This always makes me nervous. Commitment. I know, I know – it’s cliché: a man afraid to commit. Imagine. But still, there it is. It took me five years to screw up the courage to ask my wife to marry me. It’s taken me longer to commit to the Bluenose.
Okay. The comparison is silly. But any spouse of a runner will tell you straight up with a head shake and an eye roll: runners are married to their goals. And this one is a big one for me. I’ve been watching this race from afar for six years. I’ve volunteered as a course marshal twice; I’ve watched friends run it year after year – but every year I find a reason not to run it. Like last year – I wanted to focus on the Cabot Trail Relay, which is always the following weekend. But this year, the team I ran with (Dennis Fairall’s Grey Hair) is not returning to defend the title. So that excuse is gone.
But where did this fear of committing to the Bluenose Half come from? I mean, it’s not the distance. I’ve done 5 marathons and 5 half-marathons. That’s certainly not a remarkable number, but it’s enough that I feel comfortable racing 21.1km. It’s not even the challenging topography of the half – I’ve done the Valley Harvest Half twice, and I think the course there is at least as challenging. So what is it?
Well, to be honest, it was all about first impressions. For this story, we have to go way back to 2005. That’s the year my wife and I moved to Halifax from London, Ontario. I’d just BQ’d at the Forest City Marathon (my second) a couple of weeks before, so I was in no shape to run the Bluenose. But I wanted to be a part of my new home city’s race, so I volunteered to be a course marshal and was assigned to Point Pleasant Park. Very nice, I thought. Very wrong, I was.
Race day was madness. I don’t think it was a hurricane by whatever technical measurements the warm and dry folks sitting in the Environment Canada weather office use to define “hurricane” – but whatever it was, it was miserable. I showed up to the Sailor’s Memorial right at the unpleasant point of the park, only to discover the port-a-potties strewn about like dead soldiers, leaking their blue fluids everywhere. Not only that, I was alone – soaked, cold, and alone. They’d delayed the start; nobody told me.
I could go on and on detailing the miseries of that day, but to make a very long, arduous, and self-pitying story short, I stuck it out for 6 hours or more in wind and rain and cold, trying to keep the brave runners on course – and swearing I would never even contemplate running this event. But after I got warm and dry and regained feeling in my extremities, I couldn’t help but be a little proud of what the runners and volunteers had accomplished that day. Underneath my grumbling, there was a burning love for the race.
There’s a darker reason for why I’ve never committed to this race, though. One I don't like to talk about. Vanity. There. I admitted it. Maybe I’ll be free of it now. After my first few races, I became obsessed with time and with setting personal bests. The Bluenose, with its challenging course and eccentric weather, never struck me as the place to set a personal best. But every year that I watched this event, I got caught up in its energy, and I regretted not running – I regretted putting my vanity above my love for running in this city. I mean, this is Halifax’s marathon, damn it; this is the big one, and I’ve never run anything in it. Well, no more. I’m running this year. I’m joining the thousands of folks who train like stink through ice and snow and frostbite to get ready for whatever Halifax will hurl at them on Victoria Day weekend.
I’m down on one knee, here. I’m committing to you, Bluenose Half Marathon. Will you be mine? Will you be gentle?
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