History – Page 3 – My Second Running Life

Signal Hill Photo Run

A recent errand led me to an unexpected trail of discovery through Calgary’s military history. I had stopped at the busy Westhills shopping district, the usual collection of big box stores. As I walked back to my car, I noticed the battalion numbers preserved on the side of the hill below the Signal Hill neighbourhood.

I knew about the battalion markers but hadn’t thought much about their significance. My first reaction when I saw the whitewashed stones was how small they looked, sandwiched in between the RONA store and Calgary’s residential sprawl just above. I made a point to return soon for a closer look.

Military history squeezed into the urban landscape

A couple of days later, I was jogging through North Glenmore Park, along the crest of the bluff. I ran by a monument at the west end of the park, one that I had passed hundreds of times. I decided to stop and check it out. The plaque indicated that this was a 1967 memorial to the 137th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (the CEF) in World War I. I remembered that “137” was also one of the battalion numbers on Signal Hill.

The 1967 memorial to the 137th Battalion

I guessed, correctly, that this was the same 137th battalion immortalized on the hillside. Now I definitely had to make my way over to Signal Hill. I figured it would be a great excuse for a photo run.

I grabbed my camera (the Ricoh GR III of course) and parked at Battalion Park on Signal Hill Drive. Here’s the Strava entry for my easy run. It was a beautiful day and I did an enjoyable 6-kilometre loop around the neighbourhood.

The story of Sarcee Camp is well explained in a series of plaques next to the stairs that wind through the markers. I learned that the camp was established in 1914. It was in a section of the Sarcee Indian reserve (now Tsuu T’ina) that was leased by the Canadian militia as a training site.

Sarcee Camp was a busy place. As many as 45,000 military personnel from 30 battalions trained at the site during the war. It was customary for each battalion to construct a “geoglyph” (that’s a design or motif created by humans and built into the natural landscape) with their unit number. They did this using stones hauled by hand from the riverbed, which is two kilometres away from the hill.

The 113 is the oldest of the four stone markers on Signal Hill. The 113th Battalion was formed as the Lethbridge Highlanders in 1915. The battalion relocated to Sarcee Camp in May 1916 and sailed for England in September of that year. The 113th was broken up for replacements, with most of the men transferred to France. The battalion never saw action as a unit and was disbanded in 1917.

The other numbers on the hillside were constructed by battalions of the CEF that trained at the Sarcee Camp, including the following:

The 137th Infantry Battalion of Calgary began recruiting in late 1915. After sailing to England in August 1916, the battalion was absorbed into the 21st Reserve Battalion. It’s worth noting that the King’s Own Calgary Regiment (RCAC) perpetuates the 137th Battalion. Members of the 137th Battalion CEF Association erected the memorial to the unit in Glenmore Park.
The 151st Central Alberta Battalion began recruiting in 1915. It sailed to England in October 1916 and was absorbed into several reserve battalions.
The 51st Canadian Infantry Battalion was recruited in Edmonton. It sailed to England in April 1916 and provided reinforcements for the Canadian Corps until it was reorganized in November 1916.

Although there were approximately 20 geoglyphs built, most were destroyed in the 1950s during the construction of a mess hall.

When we first moved to Calgary in the early 1990’s, the battalion markers were just about the only thing in the area. Over time, residential development nearly swallowed up the geoglyphs. Fortunately, there was enough recognition of the significance of these markers that they were preserved. In fact, three of the markers (137, 151 and 51) were meticulously moved a short distance from their original locations.

You can see a few photos I took during my cooldown walk. I found it quite challenging to get any perspective on the geoglyphs when I was right next to them. In that respect, the parking lot of the RONA store isn’t a bad place to stop and admire this unique piece of Canada’s military history. Even so, with Remembrance Day just around the corner, I recommend getting closer and doing more exploration if you have the time.

Carmela Kelly (1931-2024)

My mother passed away on July 6, 2024. The world was a better place while she was in it. Now comes the tough part.

Here’s some text from her obituary, which was published in today’s Hamilton Spectator.

With heavy hearts, we announce the passing of Carmela Mary Kelly (née Celi) in her 93rd year. Carm’s birth in a house on MacNab Street was made more joyous to her parents Giuseppe and Rosa Celi by the unexpected arrival of a twin sister, Concetta (Connie), who survives her. She is also survived by a brother, Anthony, and predeceased by a sister, Mary. Carm married the late Kenneth Kelly in 1958, and they had four children. Carm’s grandchildren … were a constant source of joy. Birthdays and holidays were better (and livelier) when celebrated at Gramma’s house, her home for many years. Carm was an avid crossword solver, a keen knitter, and an enthusiastic Tiger-Cats supporter. She enjoyed these activities most from her favourite pink chair. Her cookie tins were never empty, and her spaghetti & meatballs were legendary. She had an eye for fashion, and for years she enjoyed watching the Oscars. Carm was dedicated to her family, for whom she made countless sacrifices. Her generous spirit enriched many lives. Carm found great comfort in her faith, and she faced life’s many challenges with grace. We will struggle to deal with the loss of our beloved mother, grandmother, sister and friend. …

Carmela Mary Kelly (1931 – 2024) Photo: Shelley K

I wrote quite a bit about my mother in Stroke of Luck, and there’s a good reason for that. She was an inspiration. By doing nothing more than being herself, she made the lives of her family, friends, coworkers and neighbours better. That is quite a legacy.

My mother’s eyes are unmistakable in photographs from her youth. Her shy smile hints at her quiet, introverted personality, and tells the story of her growing up during the Depression and the Second World War. She worked as a secretary at Stelco for a while after high school but put aside her own ambitions once she was married. Years later, when we were all grown, she would take a job as a receptionist at a long-term care facility. She soon became indispensable to the staff and residents there. Of course, we knew that would happen because she already was indispensable to us. It was a small step, and one that let her regain some of the self-confidence that had been eroded by too much time and too much worrying about other people.

Mom has handled difficult times with grace and resilience, and she has faced more than her fair share of difficult times. Pain and grief entered our lives when I was in my early teens. This happened in two separate but related ways. At least they are related in my mind. What I know is that nothing was ever quite the same afterwards, and nothing could ever be taken for granted again. Had we crossed some kind of a dividing line, a transition from the innocence of youth to whatever was to come next? I’m not sure. As for my mother, I never heard her complain or shirk from what she had already accepted as her duty. Given her upbringing, I suspect she had never taken anything for granted as it was.

Goodbye mom. We will miss you terribly. May God bless you and welcome you.

Homage to GAP 1.0

Today’s run was just what I needed.

I had a late evening return flight from Ontario yesterday, so I was feeling a bit out of sorts as I parked next to the Glenmore Athletic Park (GAP) track. A high school track meet was in full swing. I watched from trackside for a few minutes, absorbing waves of energy and hearing the screams of hundreds of students as they cheered on their teammates. It motivated me to get going on my short and overdue run.

I’d been thinking for some time about a homage post to the GAP track. I should say the original GAP track (GAP 1.0), because a spiffy new facility is being constructed by CANA, just a short distance away. I have a lot of criticism for decisions coming out of Calgary city hall but this isn’t one of them. I can’t wait for the new facility to be finished.

The grandstands have been taken down and moved to the new track. The brilliant blue of the new surface looks magnificent and oh so ready for spiked shoes. Crews are working on the finishing touches, like landscaping. It will soon be the dawn of an exciting new era in track and field in Calgary.

It seems timely to say a few words about GAP 1.0. I’ll be honest. The place is definitely looking worse for wear. Chunks of Lane 1 are crumbling into the infield. Patches and cracks are plentiful, thanks to our winter freeze-thaw cycles. The spotting booth on the back straight has been taken over by pigeons.

I did a little research and found out that GAP 1.0 was built in 1962-63. It’s just a couple of years younger than me. No wonder it has cracks and wrinkles!

Despite these blemishes, the track has also been the site of countless track meets, interval workouts and road race finishes. I’ve personally done thousands of laps of the track, in all sorts of weather. And that’s a good segue to the fact that the Calgary running community has been second to none when it comes to keeping a lane or two of GAP 1.0 open through the winter months. All it takes is willpower and a lot of shovels, as demonstrated in this shot from October 2023.

Here’s a shot of an interval session from late March. It was one of those Calgary spring evenings when we started with water in the far corner and ended with sheet ice. No one complained when we decided to cut things short.

Or how about a photo from the 2019 Stampede Road Race? The park was a beehive of activity that morning, with lots of racing action and a pancake breakfast as our reward.

A recent track racing milestone got me thinking nostalgically about GAP 1.0. It was on May 6, 2024, the seventieth anniversary of Roger Bannister’s four-minute mile breakthrough on the Iffley Road track in Oxford, England.

It seemed fitting to make a brief pilgrimage, in pouring rain, to run four ceremonial laps in honour of this great achievement. After all, the GAP track is only 10 years younger than Bannister’s record. I pointed out the significance of the day to a young athlete who had just finished his track workout. He gave me a polite but puzzled smile. I secretly wished for him to do the same on the hundredth anniversary in 2054, running his commemorative laps on the new track.

In closing, I have many fond memories of running on the GAP 1.0 track. I don’t know what lies ahead, but if they do tear it down I’ll miss that familiar red surface, flaws and all. For years, it has been a great venue and meeting place for runners. It’s one of my favourite spots in the city.

So here’s to a good run for a fine old facility! And here’s to GAP 2.0… can’t wait to try out “big blue”.

Until next time, be well and BE FAST!

Photo Run – Big Game Edition

Our long runs along the Bow River often take us past the Centre Street Bridge. It’s an imposing and historic structure, and in good morning light photo ops are plentiful. As we ran under the bridge last Sunday, I made a note to take a closer look at the lions that guard the four corners of the upper deck.

Fortunately, we ended up back at the bridge towards the end of our run. I welcomed an excuse to stop at that point. Deb was keen to do another kilometre. “Good for you”, I told her, “but I’ll be here checking out the big cats.”

The morning light was strong and contrasty. From the pedestrian ramp, I got a couple of nice shots of the southwest lion. The statue looked great (regal, actually) with a monochrome edit in Lightroom.

Centre Street Bridge, Southwest corner (January 28, 2024)

I decided I would return in a couple of days for a photo run and a closer tour of the lions. In the meantime, I did some research into the history of the statues.

The original lions were commissioned in 1916, along with the bridge. They were modelled after bronze lions that guard Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square in London. The Calgary copies were cast in concrete by one James Thomson, a city employee. They each weigh 12,600 kilograms.

By the 1990s, the statues were in a state of significant deterioration, due to decades of Calgary weather cycles and vibration from bridge traffic. In 2000, city council directed the repair and conservation of the southwest lion. It also directed that the same lion be used as a template for the construction of four new statues. The restored lion now sits on display at Calgary’s municipal government building. The original northeast cat was repaired and conserved. It was relocated to its current location in Rotary Park in 2018.

With that background, here’s more on my photo run.

I went late in the afternoon, hoping for an interesting chinook sunset. We’ve had a lot of those lately. Would I get lucky? Yes and no.

I started my run in Rotary Park, so I could see the repaired northeast lion up close. It’s the only statue to have been returned to the bridge, and it commands a perfect spot at the south end of the park, overlooking downtown.

I navigated the ice and mud around the statue. I snapped a few shots, but none of the compositions I tried were very satisfying. I might have had better results with a wider focal length lens instead of the 28mm Ricoh GR III. No problem… this was supposed to be a run, so I moved on.

I jogged along the crest of the bluff for a few minutes and enjoyed the vista, then headed down towards the bridge. When I looked back up the hill, the lion was bathed in the low, setting sun. I knew I had only a few minutes before the light changed, so I scrambled back up the muddy pathway to a spot just below the lion. I snapped one shot. The light was amazing, and I think the result was good. It was by far my best shot of the day.

Rotary Park lion, enjoying the chinook sunset (January 30, 2024)

I continued down to the bridge and did a short loop around Chinatown. I was rewarded with a few worthy shots before I made my way back up the bridge on the west side. It had been a while since I ran up this hill… yes, it’s still tough!

As for any more shots of the lions on the bridge, the fading light was quite flat and uninteresting by that time. There was a bit of chinook magic going on though… so I worked with what I had!

Centre Street Bridge, looking northwest (January 30, 2024)

There was also the challenge of getting a good perspective on the statues and the other details on the bridge (like the medallions that recognize the distinct influences in Calgary’s past… see the example below) while being confined to the sidewalks that pass underneath the statues. I suppose a drone would have been a nice accessory for this shoot, but that’s not my thing.

Here’s one of the small details on the bridge: medallions on the side of the “kiosks” that serve as the base for the Centre Street Bridge lions.

There are roses for England, shamrocks for Ireland, thistles for Scotland, and maple leaves for Canada. And bison heads to represent the west.

In the end, I managed to get a few shots of the “big game”. But maybe the best result was the realization that I left many good ones on the bridge for another day.

My Top 5 Books About Runners

Marathon Man, Bill Rodgers & Matthew Shepatin

Bill Rodgers was an unlikely sporting hero. His reputation as a flighty drifter stands in contrast to his intensely competitive racing personality. As we learn more about the man, we can understand this contrast and see how Rodgers progressed to the peak of the marathoning world.

I found his mile-by-mile account of the 1975 Boston Marathon—Rodgers’ breakout race and the first of his four Boston victories—to be worth the price of the book.

Marathon Man is full of motivation for amateur runners, and I highly recommend it.

In Search of Al Howie, Jared Beasley

Al Howie was an enigma. He was a troubled loner, who thought nothing of running thousands of kilometres just to compete in a race, only to turn around and run home. His 1991 record for the fastest run across Canada (72 days) stood for decades until it was broken in 2022 by local legend, Dave Proctor.

While Beasley’s book sheds some light on what drove Howie, we are in many ways left to come to our own conclusions about the man. And that’s fine.

I found the book helped me to sort out what running really means to me, and that’s why I recommend you read In Search of Al Howie for yourself.

The Perfect Mile, Neal Bascomb

All of us who enjoy running owe a debt to the three talented men who chased the four-minute mile in the early 1950s. Roger Bannister, a Brit, finally broke the barrier in 1954. And like us, he was a pure amateur. He juggled athletics training with medical studies and did groundbreaking research into the science behind aerobic exercise.

In my opinion, he paved the way for us to enjoy the sport as we do today.

What you may not know is that there was worldwide interest in the rivalry between Bannister, the Australian John Landy, and the American Wes Santee. Bascomb’s superb book, The Perfect Mile, brings this important piece of running history to life. Highly recommended!

Born to Run, Chris McDougall

This book caused quite a stir when it came out in 2010. It uncovered a whole new world of distance running, in the remote part of Mexico that is home to the fascinating Tarahumara people. Reading about their unbelievable feats of endurance left me in awe.

I was also intrigued by the mysterious American loner, Caballo Blanco, who lived and ran in the same mountain region.

The author’s own experience in a fifty-mile trail race leads him to investigate why human physiology makes us ideally suited to distance running.

These threads are woven together to make Born to Run a memorable read. See if you agree.

Duel in the Sun, John Brant

This is the story of one of the great rivalries in distance running, and possibly the most exciting Boston Marathon finish of all time.

The clash between Alberto Salazar and Dick Beardsley in 1982 has all the elements of a thriller: the brash young star and the workmanlike veteran, battling each other to the finish on a scorching day in Boston. Neither runner was ever the same again.

Their compelling personal stories are told in real-time as they run from Hopkinton to Boylston Street. Duel in the Sun is a must-read for anyone who has run that famous stretch of road. Or aspires to.

Four Ways Running Has Changed

Technology

These days, most runners take for granted that they will have a permanent record of every kilometre they run. Some obsess over it. But the availability of all this information and more is a relatively recent phenomenon. For much of my time in the sport, that is to say, the last half-century, there was almost no information available on pace or distance, let alone heart rate, recovery time or anything else.

I used to check the time on the kitchen clock before I left my house for a run, so I could have some idea of how long I had been running when I got back. Pace? Forget about it. That started to change when GPS watches came into the market. Of course, they are now ubiquitous.

I still think of my Timex Ironman watch as something special. This reminds me, there is something liberating about setting off for a run with no watch of any kind. Try it sometime.

2. Gear

As I plodded through fresh, wet snow on a 16k run yesterday, I thought about how fortunate we are to have tights, high-tech base layers, and Gore-Tex jackets to get us through the worst of our Canadian winter weather. We finished with slightly wet feet, but otherwise we were warm and comfortable. And in the summer, breathable fabrics magically shed water to keep us dry.

Am I the only one that remembers Adidas tracksuits from the 1970s? You know, the gymnast-style pants with the loops that went under your foot? They were made of some strange synthetic fibre whose only attribute was to guarantee to chafe. Or how about cotton T-shirts and sweatpants, which held water like a sponge? Then there were the cringeworthy Dolfin running shorts from the early 1980s. Richard Simmons had nothing on me. Some things are best forgotten – forever.

3. Races

This is probably the category where I’ve seen the biggest changes. Some are good and some are not. I’m thrilled to see so many more races on the calendar than we ever had in the early days. Not only that, races are almost always well-organized now, with proper timing and accurate course measurement. Gone are the days of haphazard planning and poor execution by well-meaning but inexperienced race directors.

But I have to say, there are downsides. I object to shelling out $75 for a race that is, frankly, a pretty minor event. I don’t need a technical T-shirt and a finisher’s medal from each race I run. Sometimes, I’m just there for a quicker pace run, or to get a bit of competition. I’d much rather have the choice of whether to buy the shirt, and I really could do without the medal. Maybe that sentiment underlies the growing Parkrun trend, where runners can show up and run/race, without all the trappings.

4. Participation

For years, the only participants in road races were gaunt, sinewy veterans of the circuit. Even the big races were sparsely attended, and the runners who did show up were all of a certain demographic. Many races went through an existential crisis in the late 1970s, when it became clear that small fields of young adult males didn’t bode particularly well for the future of the sport.

It was the salvation of the sport that running became mainstream starting in the 1980s and 1990s. Frank Shorter is often given credit for enticing a whole generation of new runners to put on a pair of newfangled Nike Waffle Trainers and give it a try. (I think there was more to it, but that’s fine.) Whatever the reason, we should all be thankful, because we are now enjoying the benefits. The starting grid for just about any road race is a healthy cross-section of society, including people of all ages. We’re all better off for it.