A Lasting Message Of Hope: Terry Fox's Run Across Canada, 40 Years Later

Track and Field History with Jesse Squire

Like many of you, I try to keep myself in shape by working out through running. I often need some sort of goal in my future to keep myself honest on following my workouts. Usually, that's a race. The problem is that no races have been held in the United States since early March and it doesn't appear as though we'll have any for a while yet. I need something else to keep myself honest. I needed something big enough that was a real actual challenge. Something popped up on my Facebook feed about three or four weeks ago. It was an event called The Big Canada Run – a virtual run across the width of Canada that starts in Saint John, Newfoundland and going all the way to Vancouver. That's 8,000 kilometers or 5,000 miles. Canada is a massive country and much larger than the United States. The goal is to be able to do this in a year. It's intended for teams of people to do together because that's nearly 100 miles a week for an entire year. There are Olympians that don't run that much. Let alone, people approaching 50 years old with full-time jobs. I signed up with a couple of guys.

This is not the first time that anyone has attempted to run across Canada. A week ago, CITIUS MAG tweeted out: "Without saying their name, what is your favorite runner known for?" It was assumed that my favorite runner was Dave Wottle, the Olympic champion who ran at my alma mater but it's not. It's not Kip Keino, the two-time Olympic champion out of Kenya and tremendous humanitarian. It's not Emil Zatopek – one of the most successful and well-loved people of all-time. It's not Joan Samuelson or Grete Waitz even. It was a man, who without identifying by name, I just retweeted it saying: “Today we got up at 4:00. As usual, it was tough.”

Guest co-host: Andrea Grove-McDonough

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Heritage Minutes: Terry Fox

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