Between May 5th and September 14 2014, our club will take on an exciting challenge – complete Terry Fox’s “Marathon of Hope” as many times as possible by combining the mileage of all our members’ workouts. Here you can track our progress as we swim, bike, run, or use the elliptical machine.
Then on September 14, we will host our own Terry Fox run and social event to celebrate our achievements and honour Terry’s memory and legacy. Who’s with us? Drop us a line and join in the fun!
Map of our progress [best viewed in Chrome or Safari]
Week 1 Progress: 10 people in the team, 1148km travelled, which brings us just outside Sheet Harbour, NS, where Terry Fox reached on May 15, 1980. 
Just before reaching Sheet Harbour, Terry was writing in his journal:
“Twenty-six miles is now my daily minimum. It is beautiful, quiet, peaceful country. I love it.” – Terry Fox, May 1980
Now these are words to inspire a country!
Week 2 Progress: 14 people in the team, 1626km travelled this week, for a total of 2971km in 2 weeks! We are now in Quebec City, QC, most likely eating some great poutine. As a team, we covered in a week 12 Terry Fox stages in the Marathon of Hope.
Let’s not forget that although we are a team, for Terry, running across Canada was a huge battle and he never gave up, despite the pain and the tears.
“When I’m really tired I’m actually crying on the road, I get so emotional, but being in that state keeps me going. It has a lot to do with cancer. A lot of people with cancer have given up and you can’t, you’ve got to set an example.” – Terry Fox, May 1980
Whatever your pain is, be great out there!
Week 3 Progress: 14 people in the team, 1307km travelled for a total of 4278km. We arrived in Ontario and passed through the Greater Toronto Area, then circled out to London and back north through Gravenhurst. After this week’s efforts, we are now stopped halfway between Sudbury and Sault St. Marie.
If our predictions are correct, at the end of next week we will have completed one full Marathon of Hope. Let’s keep the momentum going and believe, just like Terry:
“When I started this run, I said that if we all gave one dollar, we’d have $22 million for cancer research, and I don’t care man, there’s no reason that isn’t possible. No reason!” – Terry Fox, May 1980
Why don’t we all do that now? There are many ways to donate to the Terry Fox Foundation. Follow this link to learn more.
Week 4 Progress : 12 active participants in the team, 1645km travelled, which brings us to a total of 5922km. Terry Fox’s own Marathon of Hope was 5373km long, so as of this week, we’ve surpassed that number as a team… and we started again! We are not giving up, that’s for sure.
Marathon of Hope #1 Complete!
We are going to use the same map and will keep the markers from previous trips on it so you can see all our stops along the way.
For this second round, we are now stopped just outside Channel Port-aux-Basques, from where we’ll be taking the ferry to cross the gulf between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia.
Did you know that by February 1st, 1981, Terry’s hope of raising $1 from every Canadian to fight cancer is realized? The national population reaches 24.1 million; the Terry Fox Marathon of Hope fund totals $24.17 million. (link)
Week 5 Progress: 10 participants active in the team, a total of 1266km travelled this week, bringing our total to 7188km since the beginning of our journey.
8 stages cleared this time, with two less participants than the week before. We are now camped just outside of Perth-Andover. This was great week of training!!
Week 6 Progress: 14 active participants this week, and with a few late entries to the previous week’s total, we added 1383km to our team’s mileage, for an outstanding number of 8572km total so far. We zoomed past Montreal, Ottawa and the GTA and we stopped halfway between Hamilton and London. Our team rocks!
We know that workouts could be hard sometimes, but next time that you think about cursing the wind on your bike or during a run, remember the words that Terry wrote in his journal between June 11 and June 13, 1980.
“We slept well last night. It was quite cold in the van. The wind howled again all day. Right in my face. It is very difficult constantly running into the wind. It zaps it right out of your body and head. The first twelve miles were good and bad, off and on…My stump is constantly giving me trouble.”
“The wind is simply howling and shaking. It is terrible. No way could I run against it, so I had to run behind the van. It was hard on Doug trying to stay a distance away. Terrible, ugly day. Somehow we turned zero miles into twenty-four. I got sick from the exhaust fumes of the van. I was given a beautiful shower and I was so dirty. Felt good!”
Although we do not always recommend drafting in a triathlon, you have to find that silver lining when things get tough. Whatever helps you to recharge your batteries and keeps you moving forward… seize the moment!
Week 7 Progress: an impressive 1535km mileage thanks to the 14 active participants in our team! Wow, we never stop!! With a total of 10107km so far, we have almost completed two full Marathons of Hope. Look how close we are from Thunder Bay. Maybe we’ll go for a virtual open water swim once we reach our destination.
Speaking of water, did you know that Terry fox started the Marathon of Hope by dipping his artificial leg in the Atlantic Ocean? Visit the CBC Digital Archives for footage of Terry at the beginning of his journey. It’s so inspiring!
Weeks 8-10 Progress: Our team has put in some massive mileage and we were so tired, we didn’t even have the energy to update this page! Check this out:
Week 8 – 1680km – Marathon of Hope #2 Complete!
Week 9 – 1635km
Week 10 – 1024km
With 12-13 active participants each week, the grand total reached is 14450km since the beginning of the challenge. We even completed one more Marathon of Hope at the end of Week 8 and we are one week’s mileage away from completing our third!
Our members have pushed themselves to new limits, some even rode 160km in a day, from Burlington to Niagara on the Lake and back. Fore sure it helped skyrocket our numbers.
We continue our journey, inspired by Terry’s words: “I wanted to try the impossible to show that it could be done. I’ve always been competitive and wanted to show myself and other people too, that I could do it. To show them I wasn’t disabled or handicapped.” – Terry Fox
Until the next time…
Weeks 11-15 Progress: We cannot believe how the weeks flew by! Between training for big events and the summer holidays, our staff ran out of time and opportunities to update this page. But the challenge went on as planned and our mighty team kept adding kilometer after kilometer to the total, reaching 20,274km of swimbikerunning at the end of week 15!! We are now just a stone’s throw away from Thunder Bay, which will mark the completion of another Marathon of Hope, one more since the last update.
See below for our weekly progress… We went Green for this one.
Week 11 – 1276km – Marathon of Hope #3 Complete!
Week 12 – 994km
Week 13 – 1265km
Week 14 – 1094km
Week 15 – 1194km
We have 4 more weeks to go. Four weeks to reflect on Terry’s battle and his indomitable spirit. We came across this moving footage of Terry at the end of the Marathon of Hope, when he learned that his cancer has returned, this time in his lungs. He asked that people continue the journey on his behalf. We are certainly doing our best. On September 14 we will celebrate with a group run, by joining one of the 2 locations in Brampton and making a donation to the Terry Fox Foundation on behalf of our club. Will you join us? Either in person, in your city, or virtually – we hope you do. Or you can just donate here: http://www.terryfox.org/Donate/index.html. You know you want to.
Weeks 16-19 Progress: Four more weeks of workouts and pins added to the map, following in Terry’s footsteps. The season has been winding down and while we feel a little sadness for the beautiful days of summer being replaced by windy and rainy fall days, we still took all the opportunities possible to go outside and enjoy working out and sharing good times with our friends. Needless to say, our last 4 weeks’ workouts have been dependent on weather quite a lot, and with less races on the horizon, they have slowly gone down in volume as well.
We still think they’ve been rather impressive and we don’t shy away from publishing the weekly numbers:
Week 16 – 1025km – Marathon of Hope #4 Complete!
Week 17 – 906km
Week 18 – 741km
Week 19 – 438km
At the end of the week 19, we ended our journey just outside of Montreal, where we dropped our last pin marker. A total of 23385 km travelled since the beginning of this challenge, 4.5 Marathons of Hope completed, countless of hours spent moving our body, finding joy in every workout that pushed our limits a little further, making us stronger day by day. This has been a great summer for falling in love with triathlon, with the trails, with swimming in open water and with the pavement under our wheels. We certainly hope for many more summers like it.
As for Terry, he’s always with us, wherever we go. For Canada, he is certainly a legend, a pillar in our hope for finding a cure to cancer someday. While his type of cancer is now highly curable, others are still claiming thousands of lives every year. Since Fox began his Marathon of Hope, $650 million have been raised in the fight against cancer, and these funds have helped the advance of the science significantly. Dave Lambert, an osteosarcoma cancer survivor, recently shared his story that you can read here.
We hope that our journey inspired our readers to keep moving, to lead healthy lives, and maybe once in a while, join a Terry Fox run or walk like our club did on Sunday, September 19 at Terry Fox school in Brampton. We promise that you will be moved by the people who show up to offer their support to the cause. Everyone has a story – listen, and you never know when you will find a friend to share a run with in your neighbourhood.
Photos from Terry Fox Run
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