How I got Into Running

I was always a fair runner over long distance and not much for speed. In grade school track meets  usually doing ok, not bad for a country boy. In high school I didn't go out for the team sports for whatever reason my teenage brain had decided. When the high school basketball team was in try outs, and doing cross country runs, I would run beside them for a ways and then try to pass them at the finish line with the coach leering at me. Having no clue what I was trying to prove, it seemed to entertain me to no end at the time.

 Now for a guy like me, high school was the  early to mid seventies. You could run at school and you could run at track meets, but running out in public in broad daylight, along a road was considered just plain fucking weird. My friends and I would do practice runs for track and field at night in the neighborhood to avoid ridicule. Well meaning people would say things like " I guess they ain't workin' you hard nuff, if you got that much energy" or " why would you run if nuthin's chasing you?"
 Once out of high school I stopped running all together to concentrate on important stuff like motorcycles and hot rod cars. Girls were welcome also if they liked two stroke engine smoke and four barrel carburetors . Now a couple things occurred that would change all that. One was, I'm guessing because of teenage energy levels and general frustrations with life at that time. I used to get so pissed with my car repairs or broken motorcycles, the only remedy I could conjure up was to go for a high speed jog around the block to burn off the energy.
. One time I must have got carried away, and ended up five miles away in Roberts Creek. People would drive by and ask if everything was ok, and, did I need a lift. Questions like "where are you going?", "whatcha doin'?". I'd answer sometimes, "I'm running". It would be quiet for a moment and the question would come back.
"Why?"
 Sometimes drivers would just slow down and stare, not having seen someone running down the road unless the police were chasing them.
Somewhere in the late seventies, something else happened. A new guy moved into the area from Vancouver. He was a quiet, long haired, university student, and he ran. He was the first guy that I ever saw locally, just go for a run for fun and fitness in the broad daylight. The locals just said that " he wasn't from around these parts" so he could be excused for the strange behavior. He had a very relaxed style, very fluid and quite fast. This new "out of town" runner turned out to be none other than Adrian Belshaw the winner of the first April Fool's Day Run. The "Fool's" run was started by my high school English teacher George Matthews and Fran Burnside, wife of John Burnside, another of my teachers of the day.
 After a long while, I thought it was time for me to try this running in daylight thing too. It felt a bit foreign, like being on stage and every move being watched. I had an eight dollar pair of runners, Polaris I think. I wore my corduroy pants because they had the most room in them and what ever t-shirt didn't stink too bad that day. So for the first time in my life, running was for fun, not to beat someone in a race, or to burn off frustrations. I had no schedule or knowledge of running technique. I just ran when I felt like running, kind of curious about how far I could go.
 At around twenty one years old, earning a living  as a rookie in the logging business, I still managed to find the time to run. By then, capable of running ten miles without too much effort or fuss. One fine day, it was decided that it was time to lay it all on the line and enter the fledgling April Fool's Day run, the 1981 version. Most of my training was limited to weekends because of work and some of that was compromised by a young males passion for parties and beer. My brightest training idea was to duplicate the race by getting dropped off in Gibsons by a friend , and then running to Sechelt solo. This was pre-cellphone days and therefore, I was on my own once the ordeal began. My fastest training run occurred one morning while being massively hung over but determined to run anyways. It was torture and agony from beginning to end and featured two stops to hurl my guts out in the bushes.

1981 April Fool's Run with me near the middle, long hair, dark shirt and short shorts

 The day of the race was very cold and rainy, and of course I had no proper clothes for the occasion, mainly because in those days there were none. No Goretex, no vented rain wear, no tech shirts, nada, zilch. The race itself was a matter of staying focused on keeping one foot going in front of the other as fast as possible. It was a ton of fun to pass people and not so much fun to get passed. By the time we got to the dreaded Davis Bay hill, I was nearly hypothermic and ready to bonk.  My friend  Dave came up from behind and passed me there, but encouraged me to chase him. I did my best to get by him, but my freezing cold thighs just wouldn't go any faster. When we got to the finish line at the Sechelt cenotaph, I was so cold and exhausted that I was just glad that the torture was all over. I came in ninth, just behind Dave. I think the time was around the 1:26 to 1:28 mark or so. I was in total agony for several days after that, from the cold and pushing myself so hard. The only way that I could do that distance that fast now, would be if I fell out of an airplane from thirteen miles up. ( yes I know, free fall speed and all that. I'm just saying that I'm a tad slower these days ) 
 For various reasons, I didn't run the April Fool's race again until twenty five years later, and that my friends is another story.