EPIC RUN PUT ON HOLD
Ultramarathoner’s cross-country quest aimed at raising awareness of rare diseases
Dave Proctor’s epic run, a quest to raise awareness while also erasing records, was slated to start Monday in Newfoundland.
“At sunrise,” Proctor said, detailing the now-postponed plan. “I would have woken up in St. John’s. I would have started off in Quidi Vidi, which is a harbour in town, dipped my cowboy hat — my running hat — in the ocean, and start running. I would run through town and then I would run out onto the highway and I would head west.”
A long, long, long ways west. The finish line for Proctor’s pavement-pounding campaign — dubbed Outrun Rare and now delayed to 2021 due to the global health crisis — is about 7,200 km away in Victoria, B.C.
He’s not only out to run from coast to coast. Proctor, who lives in Okotoks, wants to cross this beautiful country in record time.
Back in 1991, Al Howie made history by completing this tiring trek — the Trans-canada Highway, from one end to the other — in 72 days and 10 hours.
Proctor figures, if all goes well, he could kick up his feet after 67.
“It’s 105 km, and then you shut ’er down every day,” Proctor said. “So wake up at sunrise, run 105 km, eat your body weight’s worth of food, get a massage, go to bed, try to get eight hours sleep and then wash and rinse and repeat. And do that again and again for 67 days.”
If you’re tired just imagining it, you’re not alone.
For Proctor, it’s important to note, this isn’t all about putting his own name in the Guinness World Records.
This is about his 11-year-old son Sam, who lives with an extremely rare genetic disease — Relapsing Encephalopathy with Cerebellar Ataxia, or RECA — that compromises his balance and co-ordination and turns simple movements into a challenge. According to the Outrun Rare website, Sam is one of less than 20 reported cases of RECA worldwide.
Proctor’s motivation for his cross-country quest is to create a groundswell of support for the rare disease community.
It just won’t be starting Monday.
“We’re the only developed country in the world without a rare disease strategy,” Proctor said. “And we’re directly affected by the inability for the Canadian government to support families like mine.
“If I was just going to run across the country in record time and just do it for myself, it would be probably 25 per cent of the work it is when you try to put on a national awareness campaign. The charitable component of it makes it an extraordinary amount of work, but also makes it extraordinarily worthwhile to do. So I basically told all of my volunteers: ‘Thank you all for all of the work that you guys have been doing, and let’s take a pause because this hurts me and I know it hurts you, too. But I’m going to give you a call in a couple months and we’re going to have to get the ball rolling sooner than later in developing a plan moving forward into 2021.’”
Certainly, he won’t be lacking motivation for his rescheduled stomp.
“My son will be a year older, he’ll have the same needs and there will still be the inadequate system that is still present. So that won’t change,” Proctor said. “My passion and my drive remains the same. But what will change, as well, is you can always say, ‘Well, I’m going to be one year older.’ I’m going to be 40 next year, so I’m not getting any younger. But on the other hand, every year, I keep getting fitter and fitter. And this gives me another 12 months to train. Believe you me, running over
100 km a day for 67 days in a row across the country, it’s hard work. You can’t just be fit. You have to be ungodly fit.
“I keep thinking to myself, ‘I’m fit enough to do this’ but then you get out for a 100 km day or 120 km in a day or whatever it is, and you shake your head and go, ‘Holy moly, this is hard work.’ This extra year gives me another year to sharpen my knife and really dig apart human potential and trying to get fitter and faster and stronger and more mentally capable to do something like this.”
Which means Proctor, a proud husband and father of three, isn’t binging on Netflix and Old Dutch ripple chips during the pandemic.
He casually mentioned during a mid-week interview that he had run about 870 km over the past dozen days. He admits he was initially “shaken” by having to postpone, but pouting and moping won’t help to achieve his ultimate goal.
Proctor, already recognized by Guinness World Records for covering the most distance (260.4 km) on a treadmill in a single day, knows what he’s getting himself into because he’s tried to run across Canada once before — in 2018.
Heading west to east, he was averaging upwards of 100 km per day across the Rockies and the prairies before a back injury — and the possibility of long-term damage — forced him to stop 26 days in, just past Winnipeg.
Despite ingesting about
9,000 calories per day, he lost 12 pounds — “and I’m not a big man, so I don’t really have 12 pounds to lose.” On his next try, he realizes he’ll need more calories. More pie, his personal favourite.
He also learned not to glance at his watch too often, instead using the position of the sun to track the time.
He stressed the importance of thinking only about the next step, not the next kilometre or the next week or the next province over.
To pass the hours on training runs, he’ll listen to podcasts, play air guitar, phone friends …
“And a lot of the time, it’s just daydreaming.”
Proctor now has another year to daydream about what will be an exhausting, rewarding attempt.
On Monday, when he should have been dipping his cowboy hat in the water at Quidi Vidi and pointing west toward Mile 0 in Victoria, he plans to phone some of his 30-plus Outrun Rare volunteers and support crew to say thank-you.
This man oozes optimism. Despite having to delay until 2021, he’s focused on the bright side.
Maybe we can all learn from that.
“In order to have success in ultra-marathoning, there has to be this overflowing, immense amount of positivity where if something goes wrong you’re just like, ‘Meh, whatever.’ The subtle art of … There’s a great book about that, right?” he said. “Life is what you make it. Perspective is absolutely everything in this world. You could either have a situation happen to you and you could make it to be something extraordinarily negative and frustrating and get angry and feel like you’re a victim. Or you could twist it around and it could become something worthwhile and helpful for you and others. I think I’m an eternal optimist. If I wasn’t, I don’t think there would be anyway that I would have ever reached for a goal like this.
“During this time of COVID, I can endure and I think I can endure because I’m an optimist. I think we all have our skill sets in our world and I think that right now, the world is heavily relying on people like me. I find with my running and with just being able to endure, it might be a gift that I can end up giving to others and say, ‘Hey, here are some of the things that I’ve learned along the way about how to endure.’ Because I think a lot of people look at my sport and think, ‘Oh my goodness, I could never … ’ Well, not with that attitude you couldn’t.”