10 Questions

The Speed River Track Club and Guelph Gryphons coach has worked with many of Canada’s Olympic distance runners, including marathoners Reid Coolsaet and Eric Gillis

1 What would you say are your defining characteristics as a coach of runners?

Grumpiness is an under-appreciated character trait, as is the ability to drive a van full of shrieking ectomorphs 500k without a pit stop.

2 What do you admire most in a runner?

The ability to complete paperwork in a timely fashion. In all seriousness, showing up at 4:30 p.m. to meet teammates and run scripted workouts hard is not that distinctive; personal accountability is.

3 What is your idea of happiness?

Either: blue water, big sky while canoeing or kayaking in the Canadian Shield, preferably with my girls (my wife Brenda and daughters); or in a scuzzy bar, with a scuzzy band, scuzzy friends and good whiskey.

4 Who are your athletic heroes?

I got my inspiration as a kid from other sources, most immediately from teachers who cared, and more abstractly from people such as John Steinbeck, Joe Strummer and David Suzuki. Those folks changed how I thought. If you absolutely need an answer from sport, I’ll go with Mo Cheeks.

5 Other than where you are now, where would you like to live?

Off the beaten path in the region of the Upper Ottawa Valley/Canadian Shield merger, where the pavement turns to sand. I love those clean lakes and the quiet, but still need to get to a good live band now and then.

6 What is your greatest running-related regret?

Drug cheats who have limited the dreams of people I directly coach. Wins and losses happen in sport of course, but to work with someone for years and see them lose out to someone who’s cutting the corners (worse yet, in systematic cases) is incredibly frustrating. In terms of my personal running, though, none. I’ve gotten out what I put in, probably more than I deserve, and still chug around the trails of Guelph six days a week earning my craft beer. Life is good.

7 What is your greatest fear?

Having my sense of self-perceived identity subverted by a subset of a subculture saturated with anonymous trainspotting vitriolic blabbermouths… and death.

8 If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

If this is the “superpower” version of this question, I suppose the ability to take accurate blood lactates and VO2 sats with the touch of my finger would be cool.

9 What’s one thing you can’t live without?

My family is my oxygen.

10 What is your motto?

Don’t live through someone else’s quote, my friend, and be grateful every day.– MD