Former drug user inspires athletes
Gym owner found salvation in exercise, becoming one of continent’s top obstacle racers
Tough Mudder says more than two million people have participated in their company’s long-distance obstacle runs, but few are as proficient as Jesse Bruce. The Toronto resident and gym owner has won more than 50 obstacle races, and logged three top-three finishes at this year’s North American Championships.
Spartan Race claims a worldwide participation of roughly five million for its own brand of gruelling obstacle events, but few racers travelled as far to reach the start line as the 37-year-old Bruce has. He started drinking liquor at12 and spent most of the next two decades hooked on increasingly harder drugs. He battled cocaine addiction and did stints in jails, and now celebrates the start of his sobriety — he reached seven years this past August — like a birthday.
Bruce says that for most of his 20s, community meant sharing the floor of a flophouse in his native Waterloo, alongside people shooting up heroin or smoking crack.
Now, Bruce says, it means building better bodies and relationships for the 750 people who regularly attend classes at One Academy, the fitness facility he runs in Leslieville. And it means bringing those relationships with him on the obstacle course race circuit.
Last month, Bruce finished third among 1,500 runners at the World’s Toughest Mudder, a 24-hour endurance race in Atlanta. He covered 137 kilometres over that span, fuelled by a high-calorie in-race diet that included Krispy Kreme doughnuts, and driven by the example he sets both for members of his gym community and for other former addicts.
“There’s so many things running through my head at the race, but a lot of it is my past,” Bruce said. “Look at where you’ve been and look at where you are now. You’re at this championship event. There’s people you can inspire. You’ve got to keep going. You always want to inspire someone else.”
The gym is a repurposed warehouse on Eastern Ave., and its owner is accustomed to reinvention.
Bruce said the drug habit that dogged him through his teens and mid 20s often landed him in street fights, which in turn led him to jail more than once. During one jail stint near Ottawa he began experimenting with weight
training, and quickly found that gaining strength and muscle mass affected him nearly the same way alcohol and cocaine did. Where drugs made him feel better momentarily, exercise made him feel better about himself.
And when Bruce finally committed to kicking drugs, he figured he could parlay his weight training experience into a career as a personal trainer, or a gym manager.
“It was one thing I felt good about,” he said. “My friends saw the change in me. I brought them to the gym. They changed themselves.”
So at 26 he enrolled in night school to earn his high school diploma. From there, he moved on to Niagara College before bridging to University of Guelph-Humber’s Rexdal e campus.
Bruce quickly joined Humber College’s cross-country running team, where he stood out in several ways.
He was a 29-year-old rookie, a decade older than most other first-year runners. And he sported a heavily muscled physique in a sport full of wispy distance runners.
But on the race course he fit right in.
In 2013, he finished11th overall at the OCAA cross-country championships, and helped propel Humber to a secondplace finish.
That year he also tried his first long-distance obstacle course race, and finished first among roughly 15,000 participants in a Warrior Dash race near Barrie.
Tough Mudder-style races — where racers run off-road courses dotted with obstacles like waters hazards, walls and rope climbs — have grown in popularity over the last decade, often at the expense of marathons. In a July article in the Atlantic magazine, endurance coach and obstacle race veteran Travis Macy said obstacle races appeal to basic human desires marathons don’t address.
“Obstacle-course racing does a great job fulfilling two innate human needs,” he said. “One, be primal, and two, be communal.”
Bruce says the allure of obstacle races runs even deeper.
While he doesn’t call himself an exercise addict, he acknowledges physical training fills the same void his drug use once did. They’re both deeply ingrained habits, but where substance abuse tore his body down, exercise builds him up. And instead of chasing a drug-induced high, Bruce says he now gets a payoff from the sense of accomplishment that comes with finishing a big race.
Over the next 12 months, Bruce hopes to improve his race results — after covering 137 kilometres at this year’s Toughest Mudder, he’s aiming for 145 next year. He also plans to open more gym locations, betting he can also spread enthusiasm and self-esteem to prospective members.
“It’s bigger than fitness. We’re not just coming here to lose 10 pounds to look good in the mirror,” he says. “You’re becoming a part of a community. We’re going to get you across the finish line. Get you up a mountain. You’re going to leave here with your head up, walking a little taller.”