The Longest Stride

At the height of the pandemic and increasing racial tensions in the United States, Chris McGarrell found himself in a dark place. With gyms and basketball courts closed, Chris would return from work, curl up on his couch, and immerse himself in the social injustices in the world playing out on social media. It was then that two events would change his life. As restrictions were lifting, Chris noticed one of his friends would cycle ...

Jerry Francois always had a sense he could run fast but the schools he attended growing up in Brooklyn didn’t have access to a track nor the funding for a cross country team. By the time Jerry entered High School, he started to get in trouble. In his junior year, Jerry lost his mother and struggled to cope with the loss; realizing he needed something to ground him, he turned to running in his senior year and attended his first trac...

In 2014, two friends came together to solve a problem in the sports nutrition market. Matt Smith and Patrick Stark, both passionate about sports and nutrition, recognized the market lacked real natural fuelling options that not only tasted great, but contained real food; that’s when Endurance Tap was born. To start, Matt and Pat didn’t have to look any further than Canada’s number one export, maple syrup, and after months of experi...

"I’m very happy that I personally work in an industry of photo that’s all about movement, because I think that movement is something that iPhones haven’t really got to yet. You have burst mode on your phone, stuff like that, but actually really capturing a strong photo of a very quick movement is something phones really haven’t mastered yet.” - Jay Crews

There’s no question platforms like Instagram and Facebook have transformed how...

“I got to a place where I was just sick and tired of being sick and tired. I’m looking at all these people curate their lives on social media and their everyday lives. It started off as a thought. It started off like a blank canvas and that’s what I looked at myself as.” - Latoya Shauntay Snell

Throughout life, Latoya Shauntay Snell had to overcome adversity. Growing up in Brooklyn during the crack epidemic, Latoya watched as her d...

April Cockshutt and Eddie Lee met at Sir Wilfrid Laurier University while April was pursuing a degree in International Business and Marketing and Eddie was pursuing a degree in Kinesiology. When April started to experience digestive issues and wasn’t seeing any improvements in her health following the advice of Western medicine, Eddie introduced her to someone in his family who practiced traditional Chinese medicine; April quickly ...

“That’s part of the reason why I do a lot of these hard races is to show well, you know what, you can do anything that you put your heart and your mind to. You can do it. You can achieve it and you don’t have to be held back by a disability.” - Jacky Hunt-Broersma

At 26, Jacky Hunt-Broersma discovered a sensitive spot on her leg which doctors initially thought was scar tissue from a prior surgery; however, when Jacky woke up one mo...

“My relationship with running shifted. It was around the time I started doing ultra racing and trail running when it actually really switched for me. I would run to just work on me and my relationship with my mind and my relationship with my body and find a better way to love myself even more.” - Filsan Abdiaman

Filsan Abdiaman’s love for running came at a time of self discovery. In 2014, Filsan traveled from Canada to her hometown...

April and Melanie Boultbee are twin, Indigenous runners who have been blazing a trail in the running community for more than 25 years. Early on, April and Melanie had great success running cross country in school and continued to have success later in life, even after taking a break in High School to party. After dominating the roads, both April and Melanie transitioned to trail running where they continued to have success. In 2016...

“The fun part about running is every experience, every race, every training run is an opportunity to learn something. Put that into your back pocket and try to tease out what works best for you. It’s kind of this endless curiosity of how do we just fine tune just a little bit more.” - Lindsay Scott

After University, Lindsay Scott moved to Nepal, where she would spend the next eight months teaching life skills through sport play, le...

Wolves are social animals and occasionally a lone wolf will break off from a pack to join another pack or form their own. Unlike wolves, Jon Suckling and Paul Brioux didn’t stray from their original pack; they just formed another one within it.

Blacktoe Running is a local running store in Toronto owned and operated by Mike and Maya Anderson. Not only do they sell the latest and greatest products, they also do a lot of great work in...

This week on the pod, we’re chatting with Dr. Meghan Hughes and Danielle O’Hanley, two members of The High Park Rogue Runners Executive Team. Both Meghan and Danielle found themselves at the High Park Running Room for different reasons, but ultimately they would meet Colin Murray-Lawson, a coach at that location. When Meghan qualified for the Boston Marathon, she wanted to find a group of runners who could train with her, so Colin ...

“I’ve traveled all over the world to race in big events and sometimes it comes down to those simple things that motivate you and push you to be your best and create those memories and how I can be that to my daughter and other girls. Those things excite me and motivate me.” - Krista DuChene

Krista DuChene is one of Canada’s most decorated marathon runners with an impressive list of accomplishments that started back in 2010 when she...

As the World starts to return to normal ways of living, we’re also starting to see the return of live racing in cities like Boston, New York, and elsewhere. So what does this mean for Canada? We invited two of the top race organizers in Canada to share their thoughts on everything from porta-potties to motivating runners in a virtual race format. We’ll also discuss what’s required to pivot from virtual racing to in-person racing; i...

"It's not just a race, it's a party. Yes we're taking it serious, yes we're running fast, yes we're trying to win, but you can't help but party; you can't help but dance." - Gabriel Jarquin

In June, LGBTQ2S+ communities around the world come together to celebrate love, diversity and acceptance. The month of June was chosen to commemorate the riots held by members of the community against a police raid that took place at the Stonewa...

“I’ve already been living 15 years in this pain. How do I want to live the rest of my life? If I was given a second chance 15 years ago, what else can I do now? I was willing to try anything, so I said, ‘I think I want the leg gone.’" - Aristotle Domingo

In 2001, Aristotle Domingo’s mom discovered him unconscious in the hallway in their home and he was rushed to the hospital where he lay in a coma, on life support, for the next thr...

"Generations are growing up with a completely different identity of gender and understanding that you don't have to fit in these boxes. It's a fluid, self expression, wonderful, everyone accepted, kind of thing and that it is about being curious about each other which I think is so powerful." - Rach McBride

Rach McBride (they/them) is a three-time Ironman 70.3 champion, course record holder, and one of the strongest cyclists on the...

After a nice, long run, or really any run for that matter, many runners like to reward themselves with a well deserved donut or their favorite post-run drink. While some may head for the beer fridge, there really aren’t enough electrolytes in their favorite pint to help their body recover. In July 2020, three friends came together to solve that issue by launching a functional beer that is also rich in electrolytes.

We know our list...

“When there were no races I said, OK, I’m still going to run my 42, but who knows how long this pandemic is going to be, when races will come back online, so how can I extend this running calendar, and so that’s when I came up with the project 42.” - Bernard Abarquez

When Bernard Abarquez turned 40, he celebrated by mapping out a 40 kilometre route that resulted in gps art representing 1979, the year he was born. A year later, he d...