MARATHON MAN
Cape Breton man running to Halifax to raise awareness and funds for those facing costly travel for health-care services
Dal student running from Cape Breton to Halifax to fight cancer.
Will Brien is the first to admit he’s not a marathon man.
But that’s not stopping the 23-year-old Sydney River man from taking on the daunting challenge of running from Cape Breton to Halifax. After all, it’s for a good cause.
“We’re doing this to help offset the travel costs of cancer patients in Nova Scotia who have to travel from their homes to Halifax to receive their treatment,” said Brien, a recent graduate of Dalhousie University, who will return to the Halifax post-secondary institution in the autumn to pursue a law degree.
“The burden of travel is tough on people — it’s kind of like an epidemic in Cape Breton and way down in Yarmouth where they’ve also been hit really hard.”
Brien said inspiration for the initiative came from friend Maike van Niekerk, of Newfoundland, whom he met during his first year of university. Van Niekerk’s mother died seven years ago after a tough bout with lung cancer during which she was forced to travel great distances across Canada’s most eastern province to get the treatment she needed in St. John’s.
“Luckily, she was able to afford it, but the gas costs alone can be totally crippling to some families in similar situations who can’t afford it,” he said, adding that van Niekerk established the charity Katrin’s Karepackage following her mother’s, whose name was Katrin Kohler, death.
But while Brien’s fundraising run, called Kommute for a Kause, had its origins in Newfoundland, all proceeds from the event will benefit Nova Scotia patients facing the challenges of long-distance travel just to get to Halifax where they can receive their needed treatments.
“I’m sure most Cape Bretoners know somebody who has had to travel to Halifax for health-care issues and after talking with Maike I knew I really want to help out with this,” said Brien, whose father is Sydney-based orthopedic surgeon Dr. Donald Brien.
But, not only did Brien grow up with a close connection to the province’s health-care system, he grew up as the son of a former Olympic athlete. His father was an elite sprint canoeist who competed in two Summer Olympics (1984 and 1988) and captured a bronze medal in the 1985 world canoe sprint championship’s K-2 1000-metre event.
However, the younger Brien is humble about his athleticism.
“I’ve never run a marathon before and the first leg is going to be 38 km and that will be the furthest I have ever run and then, after that, I’ll be doing 40 km the next day — I have been training, but by no means am I a distance marathon runner,” he said, adding that he expects to complete the equivalent of seven full marathons over eight days.
“There are people that will run with me along the way — the nice thing is that I know in the back of my mind is that there is no race or time component, I just have to do the distance and hopefully I’ll run the whole way, but there are no time worries.”
Brien will be accompanied the entire way by friend Shaun Macneil, also from Cape Breton, who is driving the escort vehicle and taking care of the trip’s logistics.
The run begins today on the Cape Breton side of the Canso Causeway and will finish on April 20 at the Canadian Cancer Society’s Lodge that Gives in Halifax.
Online donations can be made to the Kommute for a Kause campaign by visiting its website at www.katrinskarepackage.com.
People can follow Brien’s progress online through the social media platforms Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.