By Staff
September 3, 2015
BURLINGTON, ON
It isn’t too far off. RibFest will be over, the kids will have gotten used to the idea of being in school every day and the crew that makes sure the annual Terry Fox run takes place will be putting the finishing touches on their event.
This was the Terry Fox that passed through Burlington 35 years ago.
Worth noting is that the Terry Fox Run has been going on longer than RibFest.
A marker, paid for by private funds that have nothing to do with the Terry Fox Run for a Cure for Cancer will be erected at the west end of Spencer Smith Park
This is a little bit of Terry Fox history that made its way to Greg Costa, the person behind the initiative to place a marker at the west end of Spencer Smith park to tell of the day Terry Fox passed through Burlington on his Marathon of Hope.
In Prince George, BC there is a kids version of the Labour Day Classic race which is now part of the Terry Fox story.
The story is told by Denny Straussfogel
Doug Alward was Terry Fox’s close friend from Port Coquitlam and a very big part of the Terry Fox Story. When I met Alward and introduced himself as the current race director of the Labour Day Classic, Alward smiled and said he still has very fond memories of that race, which he ran in 1979.
It was two and a half years before that, in 1977, that his good friend Terry Fox had lost his right leg to cancer. Terry had confided to Doug in the summer of 1979 that he was thinking of doing some kind of long run to benefit cancer research, but thought that he would need a couple years to train before he could attempt anything.
Teams get formed to support people fighting cancer. Thousands show up year after year. One of the things that Burlington does.
They had been running together a bit over that summer, Doug, who has family living in Prince George, mentioned that there was a race up there over the Labour Day weekend and they should drive up and run it. The race was then called (somewhat inaccurately) “The P.G. to Boston Marathon” which featured, as it does today, a 8.5 mile (13.7 km) loop which runners could run either once or a second time for a total of 17 miles (27.4 km).
So Doug, Terry, Terry’s brother, Darrel, and a wheelchair athlete named Rick Hansen, all agreed to drive up to Prince George to run the race. According to Doug, the plan was to just do the 8.5 mile loop, but he says that on the way up he joking said, “Gee, we’re driving all this way, maybe we should do the full 17 miles (ha, ha, ha)” Terry, not surprisingly, took that as a challenge and said “Okay, let’s do it!” Sure enough, much to the amazement of everyone watching, this guy with one leg, who amazed everyone by running 8.5 miles, then started off on his second loop.
After finishing the full 17 miles, Terry toldDoug he didn’t need a couple years to train, he was ready to start The Marathon of Hope across Canada the following spring.
A month later he sent a letter to Canadian Cancer Society seeking their support. In our conversation in Victoria, Doug pointed out the obvious, that since Terry’s cancer returned the following year, if they hadn’t run in Prince George that September, Terry probably would have never gotten the chance to start The Marathon of Hope. So that is why I say that the Labour Day Classic is not just a Prince George tradition, but really is a big part of Canadian history.
There is, fortunately, a YouTube video copied from 8mm home movies take by Doug Alward’s sister of Terry, Doug, Darrel, and Rick Hansen running in the Labour Day Classic in 1979.
The Terry Fox Run to Cure Cancer people were out trying to attract and involve people from the Alton Village a few years ago to take part in the event in September,
That now classic event has been taking place in Burlington for 35 years. Don Carmichael and his team have been making it happen for the recent past.
There is Terry – so young, with that limping gait that every Canadian remembers seeing 35 ears ago. The video is a little on the long side – but worth every second of it. Painful and yet beautiful to watch.
