We called it Outrun the Darkness for that reason.
It's because we know that when you shine a light on things like mental health, on things like the power that running community have to promote positive mental health, is those stories come out.
Anybody who has been out on a trail, you know that you may not know that person's last name,
you may not know how old that person is, but you know if they were abused as a child, if they had an alcoholic parent, what they're running from, what they're running towards, why they started running.
You know the deepest, darkest things about them because of this thing called running. Welcome to For the Long Run.
We explore the why behind what keeps runners running long, strong, and motivated, and how they've been able to achieve sustainable excellence. I'm your host, Jonathan Levitt, and we're so glad you're here.
This episode is brought to you by Mount to Coast, the award-winning footwear brand built for runners who go long, and I mean really long. You may have heard of the Double Boston.
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And check out Mount to Coast at mounttocoast.com. And while we're talking about Boston, on Saturday at five PM, head to the Boston Marathon Expo for a panel I'm hosting you won't want to miss.
It's called How We Can Make America's Cities Safe to Run for All. We're bringing together real experiences and real solutions to make running safer for every single one of us. See you there.
This episode is brought to you by Tifosi Optics. I want to take a second before I get into this because Tifosi is kicking off their third year as a partner on For the Long Run, and that means something to me.
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And welcome back. We have Jon Shep joining today from Ontario. Jon, thanks so much for taking some time to chat. No, I appreciate it. Appreciate the platform.
I've been diving into some of your, uh, back episodes and, you know, and I'm, I'm appreciating the opportunity to come on and talk about Outrun the Darkness. Awesome. Well, we're looking forward to it.
Mental health is a, is a topic that I love talking about. And when I started this podcast, it was quite stigmatized and, uh, these days it doesn't seem to be.
So making a small dent in the world one, uh, one podcast episode at a time, uh, talking about stuff that matters. So first question is always a, a tough one, um, and that question is, who is Jon?
[chuckles] Well, for this purposes, I'm a runner. Um, I'm a father. I'm a husband to an amazing wife. Uh, I try to be an amazing husband to said wife.
But, uh, it's-- And then I am a lead ambassador with Athletics Ontario, so that's our, uh, provincial governing body that's responsible for everything road and trail, um, track and field in Ontario, make sure that, uh, races are sanctioned and safe.
And, and I came to that from even before I was born. So my grandfather was an Olympic-level track coach with Athletics Ontario, and then my mom was an official, and now she leads up our, um, national body.
And then sort of when my grandfather passed away, I guess about four and a half years ago, um, I kinda wanted to continue on the, uh, the family legacy.
So in-- for the purposes of this, um, but then also with Outrun the Darkness being a mental health project, I come in as a, uh, recoverer from an eating disorder, from a mental health crisis, um, but then also currently as a, uh, special ed, uh, department head.
So I, I run the special ed department in my high school. Um, and so, I mean, mental health and, and mental crises and, and all of this stuff, I mean, is a daily thing that I see.
So I wear a number of different hats, some of which are a little wetter than others when it's raining outside. But, uh, I mean, honestly, it's-- I can't separate any of those things from the person that I am.
All of them informs and gives me the power and empathy to be able to have these conversations because, I mean, you mentioned off the top, like mental health is, is less stigmatized than it was perhaps five years ago, 10 years ago.
ButIn having these conversations, I'm actually finding that to some extent we've almost taken for granted that we're having these conversations.
It's almost like, "Oh, okay, we talked about mental health for a few years, and now we're good." And, and I'm finding there's almost a bit of a regression over the past couple years. I don't know if you've seen that too.
I don't know that I have, but, you know, there was a lot of talk nine-- twenty nineteen, t-twenty twenty, twenty one, and, and maybe to your point, the regression is, like, we're not seeing it as much, but maybe that's my, my takeaway is, like, because it's happening and the, you know, the conversations are, are out there.
And so the, like, the need or the, the discussion about the need to have the conversation is not as public.
But, like, speaking to, to you as a Canadian, um, I, I remember the number of years, number of years ago, the Bell Let's Talk program- Mm-hmm...um, which I'm sure you know intimately.
And for those who, who are here in America and haven't seen it, Bell is, uh, the, one of the cellphone providers and, and there was a campaign that ran for a number of years where if you tweeted with a certain hashtag, they would donate, I think, five cents or something like that to mental health, um, charities and, and support.
And it was a big campaign with a lot of NHL players and a lot of the teams in Toronto and, and Ottawa and, and I think it was particularly those two cities, um, were really getting behind it. And I, I don't know.
I haven't seen that in, in a couple years, to your point. Yeah, it is still-- It's usually the end of Janu- it's actually right around my birthday usually. It's the end of January. Got it.
And, and yeah, it's this, it-- coast to coast celebration, and they do it differently.
It's text messaging and, and tweeting and hashtags and, yeah, they do improve the conversation about mental health, but it really is that, like, it's the day, right? Like, it's, it's the end of January.
They talk about it, and then the campaigns outside of it aren't, aren't continuing on as conversations.
Um- Yeah...I mean, currently we have-- I mean, there's, there's mental health for women, and there's, just coming out of Black History Month, there's, uh, sort of Black mental health awareness.
And so there are these, these weeks or chunks of time in which, uh, mental health does become prioritized in the, in the, the atmosphere and the conversation.
Um, and I guess the hope is that we can continue the conversation.
I mean, Outrun the Darkness, the project that we'll talk about that I, I launched at the, uh, beginning of February, is leading into the end of May and then sort of continuing on after that with the, the documentary release.
And so it's, it's a chance to have that conversation in long form for months on end and, and hopefully spark even more conversations. I think the need to have the continuity is, is critical, right?
It's, it's one thing to have a month or a week or a day or something like that, and it's another to have a sustained campaign.
So it's great to, it's great to hear that that's, that's happening through some of the initiatives that you're working on. We're gonna get to, to all of that, Outrun the Darkness and, and more.
I often will ask, you know, how did running find you? How did you find running? It sounds like it was a family thing, and you were destined to become a runner. So let's say, you know, you, you did, and what happens next?
How did you... You know, you're, you're doing these spectacular things in a single weekend.
How did the family experience of running turn into you doing ultras and marathons and consecutive, you know, big, big days out there? Yeah. It's, it's funny. I, I wasn't a runner until I fell off.
Like, I, I was the kid in grade twelve, we had to do the twelve-minute run in grade twelve, and I ran behind one of the trees, pretended to fall down, got a bleeding nose just to, like, completely dodge it, right?
So it was-- I was around road running and, and track and field from-- I mean, I was, I was running results up and down the stairs probably just to help burn off, like, all the energy when I was- Yeah...like six years old, right?
And they gave us the timing clock, and we were jumping in, in pole vault pits and, and jumping in the puddle that the steeplechase was. So I was always around it.
And then my mom ran a sports marketing firm that had, uh, Timex, the watch company, um, which actually the, the tagline of "Takes a licking and keeps on ticking," like, isn't that just ultramarathoning in- Right.
Yeah...its own right? Or life, yeah. [chuckles] And so, um, I worked with her for, I guess, two thousand and two until twenty seventeen.
And so that was my involvement really was doing the, the, the road racing circuit and, and being an official or being in sales and marketing.
But I didn't really put on a pair of shoes and run until after I got out of the hospital. So I was, uh, two thousand and seven, I was working the Ottawa Marathon.
I was about a year into the worst part of my disordered eating. Like, I was in-- trigger warning, folks. Like, I'm a six-foot-one male. I was a hundred and thirty-five pounds.
I looked skeletal, and I was sustaining, uh, twelve hundred calories a day, which, I mean, for context, I just went out for a two-hour run with a friend and put six hundred calories down. So, like, [chuckles]
it kind of puts in context the amount- Yeah...that I'm putting in my body. And so I'm working the Ottawa Marathon and, uh, which is one of the largest road races in Canada,
and passed out in the bathroom, uh, smacked my head on the floor, gave myself a concussion.
And so that weekend in two thousand and seven finished with me not working the Ottawa Marathon, not finishing the Ottawa Marathon, but, like, wandering the streets of Ottawa with a concussion in this, like, daze because not only was I underweight, but because back at that time, they thought OxyContin was this miracle drug.
The headaches that I was getting from being underweight, they're like, "Hey, take this OxyContin." And so me, addictive personality, again, runner and eating disorder history, is likeOkay, this thing's cool.
Ten milligrams feels really good. Let's take 50. And so, like between that and the concussion and, and being underweight, it was like that was rock bottom.
So fortunately at that time, I had a really great family doctor that while he prescribed the OxyContin because, I mean, the entire medical industry at that point was like, "Here's this miracle drug.
People can't get addicted on it." And then they're like, "Oh yeah, by the way, it's twice as addictive as heroin." And so got checked into a local mental health ward at home, um, and then started to recover.
And it-- I didn't recover in the hospital by any stretch. Like it was two weeks.
I somewhat got stable, but I went in at 135 pounds, and the only thing different when I left was I was still 135 pounds, but I'd cold turkeyed off the OxyContin because it was sort of a requirement of, of me leaving.
And, I mean, God's honest truth, like if you don't have sympathy or empathy for anyone who's in the throes of addiction, try going cold turkey off 50 milligrams of Oxy in tw- in 48 hours. Like it was--
I, I was blessed to have an amazing nursing staff there, um, that got me through that weekend. Like it was crying, sweating, DTs, the sha- like the worst of it.
But I left the hospital the same weight, but with this mentality of, I need to recover in order to continue living. And it was kinda two choices.
It's like, I could, I could stop everything and recover and then potentially live, or I can do them simultaneously. And so that's kind of why I've, I've phrased it as this life of recovery.
And, and still 19 years later, I am living a life of recovery. It is, it is ongoing.
And so back to your question about how running came into it, is I'd had to drop a class my last year university, 'cause again, loopy as all hell.
And so I had to take that class, I had to take kind of an extra semester of university to finish up, but I had all this free time 'cause it was one class, so I got a part-time job, uh, and I went to the gym, and both of those things changed my life.
Uh, and, and I do not say that, that mildly.
Like, uh, the part-time job I had was working bar at a restaurant, and yes, the guy with the eating disorder went to go work at a restaurant and, oh, by the way, then met his best friends at said restaurant and kind of his wife, who was a chef and was a chef for 15 years.
So like irony abound. Um, but then also I found the gym and, and to warm up is I would be doing 10 minutes on the treadmill.
And that's literally where it started, is it was like five, six days a week, I was doing 10 minutes on the treadmill, and then I would sit in the weights. And then it sort of just snowballed.
It was, uh, I'm gonna sign up for a 5K that was a part of the hospital that I was in, uh, and so ran the 5K.
Lo and behold, I'm back working the Ottawa Marathon and the, uh, guy at Timex who I was working with, Dave Lowe, he's like, "Hey, I threw out my back. I can't run this 10K." I was like, "Yeah, okay, cool.
I'll run a 10K," stripped my jeans off, put my shorts on, and ran his fastest 10K ever. And sorry, Ottawa Marathon, yes, I did kinda bandit a bit, but, uh, it was the only time I did it.
And then it, it was the snowball, right? Like it was the never gonna do a half marathon and then did a half, and then never gonna do a, a marathon, do the marathon.
Found this amazing thing called ultras, and then I was in it like a dirty shirt. Like, uh, it was... What I love about the trail and ultra scene is we're all homers, right?
Like you will, I'm sure, speak with the same fondness of your, uh, road and trail and ultra scene as I will of the folks in Ontario, and it's, it's our home base, and I couldn't not love it.
I mean, that led me into running and, and this past four years working with Athletics Ontario and being able to network with, with the running community at a different level, um, with the people in the community, with the run crews, with the race directors, with the runners themselves.
Like how do you not love this thing? So you fall off the deep end quickly, as many of us have. How have you been able to protect it as something that's strong and positive versus like another addictive path to go down?
And I, I say that as somebody who has similar tendencies to, you know, go all in on certain things and maybe go too far sometimes.
Um, so I'm familiar to a degree with, with like how the brain works in that, in that department. But I'm curious for you, how have you...
Right, 'cause like I did a podcast with Ken Rideout, for example, and he talked about how he did 10 miles a day while he was stopping drugs and, and that was, that was how he got sober.
He, he went out and did 10 miles a day, and he was like, "Now I'm addicted to running and, and now I, I do it every single day, and I can't not do it."
So how do you, how do you do it in a way that's healthy or are you doing it in a way that's healthy? Yeah. [laughs] What, what did the initial, the initial, um, you know, uh, deep, deep end dive look like?
So I've-- I'm a wrestling nerd at heart. I grew up with it, like Attitude Era, Stone Cold Steve Austin, like that was, that was me, right? And so, uh, I have an affinity for quoting both Roddy Piper and Dusty Rhodes.
And so Dusty Rhodes had this quote, and it was something to the effect of riding the edge of a lightning bolt. You are 100% right, is me and running could very well become disordered.
It could be a getting burned by the lightning bolt. But if I don't not play with fire- But you need it.
You need some, some type of sim- stimulation like that, yeahYeah, and if it's not going to be running, it's going to be working. Like I, I've worked jobs before we had kids.
I worked jobs where if my wife was at the restaurant, I'd look outside, see if the parking lot was empty enough, and be like, "Yeah, nah, I can come back in." Uh, like I can go back up and keep going.
And so I know, to your point, my tendencies of if I'm going to have joy in, in my life, uh, that job was phenomenal. This thing called running is amazing.
I-if I'm going to engage in these things, I need to have boundaries and guidelines, and one of the amazing things that running gives me is a relationship with food that allows me to evolve, right?
Like I, I saw food as the enemy. I saw food as something to control, to restrict, to get high from. Like I, I just listened to the, uh, Your Diet Sucks podcast. Shout out to Zoe and Kylie. Yeah, they're fantastic.
Like I was listening to them, and they talked about the addictive quality of an eating disorder, and I'd never heard it described that way. But like the high that you get from not eating and from controlling was, was...
It was a high. It was, it was the OxyContin, and not only was it like the OxyContin, but it was like, I can now control something, but then also get a release and a high from it.
Like this is, this is my perfect friend at this point in time, right? And so running, I need to make sure it doesn't get disordered. So it's things like training plans. It's things like
making sure I'm fueling enough and pushing my, my calories to where they need to be and seeing food as the ability to, to do those things. And but I also know that it's
if, if running becomes overdominant, then it takes away from who I am as a... All those things that you asked me at the beginning of the podcast, like who are you?
And if I run too much, I'm not a good enough dad, and I'm not a good enough husband, and it takes away from my job.
But if I run that right amount, if I find that, that edge of the lightning bolt and, and I'm, I'm riding that appropriately, it makes me a better husband. I'm more present. I'm more calm with my kids.
They, they see Dad as a better dad. I'm much more effective at my job. I'm much more thoughtful and articulate, and I have distance in meetings from, from my initial reaction that I can start, see the whole picture.
And, and then food, right? Like it-- I can look at food... I, I mean, it, you referred to the weekend that I just did.
So I did the Goggins challenge of four by four by forty-eight and then capped it off with one of our, our local half marathons, the Chili Half Marathon up in Burlington, Ontario, so about an hour west of Toronto.
And by the end of it, crushed with joy. Two burgers and an, uh, large onion rings, large fries. And
it initially used to be, and this is where the lightning bolt thing comes in, is it initially used to be I could only eat those things after a run.
Like when I first started, and this is why I, I embrace the opportunity that run gives me and why I continue to run is because, yes, initially, that first time I had Harvey's was after a fifty-miler, and it was the first time I'd had it probably in fifteen years.
But now I can have that, and I don't even have to run. So why running for me is worth it is because it's, it gives me the opportunity to have exposure therapy.
So it gives me the opportunity to today go on that two-hour run and have six hundred calories in gels or in chews. It's actually Exact Nutrition. I don't know if y'all have it, but it's like a, a gel bar almost.
Doesn't freeze in the winter. It was phenomenal, but I had about six hundred calories of those, and I couldn't have done that without running. I couldn't have pizza with my wife after doing a talk at a local run club
if I hadn't first done it with running. And so running gives me a, a, a purpose to pushing myself with food and seeing it as fuel.
And then the exposure therapy allows me to then do it in my regularly scheduled programming.
And so that's why running, riding the edge of the lightning bolt is worth it, because if I do it right, and I think I am at this point in time, I think we are with between myself and my community and my wife and, and my family, it's, it's much better and fulsome and colorful of a life than if I just didn't engage in it at all.
And this is kind of the whole like recovery while you live thing is riding the edge of the lightning bolt is recovering while you live.
If I were to wait to recover, I wouldn't be able to use running as this exposure therapy.
My life would be much safer and would be much more stable, but a hell of a lot less colorful if I didn't open myself up to running and the community. And, and that's been the crux of my recovery.
It has been going from being in service of the world, being this robot savior hero type that just does for others, versus now where I've opened myself up and to all the feelings.
Like, and, and anyone who knows this, right? Like you choose to open yourself up, and you're gonna get hurt, you're gonna get stepped on, you're gonna get... You're gonna run in puddles.
But the joy that you're going to experience by opening yourself up and being not just for the world, but of the world, I mean, that's been my last four years with Athletics Ontario is engaging in this running community and seeing that riding the edge of the lightning bolt is so incredibly worth it.A lot of runners see fueling as some secret, mysterious superpower.
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I love that analogy, the riding the edge of the lightning bolt and then the exposure therapy.
I've talked a lot about how running can be this sandbox of how do we experiment and, and learn and grow in a, in a low stakes environment, and I'm realizing that it's not low stakes for everyone.
And there are a lot of decisions that are made in the, in the act of running that, that have stakes, you know, particularly if you're having hamburgers and whatnot, pun intended.
But, um, yeah, it's a, it's a good reframe. How did you, how did you get to that place? Was it truly just doing it over and over again till you got comfortable enough to do it over and over again?
How did you push yourself to, to do that? Was it really just like, uh, at this point I don't have any other choice, I, I simply must? And did you like will yourself?
Was it like a fake it till you make it type, type experience? It's-- It has been exceptionally intentional. Like, it is, it is therapy. It's, uh, it's therapeutic, I will say. Yep. Sure.
Um, and that's been in, in collaboration with therapists, that it's, uh, I've been able to, to say, "Okay, what do I need to do to do X?" I mean, it might be
I want to be comfortable enough that if my son gives me an Oreo or my kids are having Oreos with my parents, and they're having tea and Oreos, that I wanna be able to just do it. I don't wanna have to worry about it.
I don't wanna have to think about it. And so how do I do that? Well, I eat a crap ton of Oreos during a, a four-by-four-by-forty-eight challenge.
[chuckles] And, and yeah, it's exposure therapy, and, and I'm not, I'm not done. That's why I'm saying, like, I'm, I'm living a life of recovery. And
I mean, my wife, uh, has just gotten a new job, and so we're going out to celebrate. And I sort of gave her three options.
Like, okay, we could go, uh, Friday for lunch, we could go Saturday with the kids, or we could go Monday for dinner, and you pick. Three, four, five years ago, I couldn't be that flexible with it.
I would, I would want to know the day, or I would want to know the meal, or I would want to-- I'd still be able to engage in it, but the comfort that I have now with the lack of control and to say, "Okay, let's, let's do this and find joy in it," that only has come through that very intentional exposure therapy.
So you're drawn to this sense of control, and at the same time, you're doing a sport that is outrageously out of our control, right? That people always say control the controllables, but- Yep...
you sign up for a hundred K, and you're signing up for an uncontrollable experience at it to some degree, right?
You can do the training, you can practice the fueling, you can pract-- you can make sure that your gear works, um, you like your shoes, whatever, but, like, you can't control the weather, you can't control the other people around you, you can't control how your stomach is gonna feel, you can't control, oh, the, they actually forgot to stock this aid station, and now I'm totally scr- Like, there's so much that's outside of your control.
How do you, how do you grapple with the, the control and the lack of control, particularly as the races get longer, and then as you're doing another event the next day? Well, I think you just mentioned it.
It's control the controllables, and it's, it's w- putting the race plan in place. Uh, so I'm now eight hundred milers under my belt and one two hundred miler.
And all of those w- uh, we had a plan going into place, right?
It's, it's what are you gonna eat, um, when you get tired, um, are you going to-- So having branched-chain amino acids and then having caffeine and having some extra food. And it's the--
I don't think it's necessarily been the outside world that I've wanted to control so much as my internal world. And because I've always been... It's funny, my daughter
comes by it honestly, but she had asked, I wanna say about four years ago, she's just turned eight, and she's like, "Okay, we-- What's a family rule?"And I was like, "Okay, well, you want rules?"
And it was like little things like, "Make sure you close the door," or do-- or, "Turn off the lights," or... I was like, "No, if we're-- we got family rules, we're doing big ones."
And it's like, okay, rule number one, Sheps are kind. Figured that's a pretty nice one. What's the next rule? Sheps don't panic. [chuckles] Her lips to God's ears. And so it's
controlling the controllables and then understand that there's a hell of a lot outside of your control, and you just go with it.
If you know-- I mean, trying to be as present and thoughtful with, okay, so I've, I've taken care of my nutrition, I've taken care of my caffeine, so therefore, I can navigate the unknowns, and I can troubleshoot.
Um, the first night of my two hundred-mile race last July, we...
It was three of us running together, uh, buddy Scott and Leo, who I just met that day pretty much or the day before, and my feet got bogged, like just absolute soaked. And we still-- I mean, we were what?
Thirty-five, forty miles into this two hundred-mile race. And they're like: "Don't worry, just stop. Put your feet up, warm your feet up, make sure they def-- they, um, get all the fl- water out of them."
Uh, socks, same thing, put rocks in my socks, heated them up. And so by controlling the things we could, when it came to the troubleshooting piece, we were able to navigate it.
And I mean, I say the same thing to kids when, when they're writing essays. It's like, you can, you can know how to write an essay,
you can know the content about what you're writing, so whether it's history or English text or what have you, and you can kinda plan for
these are the five or six topics that might come up on said essay question, but you're never gonna know exactly what that essay question's gonna be. And that level of unknown is a good thing.
Like, you need to be able to plan for, I might not see a bear in the woods. I might see a porcupine. I might see a skunk. What am I gonna do? I gotta tell you, I've seen a, both a bear in the woods and a porcupine.
Porcupine scared the bejesus out of me 'cause, like, th-this thing had no F's to give. It's just middle of the trail. But I mean, besides the point, it was...
So yes, it's, uh, going back to your point, control the controllables and just Sheps don't panic, and, and just trying to troubleshoot the things when they do come up. Uh, you asked about control.
I know myself enough that I can mess with myself, so for a guy who worked for a watch company for fifteen years, I don't wear a watch when I run for that purpose because I'm the, I'm the idiot in the parking lot who's like, "It's nine point nine.
I need to get to ten," or, "My pace should be this," or, "I said I'd run for two hours, and it's an hour and fifty-five."
Like, I will, I will go out and specifically go five or ten minutes more or less than I should just to screw with myself 'cause I know that that's where the growth happens. So it's--
I, I don't necessarily expect that I'm gonna be able to control all of it.
Um, but yeah, being exceptionally thoughtful ahead of time, leaning on-- I mean, my wife's been my crew person for most of my ultras and, and she and I coming up with a game plan and, and, uh, evolving that as years go on, um, that's exceptionally helpful.
So knowing, the knowledge that I've got that to lean on gives me the ability to go, to your point, to these unknowns and just sort of say, "I'm gonna, I'm gonna be able to deal," because, yeah, Sheps don't panic, and we've done the best we can.
Speaking of going to the unknown and, and doing hard things, talk to me about Outrun the Darkness and where the concept for this came from and, um, what led you, to you even reaching out to, to tell this story. So
I, I mentioned the running community, and that's g- I, I joke with my wife that my friends in high school got me in different trouble than my running friends do, and I don't know which gets me hurt less, but, uh, it's just different hurt.
[chuckles] Yeah. So I was, uh, supporting-- There's a, a gentleman, Yahtzee, who was doing a fifty-one point nine K run, uh, to raise money for homeless, uh, individuals.
And we'd never met the guy, but because the running community is amazing, uh, a couple of buddies and I went out and paced him for this fifty-two K run, fifty-two-ish, fifty-one point nine.
And I was telling this story about how the Ottawa Marathon had crashed and burned, and ten years later, I went and I did the Ottawa Marathon for the first and, at this point, only time as kind of this celebration.
And then I moved from that into the ultra space, and so the Sulfur Springs hundred K, which is Ontario's only Western States qualifier, hint, hint, nudge, nudge for anybody who does wanna come up here.
It's an, it's a tremendous race. It is one of the gems of, of Canadian running, I will say.
And I moved to there because I wanted to go longer, so sort of did their fifty K, fifty-miler, hundred K, hundred-miler a couple of times. But they're on the same weekend. It's always Ottawa Marathon weekend.
So a-as we're running with Yahtzee and as we're pacing him, I'm telling this story to a couple of buddies of mine, and I was like, "Yeah, twenty years, it'd be really cool," so this would be twenty twenty-seven.
"It'd be really cool to do the Sulfur Springs hundred K on the Saturday, drive to Ottawa," so that's about a six-hour drive for everybody, "and then do the Ottawa Marathon the next day."
And my buddy Bernard looks at me, he's like, "Well, why not now?" I'm like, "Well, 'cause it's nineteen years. It's an odd number. It doesn't have the, the poetry to it."
And then, I mean, as, as all good/bad ideas evolve, within a couple hours, it's like, look, we got friends who'd come out and do this. My parents aren't getting any younger. It's like, yeahThis seems awesome.
So that's where the idea kind of generated from, was having the support of my runner brothers.
So the, the two gentlemen that came out, one's Bernardo Barquez, who's so entrenched in the Toronto running community, and Marvin Mendoza, who ran 26 marathons last year to raise money for a local hospital,
and who has been an exceptional friend over the last year, that I literally just-- I met him through the podcast and have gone on more runs with him than I have with many individuals.
And so they're going to come out and, and do the runs as well and be there for the drive and, and that's kind of where this came from, was this idea that I want to celebrate my recovery.
I want to, uh, celebrate positive mental health. I wanna show people the power that running and community have to be a, a bastion for positive mental health, um, but then also be able to tell the story.
And if I'm going to do this, I want it to be for something more than me. I know that running is going to help me. I know that community is going to help me. But I also know a kid a week
who's going through some sort of mental health crisis, uh, at my school, and those are the kids I know about, right? Those are the kids I have relationships with. Like, I see...
And I mean, we, we started the podcast talking about the, that mental health is in a better space than it used to be, and, and it sure as hell is.
Like, 20 years ago, the fact that I was in a mental health ward as opposed to an eating disorder clinic as a male, like, speaks to the, the growth and understanding of it. But
I'm still working with kids who were talking to their parents about, "Oh, it's not, it's not mental health, it's just stress. They're not, they're not anxious, they're just stressed."
It's like, I've seen your kid check under the table five times because they're worried about missing something, and if you look at the backs of their hands, there's like, they're scratching it incessantly.
Like, that's anxiety. That's mental health. The panic attack that kids have had, and I've, I've counseled kids who are, like, two hours into a panic attack, and all they can do is look at my feet because they're,
they're that hijacked. Or during COVID, the kids who are like, "I know that you, I know that you can't help do my work, and that's okay. But can you just be on the Google Meet? Can you just be there?
I won't show my screen. I just want to know that somebody is there." And so for all of those kids that I know I work with and for all of the kids that I know
that don't have somebody to talk to, and the adults and the runners who similarly don't have somebody to talk to about mental health, that's why I wanted to do this project, was I want to shine light on this.
I mean, we called it Outrun the Darkness for that reason.
It's because we know that when you shine a light on things like mental health, on things like the power that running and community have to promote positive mental health, is those stories come out.
Like, anybody who has been out on a trail, you know that you may not know that person's last name,
you may not know how old that person is, but you know if they were abused as a child, if they had an alcoholic parent, what they're running from, what they're running towards, why they started running.
You know the deepest, darkest things about them because of this thing called running. And, and that needs a greater platform.
We're talking about this on a running podcast, and I would suspect that most people who are listening to us know damn well what we're talking about.
But that's why we're doing this and, and I say we because it is, yes, my runner brothers, but we've also, uh, got a videographer who, uh, Kosuke Media, again, amazing track and field and, and running videographer who's taking this on as a passion project because he values the importance of mental health.
And so the hope is that, yes, we are talking to runners about this, but that we're also talking to people at large about the fact that, like, look what running and community can do.
And this may not be a running and community thing for you, but what is your community? Is it bocce? Is it pickleball? Is it, uh, a book club?
Like, what are you-- what community can you leverage for your positive mental health? And then for your kids, what community can they leverage?
And not the online community, not the social media, but the blood, the sweat, the leaning on each other, the hugging each other, the crying with each other.
Like, the people and the blood that you can lean on in order to have positive mental health, that's why we're doing this. That's why I figured, you know what?
My story, I know what's going to help me, but how can I have it help other people? And so thank you. I appreciate you for, for saying yes when I reached out and be like, "Let's tell this story.
Let's amplify this message," because I know I'm in a privileged position. I am a, uh, relatively well-off male who is fairly confident in my ability to say, "I'm nuts, and I don't care, and I wanna tell people about it."
Like, I mean, we're all nuts a little bit, but some of us just get help, and I picked my crazy, right? My crazy is running. My crazy is this community. And I do that because otherwise, my crazy's gonna pick me.
Like, my disordered eating, my, uh, hypervigilance, that would pick me. So that's where Outrun the Darkness came from, was how can I be of service to the world? Amazing story. Two things.
One, you need a friend with an airplane. And two- [chuckles]... um, what must be true-For this to be su- a success, how, how do you ensure that this achieves the goal that you're looking to achieve?
You know, it's a, it's a good question, and in the running community, I was fortunate enough to reach out to some e-exceptional folks who have done work similar to this, and they asked, "What's your goal?"
And I was like, "You know what? If I get 10,000 eyes on this and not a dollar, great. I would much rather that than $10,000 and no eyes." And I would say that it has already borne fruit.
I've been able to go out to some local run clubs and have this conversation. I've had people reach out on social media and say, "You know what? I thank you for telling this story."
People who I've known for years who have come out and said, "You know what? Thank you."
People in my school, uh, I stood up in a staff meeting, and I said, "Hey, y'all have a safe space here for me, and I wanna share some really cool stuff that I'm doing outside of here, not because I'm, I'm being a shill and not because of anything like that, but because, like, I wanna spread this message."
And I've had people in my own building be like, "Thank you for saying this. Like, we've been going through this," or, or, "We really appreciate your story, and we appreciate you telling this."
So I would say it's already borne fruit.
What it would look like to really sort of go places is we've got some partners that have come on between, uh, Ultra Running and Zact Nutrition, who I mentioned earlier, and, um, and CLA, uh, another brand, and if they're able to push this out on their channels, I really do think that it has the power to, to spread that message and spark conversations, and it might not be them reaching out to me, but it might be them reaching out to the person down the hall who's like...
And I had this 10 or so years ago where somebody just stopped me and said, "Hey, I haven't seen you smile in a while. Is everything okay?"
If doing this helps somebody do that for somebody else, like, that's, that's the goal is we may-- Yes, I am seeing this bear fruit in the small conversations that we're having, and I hope it bears fruit with respect to the filming of the documentary.
All of those things that I'm not gonna be able to see, where it's the, the plus one or the- The ripple effect. Right? Like, and then what do they do, right?
They help somebody who then, 10 years down the line, they go and canoe across Lake Ontario for mental health, right? Like there's, they're, that's, that's the goal. The 10,000 eyes goal, that's the goal.
So the 100K plus the marathon ends up being a spectacular physical and mental feat to, to accomplish. What has to be true in order to, to do the thing, right? 'Cause I don't, I don't think that- Right...
it, it's required to perform well in order to, to raise awareness to, uh, to what you're doing, but it, it sure does help. [chuckles] Yeah, um, I th- huh.
When we registered for the Ottawa Marathon, they asked as part of the registration page- What's your time? It wa- it actually was like, "Are you gonna run it, or are you gonna run/walk, or are you gonna walk it?"
And I kinda had to take a pause. I was like, "Huh, I don't really know at this point." It might be 17 hour- seven hours. Yeah. [chuckles] So I think the completing it is the goal, and there's gonna be hard times.
And so I know, uh, okay, so nitty-gritty running nerd stuff. For me, the limiting factors are gonna be twofold. One is, how well do my quads hold up? So it is a trail race.
It is going to have the eccentric loading on my quads, and I've also previously done a back-to-back, uh, weekend. It was a 50K on the Saturday and a marathon on the Sunday.
So what did me in there was my hamstrings were too weak, and so what happened was my quads took the beating during the 50K, and as a result, I went into the marathon the next day with sore quads, which then meant that my knees pulled.
So, like, my quads had shrunk, and then my knee took the brunt of it. So it wasn't, I mean, dispelling the myth. It wasn't my knees that were hurting, folks.
It was the fact, it was the, the downward effect of m-my patellofemoral pain occurred because my quads weren't taking the damage because my hamstrings weren't taking the damage.
So for the last three months, I've been very diligent about strengthening my hamstrings, doing hamstring curls, and, uh, curls with a, uh, Swiss ball, um, straight leg deadlifts,
just to make sure that my hamstrings are strong enough so that my quads don't have to take it. So that's kind of number one, trying to figure out the, the hamstring, uh, weakness.
Um, also now that some of the snow's defrosting, going out on some of the larger hills that we've got and doing some eccentric downhills, and so just being really, uh, training my quads to take the downhill damage.
Um, and then the, the sort of third piece is the recovery in between. So it's, I mean, we're gonna be sitting in a car, so it's probably gonna be massage guns.
I love c- uh, recovery tights, uh, compression recovery tights. I used those when I did the Goggins challenge this past weekend, and even in between d- rounds, like two hours, did a lot of good.
Um, the food thing is the one I'm not 100% sure on, and it's not even necessarily, like, the, the disordered eater is, is weird about food. But I guess I'll ask you the question 'cause I am struggling.
Typically, after 100K, that's my, like, I'm gonna crush a pizza, and ice cream, and Oreos. I'm gonna have the Harvey's.
I'm gonna have some amazing, like, uh, we've got some amazing, uh, different cultures, diversity up here, so, like, amazing Indian food or, or Ethiopian food or something like that.
But knowing that's in my stomach the day before, I, like, you're getting the regurge, and you're getting the acid reflux. So I guess-I'm still trying to figure that out.
You got any suggestions food-wise for the in-betweens? Yeah. Um, pizza. [chuckles] Um, I think that's gotta be the move.
I mean, the, the answer is really, like, whatever, whatever works for you the night before a long run. Um, and I tend to have really strong long runs after eating pizza or burger and fries.
And so the, you know, something like that is gonna do double duty of being, like, really dense to help recover from the, the hundred K.
Again, assuming, like, you're able to stomach that after doing a hundred K, but also that that works for you the night of a long run.
The first fifty K I finished, I had, I had a whole pizza and a burrito, like, within three hours. And could I have gone for a run the next day? Probably not. But, um, did it sit well? Yeah, it was great.
So that's where, that's where I think I would go.
I would also look at liquid, liquid calories and things like tart cherry juice and, um, even sports drink, uh, following, following the race and, and the morning of the, the next, uh, the Ottawa Marathon.
We ought to get you connected with, with Hyperice and see if they can get you some boots or some of the, the calf sleeves you can wear in the car, um, as well because that would, that would certainly, um, help, and you can do it while you're wearing the, the compression tights as well.
Well, and so thank you for the, the pizza-burger suggestion.
I think in my head, I'd been picturing replicating doing back-to-back runs and eating in between, but I like your idea of just doing it before a big run to desensitize 'cause that's also a little more manageable is I don't have to then plan two runs.
I can plan- Yeah... one. I do love the sports drink idea.
I had been considering milkshake, but I think at this point, if, like, getting, like, a high-carb scratch or, like, a really high density, uh, like, almost, like, muscle gainer. But yeah- Yeah...
the protein, like, getting some protein in, getting that, that high-carb mix might be good.
Actually, now that you mention the recovery, so one other thing that bore fruit from doing this talk, uh, a couple of weeks ago was that a, uh, local organization called The Recovery Room 360 Athletics has given a bunch of demo equipment.
So I actually- Cool... have a box downstairs that I'm waiting to crack open. I'm a, a teacher. I'm going into March break, so I've got a big hundred-mile week planned for, for March break.
And so I'm cracking that box open and, and so check out Outrun the Darkness on, on Instagram, folks, 'cause you'll see all the nice toys that I get in there. Nice.
It, it's my mystery box at this point, so shout out to, to 360 Athletics, and it's... Yeah, that, that certainly is gonna be a thing, especially, I mean, fortunately, I've got people who, who are doing the drive.
Um, and so we'll just chill out back there and get some snooze.
The other piece that's helpful that I actually learned about from Kylie, speaking of Zoe and Kylie, um, anytime you go beyond like four-ish hours of an endurance event, adding in some protein, like five to 10 grams.
I tried that in that 50K that I did, um, through like a piece of jerk-- some jerky- Mm-hmm... um, which gets you some sodium as well.
Um, but you could look at doing something like that if, if that's not something you've experimented with in the hundred K. But then I assume- Yeah...
that the marathon is gonna take you more than four hours, so that's another way so you don't wake up on Monday feeling like utterly destroyed, just- Yeah. [chuckles]... like quite destroyed.
Well, and actually, it's a good thing you mentioned the protein 'cause there was a, there's a hundred-mile race up here called the Haliburton Hundred in September.
And for whatever reason-- So I'm vegan, by the way, so the, the burgers, the pre-uh, suggested burgers were vegan burgers. Got it. And so- So no jerky then.
[chuckles] Yeah, pro- well, I mean, I don't know what they've got, tofu jerky. That's nothing. That sounds awful. [chuckles] I, I know.
I'm vegan, but I can still-- I'm still exceptionally biased against like the, the Tofurky and- Sure... made-up stuff.
So, um, I-- on course, they had, uh, Clif protein bars, and that was-- I mean, they're half sugar anyway, but they've got about 20 grams of protein per bar, and I, I had probably about 10 of those. So I felt...
I probably had about 200 grams of protein within that hundred-miler, but I felt awesome after it. Like I, I have to say that one of the,
one of the hacks and unlocks, one of those I controlled the controllables, and this was one of those happy accidents, was I felt exceptionally good after that race, and so I've tried to be diligent about keeping that protein in.
Yeah. Creatine's also been exceptionally helpful, so I've started doing that during my training blocks over the past two years and have found that I'm much more durable.
Now, last year leading into the 200-miler, I tapered off of it going into the race, knowing that it's great for training, but it's not necessarily suggested for these long efforts.
Uh, but I may actually just keep it on to keep myself durable through the, the hundred and forty-two point two K Ultra Double. Makes sense. Yeah. Creatine is a...
I saw a tweet today, and it was something to the effect of like, "You mean to tell me that this thing helps with, with, um, athletic performance, cognition, and there's no downside?" [chuckles] It's like- Yep... yeah.
Yes. Particularly if you're a vegan or vegetarian. It's even better for you than it is for me.
To the, the point of downsides, so when I started it last year, and again, this is exposure therapy, this is knowing that I'm in-- I'm living a life of recovery.
Before going into it, I had to self-talk because knowing that it could cause bloating, it could cause weight gain.
Now I don't weigh myself, but I, for about six weeks during the, the onboarding phase, I didn't look in a mirror. I was very intentional. I was like, "I need to not look in a mirror.
I-- If I get out of the shower, I'm wrapping the towel around my waist" And I self-talked thatIt's going to make me a better athlete, and also the cognition piece, so my f- uh, dementia runs in my family.
And so if I can use it and see benefits, then I can suggest it to my father, for example- Mm-hmm... who, who's in his 70s.
And so, but now, having now gone through, this would be the third training cycle onboarding creatine, none of the neurosis, right? It's like, so it's- That's good. It works. Yeah. Exposure therapy, recovery works.
It leads to growth. It's ugly, and it's messy, and it isn't always linear, and it's not always fun, and it does involve engaging in all the weird, awful, niggly feelings.
But by the end of it, riding the edge of a lightning bolt is certainly worth it. I love it. Jon, this has been a blast. I can't wait to follow along with you and your adventures here in the coming weeks.
It's-- You're doing this in May, if I recall. Is that correct? Yeah. So it's May twenty-third and twenty-fourth. Twenty-third's the Sulfur Springs 100K, twenty-fourth is the Ottawa Marathon twenty twenty-six.
So Outrun the Darkness, people can follow along as we do some really cool stuff leading up to the event.
And then that's where they'll be able to find out details of where we're going to be releasing the documentary afterwards. Amazing.
Uh, where can, where can we follow you if we wanna follow you on these adventures and your training leading up to it? Yep. So it's @outrunthedarkness, all one word, on Instagram.
And then also if you wanna check it out, the Athletics Ontario Running Podcast. We've had individuals from Ontario and beyond that help it inform what Ontario does.
But yeah, those-- that collaboration has been everything to me. Again, it's a family legacy and, and
whenever I, I would do these charity challenges, whether it was a Goggins challenge or what have you, when my grandfather was, was alive,
he would always send me a message afterwards and he'd say, "I'm exceptionally proud of you. I, I never thought running could be like this." He was an elite coach, and he's like, "What you're doing with running,
you're giving back. You're showing me," and he was in his 80s at that point, "you're showing me r- what running can be." And so I think of him when I'm doing stuff like this and, yeah, you know what? I, I make him proud.
And so my,
my media award from Athletics Ontario stands right beside his Hall of Fame induction from Athletics Canada, and my grandmother, who's still alive and an absolute badass at the age of ninety-one, that's on her shelf.
And she can see two people that think she's amazing right beside her, but also I can honor the, the work and the legacy that my grandfather started and that my mom's continued, and know that I would be making him happy by having these conversations.
Amazing. Grandparents are the best. I, I can only imagine how happy hearing that, "I'm exceptionally proud of you," line, uh, must have made you feel. So what a cool story.
Thank you for sharing it with the audience, and we will, we will be rooting for you in a few weeks here. Thanks very much, Jonathan. I appreciate it. Of course. [outro music] That's it for today's episode.
Like many long runs with friends, it's sad when it has to end. Join us next time as we continue to share inspiring stories from the running community.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or training partner who you think would like it too.
This podcast was produced by Emma Benner of Sandy Boy Productions with musical composition by Brian Walters of Single Track Sound. Thank you for your support, and we'll see you out there. [outro music]