Ontario’s Premier was once one of the fastest high school runners in the province
Before she beat out seven Liberal leadership rivals to become the first female premier of Ontario and Canada’s first openly gay premier, before she earned the nickname “giant slayer” for defeating a cabinet minister to f irst win her seat in Queen’s Park and before she held onto that seat by defeating the Progressive Conservative leader, Kathleen Wynne was a runner. “I have been involved in running and sports so long, they are def initional for me,” says Wynne. “I started in grade school so I have been literally running my whole life. I don’t have a ton of natural speed, but I have enough speed to persevere. I became quite good in high school.” (She likes to joke that the time she set at age 18 in the 440-yard dash, 63.3 seconds, st ill st ands. P unch line: Canada went metric the next year.)
Wynne says her endurance from running has helped her in politics. “To keep your energy up, to keep going, to push through when you’re tired. As an out politician, being healthy and fit has helped me withstand the criticism and attacks. Feeling good is a huge part of my ability to feel confident. Distance running has been my personal training for political life.”
Wynne took up distance running in the mid 1980s, after the birth of her third child, giving her a front row seat on the women’s running boom that took off in the 1990s. “I was doing serious training, intervals, hills and weights and cross-training,” says Wynne, a mother of three grown children and now grandmother of two. “Being physically strong is part of taking your place in the world.”
She ran her first marathon in 1989 at age 36 in 3:44:16. She helped coach her kids’ school cross-country team and has run 10ks, half-marathons, a second marathon in 1999 and Toronto’s Pride and Remembrance 5k for the past 22 years – winning her age group a couple of times in her 50s. Typical for a runner, she actually looked forward to her recent 60th birthday so she could move into a new age group. “Maybe I’ll start winning again,” she says with a laugh.
Wynne still tries to start most mornings with a run but only has time for about 15 to 20 minutes and must now do so with a police escort – an officer running or cycling beside her as well as a car following. She says when she met with Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Kathy Dunderdale, also a runner, they discussed this “new reality” of running with security detail. “We joked that it meant we could go places we couldn’t necessarily go before (as women) because we now have this protection.”
For Wynne, her early morning runs help her stay fit while also giving her time to think. “I haven’t had a running partner or joined a running group. The appeal of running for me is I can do it on my own terms and my own time. I don’t run with a headset. It’s just my own brain and enjoying the quiet. I love the quiet of the morning. I try to read the paper before I go out so that I know what I’ll be contending with that day and I can think through my approach. Moving helps me process my thoughts.”
Wynne still tries to start most mornings with a run but only has time for about 15 to 20 minutes and must now do so with police escort, an officer running or cycling beside her as well as a car following.