The Inside Scoop From Canada’s Elite Runners

They say runners need to embrace simplicity.

National Post reporter Ben Kaplan shares a story in a recent article about his friend and elite marathoner, Matt Loiselle, who goes out for drinks with a few of Canada’s top endurance athletes. Turns out, the group is quite quirky. Loiselle says that one runner gets down, in the bar, to stretch. “The stretch the runner was demonstrating can’t be performed from a chair,” he recalls “…and he had to get down on his knees, holding his hands high above his head, in front of the entire pub.”

Loiselle also reports that the view from the top is that some marathoners carry around too much gear. David Reid, the former Canadian record-holder in the 1,500 meters is pretty frank in sharing his opinion on the subject. “I see people running all the time and they have their GPS and their heart rate machine, water bottles, gels, technical this and fluorescent that, and I’m like: ‘Really? When are you coming back, tomorrow?’,” he says.

Reid pines for the days when things were simpler–when running clothing comprised “whatever we found in the drawer.”

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