip time 4:42:38

Up next: After getting a spiffy tattoo to commemorate his accomplishment, Gerry plans to run another marathon next year with his wife, who couldn’t run STWM due to injury.

Ryan Travers   North Bay, ON

iRun to constantly challenge myself.

Chip time 4:11:10

Up next: while he was ready to take some well-earned recovery time, there is chatter amongst his friends about possibly running the Ottawa Marathon – as Ryan puts it, “Who knows?”

We’d like to say thank you to these runners for sharing their experiences.  Congratulations to all of you, and to everyone who finished their first marathon this year!

OK, A really short post about a really important issue.  It would seem that someone who appears to be a runner was involved in a very disrespectful act in Toronto on Sunday.

Here is the link to a newspaper article:

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/crime/article/1288016–remembrance-day-flags-kicked-over-police-seek-suspect

I would suggest that this individual doesn’t represent the other 99.9% of us who would never do this.

Anything else I would type here would have to be censored…so I will stop.