Larry`s Front Door Ultra

My Father used to say some people seem to get more rain in their lives than others. Picture if you will a young man who wakes up one day to an inoperable cancer diagnosis. The shock has worn off, he has been on this journey for a while, he uses social media to share his progress: ups and downs, struggles and hope, he has stayed positive, has had no self pity, and always encourages others. He has just received his thirtieth chemo treatment. Picture if you will a young woman who gets a brain tumor, it is inoperable because of its location so she must take a "natural chemo" for many years to keep it in check. She has a daughter who is born with some hearing loss. She is a nurse she is a giver in her day job and she is a giver in her private time despite her own challenges, a couple of many examples, she organizes a go fund me for a veteran who has fallen behind on his bills, she volunteers to spend the last hours with children in the hospital who are going to die whose parents cannot cope. Fast forward to 2024 another tumor shows up on her liver, she hits an ice patch and has her car totaled, she has a bout of severe abdominal pain that results in emergency room visits, The Doctors find something abnormal in her cervix and further test results await. These stories tear at me for the woman is a close friend from work`s wife, the man is a former work colleague who has the most integrity of anyone I have known. I want to help, but how? A running challenge that has intrigued me for quite some time is called a "Back yard Ultra Marathon." whereby the runner runs a loop that must be completed with in an hour until the runner cannot complete it anymore, they than "tap out." I have decided to do something that is out of my comfort level and is in some ways a leap of faith. Consistent with most of my running challenges the weather of course is miserable, I will have a runners worst nightmare strong winds, all day of 55 km, along with the -14 weather temperature which is will be miserable for most of the day, quite the contrast after the stretch of record setting temperatures. Today I will run "Larry`s front door ultra marathon." February 29, occurs only once every four years will and today will be a special day. I will start and finish at my house and run a 3.95 mile, 6.35 km loop every hour until I cannot as a tribute to this brave woman, her family and my friend fighting cancer. I have a camera from Viva that will capture high/low lights of today. Harvey Lewis has the world record of running 108 loops or 450 miles, his record is safe. As the medical prognosis gets clearer for my friend from works wife, and the bills start to pile up I probably will organize a go-fund-me. iRun magazine knows of my day, and Ben himself has encouraged me. Time to stop typing and start running, for how long I do not know but today/tonight I dedicate to Samar Singh, and Jason Bowser. Each day is a reminder of the gift we have to still be able to use our legs to create the change we want to see in our world." Wednesday`s temperature 12 and sunny, today 9 sunny and little wind to no wind, anybody in the GTA knows what yesterday was a very miserable -14, with 55 km/h winds all day. I completed 13 loops in my challenge yesterday. I started out fast, almost too fast completing the first two loops in about 35 minutes each well within the hour time limit, but I was sweating and had to purposely slow down to avoid possible risk of any negative medical factors. The recording camera stopped working after loop two and my family figured out it was due to the cold. (Originally my daughters assumed that Dad`s lack of technical skills had "caused something to the camera." In hindsight this is a good thing because if I was able to produce a video of yesterday possibly the focus, or spotlight possibly goes from the two people I was running for onto the runner himself. The hardest part of the run was running into an area that had me leaving the shelter of the woods going into an opening where the wind would hit me with the force of a body blow, my breath was literally knocked out of me each time, and unlike a normal race where you would be able to move on and never face this again, the loop concept of yesterday had me running into this challenge every time. Yet this is nothing compared to thirty chemo treatment, or tumors found on two, possibly three parts of your body. My last loop was 57 minutes, I think I could have possibly squeezed one or at most two loops out. I was shivering and starting to limp a bit, my family had waited patiently for me all day for dinner, so I taped out at 10:00 pm. In total I ran 54.21 miles or 87.18 km. A bit more than two full marathons which is fitting dedicating one marathon to Samar Singh, and one to Jason Bowser.