History – Page 5 – My Second Running Life

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.