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Why I Run - Why Do I Run? - Jim Gates

Jim Gates
Club: Phoenix, Montreal

Not an easy question to answer. When you think about the wear and tear, the exhaustion, and the injuries that are thankfully not too frequent it would seem almost silly to run and yet I do.

I have run for most of my life. In high school I was a decent sprinter 100 and 220 yards ( yeah it was before the metric system was adopted by Canada) and growing up in Ville St. Pierre (otherwise known as God's Country) I had the perfect training place... the big hill leading to Montreal West which I walked up daily and ran repeats on it in the afternoon when we were training.

Didn't run much in University but started again in 1978. Sonja and I both started at about the same time. We were living in NDG at the time and I remember starting to run and making it about two blocks and believing that my time was up. But we kept at it and soon we were running well enough to enter some races. We used to train at the Hampton YMCA and I remember running with some people who we considered both ancient and amazing that they were still able to run. I guess they were probably in their forties. In those days it used to be possible to run a race in the Montreal area almost every week end. I t was almost always 10 or 20 k. (I don't ever remember running a 5k) and they used to serve beer after the races.

In 1982 we moved to Dorval. Sonja joined a fitness class at Dorval High School which was led by an instructor who lived to run. I met him at the old Downtown YMCA race and he convinced me to join the fitness class as well. It really wasn't a fitness class it was more a running event with a few and I stress few exercises thrown in. The other people in the class thought we were nuts. For the next year and a half I ran with him regularly. We ran all our road workouts at one speed ... fast and then we did track to be even faster. I did get quicker and was able to break 40:00 (39:59) for the 10K at the old Lachine race that was held on June 24 and that same summer went under 1:30 for the half marathon at Hawkesbury and then naturally I got hurt.

For the next 18 years I stopped and started running but was never able to keep at it for more than a couple of months. It was not until Chris, Michelle and Allison joined Boreal that the desire to run started to come back. I can remember sitting in the stands at Claude Robillard and really wanting to run but feeling so intimidated by the speed of those running on the track. Finally one night in April at the Lachine Jetty I decided to give it a shot. Hey it was dark so who was going to notice? It was tough going and pretty frustrating, first to get around the Jetty and then to attempt the Saturday long run. It took me about three months before I was able to complete the 11k. But everyone was so encouraging and friendly I really started to look forward to running.

I know that I will never again be as fast as I was once, but I really don't care. I no longer run to race but do find myself racing to run.

So why do I run? I run because it is something that we can still do as a family and gives us something in common to talk and laugh about. I run because of the people that we run with and the funny things that seem to inevitably happen each time we gather. I run because it makes me feel good.

Jim Gates