A series of profiles of Guelph Victors members, by Brad Morley. This series began in April 2018, and continues with several new profiles being added each season. It’s a chance to get to know our fellow members, beyond running banter!

William Smith: master of mathematics, and running

Now 76 years of age, William Smith has been a Victor since 2013, a year after he decided he needed to do something to keep fit and took up running. After reading a couple of books about the sport, he spent several weeks getting up early and running from home for 45 minutes each day, but it proved tougher than he thought.

Thanks to a gift from his children of a running clinic at Running Works, he learned “running is not so simple.” Rest days, stretching, cross training, and so on – these all became part of his regimen, thanks to the clinic. In 2015, he added the Runner’s Bootcamp with David Brooks, an experience he describes as “very intensive”, and in 2016 he began training under the coaching of Taylor Milne.

under two hours for the half-marathon

William is still working at improving his running results from 2014 when he ran a sub-25-minute 5K, and 2016 when he broke 2 hours for the half marathon. His favourite distances are 5 and 10k, and his goal this year is to break 50 minutes for the 10k.

A plantar fasciitis injury in mid-2018 put an end to running for the year, but he kept fit with regular cycling. Now that 2019 is underway, he’s enjoying training hard again and uses the Thursday indoor track workouts to help develop the strength he’ll need for a sub-50 10k. He finds training with the Thursday group quite enjoyable, and says that working with such a friendly and supportive group of Victors “with a common cause” makes the hard work easier.

William doesn’t like treadmills and he avoids trail-running because he’s more likely to fall off-road. So he does most of his running on the sidewalks and roads that lead from his home near the University of Guelph out into the hills around Jones Baseline and Watson Road. His 20k bike route also gives him a good workout through those same hills.

teacher, mentor, researcher

William Smith, mathematician William was born in Toronto and attended high school in Scarborough. He has BASc and MASc degrees from the University of Toronto (in Engineering Science and Chemical Engineering, respectively), and MSc and PhD degrees in Applied Mathematics from the University of Waterloo. Putting this background in sciences, mathematics, and statistics to work, he’s been a teacher, mentor and researcher all his adult life.

He started his academic career at Dalhousie University in Halfax in 1971. He came to Guelph as Chair of Mathematics and Statistics in 1979, and also held a joint appointment in Engineering beginning in 1990. He left in 2003 to become the Founding Dean of Science at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology in Oshawa. Moving back to Guelph in 2013, he took on his present position, about which he says, “I don’t get paid for this work, but it’s great fun and an opportunity to train grad students and do research.”

science to mitigate climate change

Now, as a University Professor Emeritus, he leads graduate students at Guelph and Waterloo in research on the molecular-based design of improved solvents for CO₂capture from sources such as cement, steel and coal-fired power plants – in other words, advanced scientific research on ways to mitigate climate change.

One regret William has is that he never got the chance to meet one of his role models, Ed Whitlock, who holds dozens of Canadian and world records for master’s age running. Whitlock died in March of 2017 just after turning 86, but his accomplishments as an older runner continue to inspire William in his own training. Another role model for William is his father, who is still healthy at 97 even though he doesn’t do anything to maintain fitness! He also refers to fellow 70-year-old Victor Jerry Greenfield’s sub-50 minute 10k last year as a motivating factor.

William stresses that especially for older runners who are new to the sport, maintaining a good diet, cross-training, and training regularly are keys to a successful program. He also credits his use of a good sports watch to help him keep track of his daily runs, sleep patterns and training events.

12 grandchildren, including triplets

Outside of fitness and his work at the university, William is busy with his 12 grandchildren, ranging in age from 3–16 years (including 12-year-old triplets!). He and his wife Mary also love to travel. Each February they head to somewhere warm like Spain or the south of France where he can train without having to worry about the Canadian winter temperatures.

August almost always finds them at their holiday home in River John, N.S. (near Pictou, on the Northumberland Strait). En route, they always stop in Digby, N.S. at the “Digby Scallop Days” festival. Part of the weekend is a road race William likes to take part in, and perhaps it will be this coming August where he will get to go after that sub-50 10k. We wish him every success!

— profile and non-running photo by Brad Morley

Alex Sawatzky: Running to a PhD finish

Alex Sawatzky says that running is “a time to be away, from my computer, my notebooks, a time to really focus on my thoughts and connect with the world around me.” She prefers to run alone, on the trails around Guelph, and to explore new areas while she runs. She runs in Guelph (which has been home for the past seven years), in Labrador (where she’s been doing research for her PhD in Public Health), and while travelling for pleasure.

Alex came to running while attending high school in Kitchener as a way to keep fit after her swim team training ended. At first she ran just around the block, but then went further and further. Now, at 25, she’s just completed her third marathon.

“okay, i can do this!”

She ran her first marathon in 2016, on a blistering hot day in Ottawa, just to see if she could do it. Racing with a friend, Alex was “really just focused on finishing” and she did so, feeling like there was a lot more in her tank. Her time of about 4:20 made her quite happy, so last year she ran Around The Bay in Hamilton with her brother, Nick, her most frequent training partner. She planned on a three-hour finish, but came across in 2:29, once again feeling like she could have run faster.

“It was very surprising,” she says of her finish, realizing, “OK, I can do this!”

Alex spends a good deal of time in Labrador with a team of community, government, and academic partners working on her PhD. Her work is part of a larger project led by the Inuit community of Rigolet that focuses on adapting to the impacts of climate change on health and well-being. Alex says she feels extremely grateful to be working with this community to determine their personal and collective priorities as their world changes, and is currently working to bring together everything she’s learned to finish up her PhD by spring 2019.

Her second marathon was last year’s Trapline Marathon in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Labrador, where she bettered her Ottawa time by almost an hour, finishing in 3:27. It ended with a community feast: partridge stew, moose stew, and fried bread with red berry jam.

“It was glorious,” she says, “a really great way to finish a race and in a place I love.”

marrying her running and her school work

Running has helped her focus her expectations in “so many things,” including her research: putting in the long hours, persevering, doing more and going further than she previously thought possible. Like much of her running, Alex’s PhD often involves long stretches of solitary work, but she loves this sort of thing, and excels at both pursuits.

Alex joined the Victors – somewhat reluctantly, she admits – last summer. Her good friend and inspirational role model, Meg Thorburn (a longtime Victor) convinced her to come to the summer track workouts, thinking Alex could really benefit from the group work.

Alex was sure she wouldn’t like it. “I’m pretty hesitant and nervous,” she says, but in the end, she loved the fast Tuesday group runs, plus the welcoming and supportive Victors community. Last winter, she also signed up for the 12-week Victors indoor program, and a regular attendee.

loved the air horn workout

She loved the workout we did recently at the track, with the airhorn used for timed starts and stops, rather than counting laps or distances. “There’s something to love about every run,” she says excitedly, and that workout showed the versatility that exists, even in running round a track: “So much variety is possible!”

Alex runs every day. She says she “goes very slowly,” using “an exploratory approach,” adding, “I just need to get into the forest.” With so much of her daily time spent on her studies, running “allows [her] to experience the outside every day.”

Alex also loves learning, finding new ways of seeing, exploring new perspectives. She studied at U. of G. as an undergrad, taking an Arts and Science degree.” She combined these two usually separate fields of study because she has always loved “using both sides of my brain.”

Her proudest achievement, she says, is “my ability to keep going and to accept new challenges.” This is a gift that running has brought more clearly into focus for Alex.

She quotes Mark Rowlands, a favourite writer, “I run not to achieve anything — not in this sense of acquiring something — but to be changed by the process of achieving.”

a podium, a pb, and a bq

A little over a month ago, Alex ran her third marathon, this time closer to home in Waterloo. She ran another PB by 10 minutes, with a 3:17 finish. That excellent time won her a third place finish on the women’s podium, 10th place overall, and first in her age group. It also qualified her for the Boston marathon. She plans to run the historic race next April, and has set herself a goal of finishing her PhD by then as well. Once again, she’s married her two major interests, and pursues them in parallel, each reinforcing the other.

— profile and photo by Brad Morley

Luke Hohenadel — man of Extremes

Luke Hohenadel Some of you may know Luke—he’s been with the Victors from the start—or you have probably seen him at Running Works, either gathering for a Saturday morning run, or maybe behind the counter where he works a few hours a week.

But perhaps as many or more of you don’t know him. He’s tall, with a shaved head and an easy smile. A retired grade 4 teacher (he taught at St Patrick Catholic School his entire career), Luke has been a serious runner since 1982—for over three decades. And though he’s quiet, soft-spoken, and has a broad grin, his appearance belies his athletic history: he’s a man of extremes—running extremes mainly.

Luke has run more than ten 100-mile races as well as six 100Ks, 20 50Ks or 50-milers, and more than 25 marathons! How did such a passionate commitment to these extreme distances begin?

He goes the extra mile

As a young man, he found the Ironman competition inspiring, but since he hated swimming, he decided to try running for fitness, to see just how fit he could become. That, coupled with his deep admiration for Terry Fox, led him to start hungering for the extremes of distances beyond the marathon. Way beyond the marathon.

Distances that many of us find daunting even to think about seemed almost natural to Luke. Being very determined and extremely disciplined, he decided he had what it would take to literally and figuratively go the extra mile, and then another one, and then many, many more. It’s difficult to imagine running 50 miles, but to have done 100-mile races (which often take about 24 hours), not once but more than ten times? That takes extreme dedication.

Born and raised in Guelph, Luke has spent his working and running lives here—other than a few long road trips with his wife Mary Ann. And after 36 years of running here, he never tires of what Guelph has to offer. He says it’s the trails that help to keep him going—that, plus the superb running community, which includes The Victors, Speed River, the other track clubs.

In fact, one Guelph runner—Victor Matthews, for whom our club is named—has long been a motivating factor in Luke’s running life, especially the sub 2:40 marathon Vic ran when he was 56!

luke and vic matthews

Luke ran with Vic Matthews and his training group well before the club was formed, and with Vic’s untimely death in 2004 at age 61, it was only natural that Luke and the others would keep going, essentially in the spirit of Vic, or the spirit of a Victor. He was a much loved coach in the community and at U of G, and several club members remember him fondly.

The club named in Vic’s honour has helped to sustain Luke’s passion for running. He particularly credits the “advice and encouragement from different perspectives and experience levels” he gets during training sessions, not to mention the friendships he’s developed over the years.

There are other things besides running that Luke is passionate about. He loved his teaching life, and in retirement he’s a writer, but also a wine aficionado. While none of this approaches the extremes of a dozen 100-milers, they are things to which Luke applies his determination and focus. Want a good red wine? Ask Luke.

His favourite book on running is Christopher McDougall’s Born to Run. It’s about the astounding feats of ultra running by members of the Tarahumara tribe of northern Mexico,and has sold more than three million copies. It’s a very highly regarded story of extremes. No wonder it’s his favourite.

Other favourites? Besides Terry Fox, Luke takes inspiration from the life and times of Yiannis Kouros, a man famous in the ultra world for his other-worldly accomplishments and records over distances from 100 miles to 1000 miles. He is also inspired by the story of American Billy Mills surprising everyone at the Tokyo Olympics in 1964 by winning the men’s 10,000 metres.

100 miles in under 20 hours

Luke says his most significant personal accomplishment in all the years of his running is “probably” having run the Sulphur Springs 100-miler in under 20 hours. He’s also “very happy” with the 1:13 half marathon he ran at the age of 30. Not bad. Not bad at all!

The long road Luke has been on—he turns 59 in May—has not been without its challenges: injuries, disappointing results, diminishing returns. But as with any sensible life-long athlete, he has learned perspective, the wisdom of caution, and the meaning and purpose of carrying on.

When his training is going well these days, he runs five days a week, including two hard days of either tempo, intervals, or hills, covering 50 to 70 kilometres a week. No longer wanting to do the ultras, distances he now describes as “a young man’s game,” his goals for 2018 include running a six-minute mile and breaking 20 min for the 5K.

Barring injury, he firmly believes these goals are quite achievable, and given his history, his determination, and his running knowledge, betting against him would be extremely risky.