At one point in your life, you thought about what the apocalypse might look like. If you’re an optimist, you might even have envisioned what your life might look like after the end of the world. So much that you probably uttered a variation of this cool thought experiment out loud, embedded in a sigh, in the middle of a busy workweek:
 
If the world I know ended, and my commitments went away, what things could I do with all my free time?
 
Having a chance to start over because you survived the apocalypse is nothing more than that – a thought experiment. It will never happen. We have classes and jobs and friends and unfinished projects. We have mortgages and training plans and pathetic fantasy hockey teams that require our attention, frustration and continuity. Waking up in dystopia is but a funny dream – and I’ve never been this close.

 

​I met Gary Malloy in the lobby of Hotel Le Concorde in the heart of Old Quebec, on the Friday night before my final cross-country race as a St. FX X-Man in 2016.
 
I really met Gary Malloy at 4 am on Sunday morning, more than 24 hours later and 10k deeper into my running career, following the race that made Runners of the Nish a book of clear tragedy. In the early hours of the cold morning he aimlessly stood outside our hotel, after a night of licking his wounds. Quite like us, the Lancers had sorely missed their team goal, and he was the head coach.
 
“Alex?” he asks as if not sure (who’s sure of anything at 4 am?), and fair enough, we don’t know each other. “You hungry?”
 
What else am I to do? It’s morning. I haven’t stomached anything since an arsenal of OUA athletes passed me in the final stretch of the race, almost a full day ago now. So I’m starving. Plus, this old dude is the Windsor coach - that’s where I want to go to school next year. His weird invitation is definitely a sly recruiting ploy – this guy must have been waiting for me in front of the hotel for hours (Gary later told me his cab driver that night was a 2:12 marathoner from Ethiopia – needless to say I was a distant consolation prize).
 
I followed him up the road and then down a few stairs into a grungy basement cum fast food eatery cum dystopian mosh pit filled with crestfallen runners, running on nothing much. Years later, Gary still called it a “Donair restaurant.”
 
We ordered some “Donairs” and I got ready for the job-like interview that a prospective coach might deliver to a prospective athlete. I was ready to rhyme off my PBs, what my mileage was like, and whether I thought Salazar was doping his athletes and whether Centro was a douche on Instagram.  But we didn’t talk about running. Gary instead amused himself telling silly stories about the night that just passed. I jumped in and told him I had been kicked out of the bar, only to be negotiated back in by Emmanuel Boisvert in a messy Québécois war of words with the bouncer that my Acadian dialect just could not win. Gary laughed.
 
 “Ahhh, alcohol,” he said, “The great equalizer.” By no mistake did the erudite retiree borrow Horace Mann’s assessment of education itself and apply it to what some would call his second passion.
 
“It brings us all down to the same level.”
 
As if Gary ever thought he was above anyone.
**
 
Two and a half years have passed since our first interaction. I went to Windsor for a Master’s degree and I have been injured for most of that time. To allude to Steve Boyd’s eloquent post from a few weeks ago, my injuries, to me, had been a more crude intimation with death than anything I had encountered. Until death itself, that is. Gary was there for me, helping me through the tough times with words, Wings tickets and the occasional outing with friends. Without his optimism – which I have yet to see paralleled –, and the support of my teammates, amidst the injuries I would have left Windsor.
 
But I didn’t, and when I got healthy, Gary made my summer of 2018 a special one. He brought us to historic Hayward Field (and begged the meet director to let me race despite my off-standard 1500m PB, and white lied his way into convincing them I’d pace the race - I didn’t). He hosted “Cyr you later” BBQs when I left town and, obviously, he helped me reach my running goals for the year. He was the first one (slightly before Evan Ubene over the Hamilton track microphone) to tell me I had broken 3:50 in the 1500m, a goal I had chased all summer.
 
“Trois Quarante Sept!” he said in my mother tongue, clenching his stopwatch, giddy at the finish line.
 
I was so happy with myself – mainly because I thought my race had made Gary smile so hard. But in reality, he wore the same grin he bore when I finished any other race, and when we’d come back from a cool down or show up for a warm-up. It was never about the results. It was about our personal growth – about us learning something new, and coming back tomorrow for more. He was the truest form of teacher – full of wisdom and free of judgment. Maybe because of that, he was someone you toiled to make proud, but never someone you were afraid to disappoint.
 
Gary was the same every day, with everyone he encountered. He lifted us when we were down, and challenged us to buckle down if we were flying close to the sun. He offered the same time, respect and friendship to everyone, regardless of age, standing in life or mile time. He was a rare peacekeeper in a track world full of egos and quarrels. He was a better equalizer than the drink he praised.
 

I’ll cut right to the chase, as some Law student who calls Biology a pseudoscience accused me of waxing lyrical in previous posts (lawyer me that one, Frisky F ;) ). 
 
I have been out since July - no running or cross training. I have not been able to do consistent aerobic exercise without having knee pain, and it has completely changed my lifestyle. I eat less, sleep less, and go for walks to get some sort of blood flow going. I am a tablet of Metamucil away from becoming Mister Rogers circa 2000. I have never endured a more trying five months - I  am living my worst nightmare. 
 
I have been seeing world-class therapists here in Windsor and have been doing so many glute exercises that I can probably crack open three walnuts at once. Yet, there has been no change in pain levels. So, I have no choice but to fight this injury with more fire - I'm getting arthroscopic surgery.
 
The date: December 14th
 
Location: London
 
Passengers in the Cyrmobile: so far, two (three more seats available – come see me recover from anaesthetics as you may be able to convince me to buy you dinner pretty easily).
 
Recovery time: 6 weeks to 3 months
 
Surgery efficacy rate: 50/50
 
I met the surgeon today, and after reading my MRI, he told me I have patellar tendinopathy. That was always what we thought, but it is nice to know that nothing else is going on in there, and it is nice to have the diagnosis confirmed. The pain has been pretty severe at times, so it got me worried that its cause was something more sinister. 
 
According to the surgeon, the injury could go away by itself in several more months, in a year, or in a few years. It is curable with rest and physiotherapy, but surgery often accelerates the process. Since arthroscopy is non-invasive and relatively low risk, and since I was able to get under the knife this fast, I saw it as the best option. 
 
So that’s where we are. I am optimistic (thanks Warren Buffet) and I try to approach this challenge with a positive outlook, but I can’t help being nervous. Living as a non-athlete has been an interesting experiment, but it has strengthened my conviction that, health willing, I will never quit running. I hate this loss of structure and I don’t feel like myself – running has become a huge part of my life in these last five years. 
 
Plus, it is very hard to explain to people who are not in the sport (or sport in general) what I am dealing with. It’s not that I am missing out on making the Olympics. It’s not about the Olympics – it never was. What I am missing out on is trying to crack the top 10 at U Sports XC. It’s travelling to new places for training camps. It’s running on new grounds with new people. It’s logging 100 miles in a week and smugly posting on Strava about it. It’s going for a run with my sister and my two little bros when I get home for Christmas. It’s putting Angus Rawling in his place, dammit (which seems increasingly hard to do)! 
 
I love this sport, and the people in it. I am meant to run. I don’t know how fast, and I don’t know how far, but I am meant to run. 

So let’s end this.

AC
 
 
 

I was not even marginally successful, but I was hungry. I wanted to turn heads so badly. Back then, I was motivated by a combination of sources. There were the wholesome satisfactions of feeling fit and setting new PBs, and then the hellish desires to make incredulous jaws drop and gain recognition from my superiors. Like only an immature 19-year-old speed-obsessed teenager in an Eminem and testosterone-induced perma-trance could, I wanted to rub my nameless spikes on a seldom frequented East-Coast track and set the damn world on fire. It did not matter who cared. I romanticized the craft too much to  notice that most people probably didn't. 

​I wanted so badly to get faster that I probably wished it into existence. Soon, things started clicking. By my arbitrary standards, I was fulfilling my promise - I was starting to make it. A few months removed from that small surgery, I won a conference bronze medal. Then silvers, then I finished my time at St. FX with gold. Our team won championships, our group travelled the country for road, cross and track races. I beat Cal's PB. He beat mine. Neuffer crushed both of us, we crushed him back. I beat Riley for the first time. I beat Lee for the first time. Angus came in and beat me for the first time. Scott stayed for a fifth year and raised us to his level. I chose to move to Windsor to keep running. There were new personal bests. I ran on Hayward Field. I chased Nick Falk on grass, on dirt, on pure hate. I came back to PEI for the summer, by then having run faster on the track than any Islander before me. I won road races at the Highland Games. I saw Luc, a runner from my hometown whom I helped coach make his first strides at St. FX. I wrote and published a book on our team's journey to the 2016 U Sports championship.



​

I love reminiscing on these moments, no matter how insignificant they may seem to whomever. Not because I want to boast - many would have much more to boast about anyway - but because they are rewarding to me. Lately, I have been inclined to reminisce, because the memory of these moments has been my crutch. 

Immediately following a fun weekend of racing at the Antigonish Highland Games in early July, I gradually descended from a rarely-interrupted three-and a-half-year-long high. Now three months into a knee injury, I was told there is bone degeneration on my left patella. I am not surprised, as my knee hurts to walk on. The development of pain was insidious, and crept up on me so discreetly that I don't think I could have been more diligent in trying to catch it. According to the doctor I am working with, the healing potential for this kind of injury, like its best treatment option, is unknown. Tomorrow, I am being given a PRP (platelet-rich plasma) injection to stimulate healing. If it does not work, I might have to opt for something more invasive.

These last few months have been difficult. It's not so much the time missed, as it is the uncertainty about my return timeline that keeps me up sometimes. Hobbling the Windsor campus without answers just weeks since I excelled here makes the setting sobering and dystopian. The possibility that I will not run again - that I will not feel high again - scares me, and brings tough questions to mind: If I do not make a comeback, have I wasted all this time trying to make the unmakable? Have I lost years of my life in vain?​ Should I have quit years ago? 

​

For four years, I elected running as the focal point of my life. I needed nothing else. Running with the X-Men (and now the Lancers) has pushed me to chase academic degrees. I found a social life during runs, team suppers and the odd after-party. I cultivated business relationships through the sport, and used running as a vehicle to develop other interests and passions I now have. My sport enabled my growth in multiple directions. I needed nothing else. At 23, I am convinced I still don't.

I now think that we never fully make it in running, but running makes us a bit more every time we get out the door. I've been incredibly lucky to stay healthy and grow within this sport over these last four years. Without health, I would not have gotten here. Not even close. I would not be writing, I would not be in a Master's program, I would not have the friends I have, and I probably would not be happy. So, regardless of what's next, how could I regret that rage-fuelled stubborn decision to blindly chase running that 19-year-old me stubbornly and miraculously nailed?  I can't.

I am 23, and for the first time in my life, I am facing a career-threatening injury. Stuart overcame one. Myriam overcame one. They are beatable. They have to be, because I cannot stop here. I want to chase more track times. I want to wear the Maple Leaf. I want to move to the roads. Maybe become a Roadhammer. Maybe progress to the marathon. I want to meet up with the boys when I'm fifty-three and tired from my day job and get my creaky but healthy joints out the door. On some level, by chance and circumstance, I've been made. But, I want to be made more. I don't want to be done. I don't want to be done. 

AC

​

I’m quivering. From the cold, I think. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just my rapid breathing that is making my chest twitch almost rhythmically. Either way, I’m beat, mangled. I can open my eyes, but not for long. Long enough to feel the wind on my eyeballs – a continuously present wind – that my somatosensory receptors have selectively ignored for over half an hour now.I cover my eyes to shield them. My hands are pulsing, but so is my forehead. They synchronize and throb together as I roll over to my backside, face still twisted in complete agony.
​

The Plains of Abraham have not seen such a spectacle for 258 years, buthistory has a weird way of repeating itself. The battle for land, between the French and the English, turned soldiers against each other. Multiple clans, fighting for the same purpose – to extinguish the opponent – depleted their resources, so much so that it was difficult to distinguish the winners from the losers. The line was blurred. Everyone looked the same. Teams were broken down to their purest forms – handfuls of individuals – sprawled out on the battlefield, waiting to learn if their self-sacrifice was worthwhile. Waiting to know if their self-sacrifice was honest enough. Today is not much different.

Here I am, a French-Canadian lying lifelessly, soon listlessly. I’m Montcalm reincarnate. Defeated on the Plains, a heaping pile of war residue. Next to me lies Wolfe, – no, Dewolfe – equally as trashed. We’re unsure of who crossed the finish line before us. We have no idea what’s happened behind. I think Bernie is close by, and the look on his face would be telltale. Too bad I can’t get up. Too bad I can’t see.

I need something – food, maybe. Water…something to make my stomach stop turning. My homeostatic levels are severely threatened from all angles. I feel empty in more ways than one. But there will be a banquet – there will be drinks. We will soon feel alive again. Sustenance is not an issue. I need reassurance. I need comfort so direly that I pick my arms up from the ground and use them as support to push my body up into a sad Vinyasa pose.

​I open my eyes, and look at Cal Dewolfe, sitting with his head between his knees – beat, distraught, confused. Thank God he is close. I would surely collapse under the weight of my chest and blood-filled head in seconds. I open my dry mouth, knowing that the moment will unveil the value – the significance – of these last months, of these last years. This moment of clarity and truth will be the one I remember. I sacrificed countless hours for this mid-November moment to be a good one. Hoping that he knows better, I turn towards my lanky training partner, roommate, friend, and rival and hope – wish – for some good news.

“How’d we do?”

​