Join #CanadaMoves on June 3, which is Global Running Day
Hello,
Despite no races, there continues to be news in the running world: races getting cancelled (like Boston this week), people doing crazy things for charity (like running around Toronto or setting world records running in blue jeans), and people are talking to runners on podcasts and Zoom and what have you more than ever.
I also rounded up some articles and podcasts that have come out since the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, because in the short time since he was killed, the situation has gotten worse, not better. It’s time to do more.
A correction from last week: I said that Paula James’s solo marathon had been deleted from Strava. It wasn’t. I was wrong, and this link works! Thanks to Paula for letting me know about this mistake.
Let’s get to it.
— Erin @ Run the North
Races across Canada coming together to celebrate #CanadaMoves on Global Running Day
June 3 is Global Running Day. To celebrate, 16 of Canada’s biggest races have come together for an initiative to raise money for the Canadian Mental Health Association. They are also asking Canadians to register for a virtual race, which is free to enter, and run any distance to raise money and awareness for the cause. You can sign up here.
Each race will also host a virtual event that day to celebrate running.
The participating races are:
Newfoundland: Tely 10
Nova Scotia: Scotiabank Blue Nose Marathon
Ontario: Around the Bay Road Race - Canada Army Run - Canada Running Series - Niagara Falls International Marathon - Ottawa Marathon - Toronto Women’s Run Series - VR Pro Races - Canada D'Eh Run
Quebec: Banque Scotia 21K de Montréal - SSQ Insurance Quebec City Marathon, a healthy invitation from Brunet
Manitoba: Manitoba Marathon
Saskatchewan: GMS Queen City Marathon
Alberta: Scotiabank Calgary Marathon
British Columbia: GoodLife Fitness Victoria Marathon - RUNVAN - Scotiabank Vancouver Half Marathon - Vancouver Sun Run
Boston marathon is cancelled, 2020 will be a virtual event
The Boston marathon announced this week that the 2020 edition, which was originally rescheduled from April 20 to Sept. 14, will not take place as an in-person event.
Every 2020 participant will have their registration fee refunded.
2020 registrants will have the option to run a virtual marathon between Sept. 7 and 14. If they do, they will receive a participants shirt, bib and a medal.
For the 2021 edition of the Boston marathon, anyone who has run a BQ from Sept. 15, 2018 will be eligible to apply to enter. This means if you ran a BQ and for whatever reason decided to not to register for 2020, you are able to register for the 2021 race.
The full FAQ about this process can be found here.
Now the question remains about London (currently scheduled for Oct. 4), Chicago (Oct. 11) and New York City (Nov. 1).
Mark Carey & Claire Heslop ran around Toronto
A few weeks ago, I wrote about how Mark Carey was planning to run the perimeter of Toronto to raise money for t
As media attention for the attempt grew, it caught the eye of ultrarunner and ER physician Claire Heslop, who decided to join Mark for the run, which took place on Saturday, May 30.
The Star wrote about why Claire decided to join the initiative:
“Mark’s event is a perfect way for us to get out and use our sport to create meaning, which we’re really thirsty for,” she said. “It might be on pavement, there may be no mountains, but it has a lot of meaning.”
They completed the 137K run in 18 hours and 37 minutes. They started at the bottom of Yonge Street and went east.
You can see the run on Strava here.
They succeeded in meeting $10,000 fundraising goal for the Canadian Red Cross Society to help their COVID-19 efforts. You can donate here.
We ran for Ahmaud Arbery, now it’s time to do more
A few weeks ago, I wrote about Ahmaud Arbery, who was shot and killed while out running in Georgia. The running community responded with outrage and posted #irunwithmaud over Strava, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
Since then, George Floyd was murdered in police custody in Minnesota, Breonna Taylor was murdered in her own home in Kentucky, and Regis Korchinski-Paquet fell off her balcony after police were called to her apartment while she was in mental health crisis in Toronto.
We need to dismantle racist structures and systems and end white supremacy, in the running community and beyond.
To get started, here are some books and articles to read, some podcasts to listen to and people to follow on social media.
📚Several book recommendations have been flying around on social media in this wake. Books that are specifically about being black in Canada include The Skin I’m In by Desmond Cole and Policing Black Lives by Robyn Maynard. I also recommend picking up White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo and Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge.
📖Several great articles have been published in the past few weeks, especially about running while black:
Erin Strout of Women’s Running spoke to Alison Désir, founder of Harlem Runs, about concrete actions runners, especially white runners, can take next.
Canadian hurdler Perdita Felicien tackled the same topic with Canadian Running, focusing on what we can do here in Canada.
Runners World’s Emilia Benton spoke to 11 BIPOC runners about running and race.
🤳You can follow more BIPOC runners and activists on social media, including Alison, Perdita, Jordan Marie Daniels, who runs for missing and murdered Indigenous women and Courtney Dreddon who blogs at Eat, Pray, Run DC, and collective accounts like Diverse We Run.
🎧You can listen to podcasts about this issue and to episodes that feature BIPOC runners. Alison Désir was on the Keeping Track podcast to talk about running while black. Dinée Dorame, a citizen of the Navajo Nation, was on the Ali on the Run Show to talk about running as a Native American.
Non-running podcasts to check out include:
Globe & Mail’s Colour Code, which is about race in Canada and is hosted by Hannah Sung and Denise Balkissoon. It’s no longer in production, but it’s worth going back to revisit;
CBC’s The Secret Life of Canada, which digs into the untold stories of Canadian history, and many of them are about race and marginalized communities;
CBC’s Missing & Murdered, which looks at cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women. Season one featured Alberta Williams and season two featured Cleopatra Semaganis Nicotin.
📝 When you’re ready to do more, this Medium article by Corinne Shutack does a great job of outlining what we can do — writing local representatives, researching practices and policies in your area, and voicing support or advocating for change, donating to local organizations that fight racism, etc. It’s American-centric, but the concepts are universal.
Strides: Other stuff to check out
🎧Lanni Marchant was on the Le Run Down podcast. The conversation is over two hours long and is quite wide-reaching, covering Lanni’s rise to national marathon record holder and her recent struggles with injuries and more, so save this one for a long run.
🚩Lanni, who is 36, also spoke to SportsNet about deciding whether to keep chasing her Olympic dreams now that Tokyo 2020 has been postponed a year:
“I had that pause moment of: I had grinded it out so hard. It was a big ask to get my body back ready to even consider trying to qualify this spring. I accomplished (getting healthy). ‘Oh my gosh, can I keep this grind going for another year?”’ Marchant said. “That was my initial concern, you’ve poured every moment of your time, every dollar that you’ve had into fixing your body with the hope of the glory pay-off at the end. And now you have to postpone it a year. Can you do that?”
🌟Post Media profiled Trevor Hofbauer, who was recently officially named to the 2020 Canadian Olympic team in the marathon. The article mostly talks about how he’s adjusted his training and expectations during the pandemic:
“I tried to be positive and optimistic when the pandemic first started to really hit North America, and probably a few weeks after the NHL and NBA seasons were postponed and then the Olympics was postponed, then it kind of hit me a lot harder,” Hofbauer said. “It became the reality that it wasn’t going to be as I hoped, so then I took my foot off the gas and kind of put training on the back-burner. I’m not training really with any structure right now but just trying to enjoy the sport for what it is. So it’s kind of a shift in focus.”
🏃♂️CBC’s As It Happens interviewed American professional runner Johnny Gregorek , who attempted to break the world record for fastest mile while wearing blue jeans over the weekend. The interview took place before the attempt and, spoiler, he succeeded, running 4:06.25. More importantly, he raised more than $30,000 for the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
🥇Canadian Running is trying to determine who is the greatest Canadian middle-distance runner of all time. The caveat is that the contenders need to have a current Canadian record. You can listen to the discussion on The Shakeout podcast or watch the episode on YouTube.
🎧 One of Canadian Running’s GOAT contenders is Kevin Sullivan. He was the next guest on The Shakeout podcast. The three-time Olympian (2000, 2004 and 2008) is now a coach at the University of Michigan, where he ran himself in college. The episode is a great overview of his impressive career, which also included 22 world championship appearances. He still holds the Canadian records for the outdoor 1,500 and the outdoor mile.
📺Stephen Andersen’s Q&A series continued this week with national marathon record holder Cam Levins. They talked about his career, including Cam’s time with the Nike Oregon Project, where he witnessed what happened to Mary Cain. It’s something he expresses remorse about. In Mary’s interview with the podcast More Than Running, she acknowledges that Cam reached out and apologized, and it was an act that touched her deeply. The full interview isn’t up, but you can watch a highlight clip below.
That’s it for this week!
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Run the North comes out every Monday morning.
Thanks for reading. Keep on running. We’ll see you next week.