So many runners, so many reasons
How distance running changed the lives of three participants in the Ottawa event
You could see it in the strained faces of the marathon runners Sunday as they pushed through each gruelling kilometre of the Tamarack Ottawa Race Weekend’s marquee event.
You could read it in the inspirational — and often hilarious — signs, and hear it in the cheers from supporters lining the city streets and spurring runners on to the finish line.
“The crowd, the support is nothing like I’ve ever seen before,” said 42-year-old marathoner Rene Belanger of Cambridge, Ont. “They ’re out there saying, ‘You’re not quitting! You can do this!’
“It’s emotional, because they don’t have to do that. It just feels like a team out there.”
Whether it was the two-, five- or 10-kilometre run on Saturday, the half-marathon, or Sunday’s main event, it seemed everyone had a reason to run.
For Randy McElligott, 61, it was a way to escape the pain from the blood cancer that has plagued his body since 2007. He has run in each and every Ottawa marathon since.
McElligott, a radio personality on the University of Ottawa station CHUO, said he was strangely “overjoyed” when he learned of his diagnosis — a rare blood cancer that would eventually manifest as multiple myeloma.
“I knew I had to change my life, I knew that I had to do something that would push me to the limit. So I thought of doing a marathon. I had never done anything like that in my life. In 2007 I did my first marathon and when it was over I said I’d never do it again. But I did it the year after, and the year after and the year after, and here we are.”
In 2014, the cancer made its way aggressively into his spine, and he checked into hospital for intensive chemotherapy.
“It was extremely painful,” he said. “I could barely walk, my spine had seized up. I could barely stand, I was hunched over, but I met (my race buddy) at the starting line (of the 2015 marathon) and for six glorious hours I had no pain at all.
“I knew that exercise, and just getting out there and pushing, was very beneficial as a cancer patient.”
He has since developed osteoporosis related to his cancer treatment, and ran the 2016 marathon just six months after receiving a bone-marrow transplant.
“A lot of it is mental,” McElligott said. “The physical part can be punishing, but it’s the mental aspect that gets you past that. I draw a lot of inspiration from people like Jonathan Pitre, people who have struggled to get to where they are. So I keep pushing myself, and it seems to work.”
(Pitre’s mother Tina Boileau ran Saturday in honour of her son, who became known as the “Butterfly Boy” during his struggles with epidermolysis bullosa, or EB. Pitre died in April.)
For Belanger, 42, running is the best medicine. He weighed in at 380 pounds when he was diagnosed with diabetes three years ago. He told his doctors he was refusing medication.
“I’m beating this on my own, with exercise,” he said, opting instead for power walks around his hometown, eventually working his way up to running marathons. He’s dropped 60 pounds since, and counting.
“Every blood test I’ve had since then, it’s like it’s further and further in the rear-view mirror.”
The Ottawa marathon was his third marathon this month. Following Sunday’s race, Belanger proudly wore the medal he earned for Ottawa’s Lumberjack Challenge — completing each of Saturday’s two-, five- and 10-kilometre runs, and Sunday’s full marathon.
“I used to get pneumonia every winter. Since I started running, I haven’t been sick in two years,” he said. “My sleep apnea: gone. My gallstone: gone.
“And this is just the physical stuff that’s happened, but what I never realized before I did it was how addictive running can be. The mental health aspect of it, just how it makes you feel when you start doing this. You just want to get right back out there and keep doing it.”
Stephen Last, 40, set a similar goal for himself when he started seeking help for his weight after tipping the scales at 480 pounds. He has since lost 215 pounds.
The Cornwall man started shedding weight after he radically changed his diet and embarked on a fitness regimen.
“It’s a lot harder than it looks,” he said.
He was inspired to take up running after a friend completed the 2015 Ottawa marathon.
“I started just walk-running, struggling. I started training in July (2015) and was running 10 kilometres in 96 minutes, but by October I was running it in 65 minutes, then 54 minutes,” he said. “It just kept building and building.”
He set a goal of running a full marathon by the time he turned 40. He achieved that goal in his inaugural run last year in his hometown, and followed it up with Sunday’s run in Ottawa, which he completed in five hours, fifteen minutes.
“I just keep getting so much confidence from running,” said Last, who has since shared his story in inspirational talks at public schools, in articles, podcasts and running blogs. “It completely changed my life.”
Paramedics said they treated 119 runners during the weekend, primarily for exhaustion. There were no major injuries or incidents.