Running so others can breathe
Breathe. Two in and one out in perfect rhythm with the pace of her footsteps. In, in. Out. Her feet navigate a route that takes her over roots, rocks and dirt trails. Always breathing. In, in and out. Again. And again. And again.
Listening, even enjoying the music of her own breathing. She feels light. Free. Like she could run forever.
Thinking, always thinking, of her cousin and friend, the vivacious Sarah Bloomfield.
Breathing was never easy for Sarah.
She lived with cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease that affects the digestive system and lungs, where a buildup of thick mucus causes severe respiratory problems. Mucus also builds up in the digestive track and makes it difficult to absorb food nutrients.
It’s the most common fatal genetic disease affecting Canadian children and young adults. There is no cure.
Sarah was 23 when she died in 2005. She was in a Toronto hospital, prepped and waiting for a lung transplant that never happened. Two sets of lungs came and went for various reasons.
Emily Allan was training with her Brock University cross-country team in Florida. Every day, she’d write the word “breathe” on her hand. “I’d look down and know she was with me,” says Emily. Then time ran out. “Should I fly home?” Emily asked Sarah in what would be their last conversation.
“No, I want you to stay,” said Sarah.
Emily immediately booked a flight home, but didn’t make it back in time.
Sarah died two weeks before her 24th birthday.
In the years that passed, Emily, the experiential education coordinator in sport management at Brock University, has devoted her life to raising money and awareness to fight the disease that took the life of her friend.
“Sarah lived life at full speed,” says Emily.
It’s an exuberance for living that she has seen in many other people with CF.
“You don’t know when your life is going to end, so you make the most of it.”
Emily has raised about $30,000 for Cystic Fibrosis Canada by twice cycling across the Rockies, then circling Prince Edward Island on a road bike.
In just more than two weeks, she will do it again.
This time Emily, 35, will run the entire length of the Bruce Trail — 895 kilometres — from Tobermory to Queenston Heights park. Simply put, she will run a marathon a day for 22 days.
She begins her End to End CF journey at a stone monument, the symbolic northern end of the trail, on Saturday, June 10, and will finish in Queenston Heights on Canada Day. Her husband, Dan Dakin, is her pit crew and logistics co-ordinator, driving an RV and meeting up with her at points during the run. Along way, they will camp and park in driveways overnight.
Her goal is to raise $15 for every kilometre she runs — that’s $13,425. To date, she’s raised more than $10,000.
She will travel light. A hydration vest filled with salted water, dates to eat on the trail, a change of socks to keep her feet dry, an emergency power gel, emergency locator and her favourite pair of trail runners.
She has four pairs of shoes and multiple socks to rotate through to keep her feet dry and free of blisters.
On easy days, ones with flat trails and roads, she anticipates running for four hours. On longer, tougher days she is mentally prepped for eight hours of running.
The first day will likely be the most difficult — 42.3 km over some of the most technically challenging terrain of the trail.
People can sign up to run alongside her for the afternoon portions of her runs.
She raced triathlons for eight years and is used to a lifestyle of negotiating training with work and a personal life. Swim at 5:30 a.m., spend the day at work, then bike or run for two hours. Before committing to the Bruce Trail run, she turned to her former triathlon coach.
“Is this crazy. Do you think I can do it?” she asked. His answer was yes. Emily was born to run. At times, the stamina of her energy as a young girl would outlast the confines of her house, and her mother would tell her: “You need to go for a run.”
Across the road from their home in Niagara Falls was a cemetery where she’d burn energy around a two-kilometre loop.
Emily and Sarah were born six months apart. They did everything together. “We loved being active,” she says.
They swam together. Laughed. Made bracelets. Giggled about nothing. Even ran together.
When Sarah moved north, Emily recorded “cool music” off the radio and mailed cassette tapes to her friend. They even spent a few Christmas mornings together.
The power of their friendship will be fuel for her mind. That and an inner determination to simply not give up.
On her ride through the Canadian Rockies — nine days and 1,200 km for the GearUp4CF — she’d spend some three hours at a time, head pushed down into her handlebars, climbing and climbing. On the sixth day, even the most skilled cyclist, hit a physiological block of mental and physical pain and fatigue that could only be overcome by pushing through. Harder. Stronger.
After that, the body adapts, she says. And it feels easier. She is hoping the same will be true running the Bruce.
On her right side below her lung, she has the word “breathe” tattooed. And on her left wrist, she will wear a silver bracelet engraved with the same word.
Emily will run, she will breathe, for every breath Sarah did not get to take.
If ever she needs a word of encouragement, ever needs inspiration to keep going, she knows Sarah will be with her.
“Right here on my shoulder,” she says. “I always know she’s watching over me.”