The Shakeout Podcast

Runners are a quirky bunch. And if you can find a group of like-minded individuals to join you on the run, either in companionship or competition –or both, there is an unmistakable bond that brings you and holds you together. This week on The Shakeout we take you back to the story of the Hart House Runners –a multi-generational group of runners who have been meeting every week at lunchtime for the...

In anticipation of the Ottawa Race Weekend, we bring you the third installment of The Shakeout Podcast's series on the great Canadian running cities and take you to the nation's capital where we chat with Adam Scotti, the official photographer of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Scotti, who was born and raised in Ottawa, started running at a young age as a way to explore the beauty of his city. He n...

Krista Duchene, Olympian and mother of three, ran her first Boston Marathon in 2005. She was 28 years old and it was only her third marathon at the time. She ran it in 3:00:46.  Thirteen years later and at the age of 41, Duchene lined up among the 2018 Boston Marathon women's elite field. With heavy winds, rain, and hail, this year would mark one of the worst conditions for the race, and while twe...

A big part of the race experience is the sound of the race: motivational music, the countdown to the start, and hearing the finisher’s names as they cross the line. It is a spectacle, and it should be. In most cases runners arrive at a race in the mindset that this is not just an every day training run, and all of the sights and sounds on race day feed into that feeling that this is special. The v...

Michelle Kempton began running in her mid-30s after the birth of her twins to improve her health, and within only a few years, became involved in her running community of rural Nova Scotia. She has been the race director of the Maritime Race Weekend since 2011 and each year has provided a two-day event that showcases the culture and community of the East Coast.  On this week's episode of The Shake...

What makes a city runnable?  Is there a race for every season? A club for the speed demons, the rookies, and beer drinkers alike? Clean air and access to safe trails? Or, ready access to water fountains and public washrooms for regular and irregular pit-stops? On this week’s episode of The Shakeout we bring you the first in a series of episodes featuring the great Canadian running cities and this...

Today is Marathon Monday. This year marks the 122nd Boston Marathon, one of the most iconic races in sport. It is the world’s oldest annual marathon and along with its long and dramatic history, the unforgiving course that spans the 42 kilometers between Hopkinton and Boston, and the fact that most runners must qualify to make it to the start, it is a race in which great stories are made. For this...

Becoming a better runner involves a lot more than just running. There are a limited number of hours you can spend training before the risks of injury, mental exhaustion, and becoming dangerously anti-social outweigh the benefits of lacing up your shoes. Getting the most out of every kilometer has a lot to do with how you spend the hours you’re not running. Getting enough sleep, having good eating...

The experience of running a marathon is full of lessons learned. From the training leading up to the race to the race itself, runners must face tests of physical endurance and mental strength.  What makes the Paris Marathon stand out from all other marathons in the world is that it not only teaches these lessons of learning how to run hard and fast but it also teaches something completely unrelate...

parkrun is a weekly, free, timed 5K run in a park. This all sounds like nothing out of the ordinary. There are, after all, people running in parks all the time, either alone, with friends, or as part of a club or a team.  It may come as a surprise then that internationally, parkrun is extremely popular. To date there was been over 200,000 events worldwide, including in countries such as Australia,...

Silvia Ruegger represented Canada at the very first women’s marathon at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, at a time when women’s distance running was just starting to be accepted on the world stage. Her plan to become an Olympian began when she was just 15 years old. On September 11, 1976, Ruegger sat in her bedroom in an old farmhouse in Newtonville, Ontario writing a note. It read: I will r...

On August 30, 2016, elite ultrarunner Adam Campbell was alpine running in the Selkirk Mountains, and fell. He fell over 200 feet and found himself lying face down in a pile of rocks and surrounded by blood. Incredibly, he survived, but had to battle back from a broken pelvis and spine.  On this week's episode of The Shakeout, we take you back to our conversation with Campbell, who talks about the...

A Boston Marathon qualifier living in Canada is in jeopardy of missing the 2018 race because of Donald Trump’s travel ban.  Toronto’s Soroush Hatami, who ran a 3:05:42 at the 2016 Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon, qualified for the prestigious Boston Marathon in the men’s 35-39 age category, which requires running a time of 3:10:00 or faster. Because he was born in Iran, it will not be easy...

Alex Hutchinson's new book Endure traces the intellectual history of the concept of endurance. He weaves together stories of epic moments that test the limits of human endurance, including Henry Worsley's fatal journey across the Antarctic, the Tor des Geants, an endurance trail race that covers 24,000m of elevation, the epic ride of the Tour de France, and a non-stop 692km race in the Yukon Arcti...

George Aitkin has been photographing runners for over 50 years. As both a runner himself and a fan of the sport, Aitkin has nearly 60,000 photographs in his home, documenting runners and races from his local Cambridge, Ont. community to the international field of the World Cross Country Championships. Aitkin is not a professional photographer, yet he has travelled to hundreds of races and has amas...

This is the not so typical story of an opera singer that becomes a record-breaking masters runner. Marilyn Arsenault came to running later in her life, following a career as a classically-trained singer. After trading in scales for strides, she has achieved a lot in a relatively short career on the road, on the track, and in cross-country racing.  What she credits much of her running success to ma...

The year was 1962. At the British Empire and Commonwealth Games, in the sweltering heat of an Australian summer, 18 runners lined up on the track at the start of the men’s six-mile race. It was an impressive field that included Olympic medallists and past Commonwealth champions. Among these men was a young Canadian, a teenager named Bruce Kidd. On this week’s episode of The Shakeout, we take you b...

The Montane Yukon Arctic Ultra calls itself “the world’s coldest and toughest ultra.” Every February, hundreds of competitors line-up at the start in the harsh, cold conditions of northern Canada. The race cites the freezing temperatures, the challenging terrain, and the sheer long distances of the race as contributing factors for the Montane Yukon Arctic Ultra to be considered the world’s toughes...

The beginning of a calendar year represents new beginnings and re-evaluation, and for runners in particular, January is the time to set new goals. Whether it's to complete new race distance, to run a faster time, to lose weight, or to eat healthier, the end goal is for self-improvement. If you are one of the many who have eagerly set a goal and are finding it difficult to stay committed, don't giv...

The Barkley Marathons is legendary. Each year, 40 runners pay the $1.80 entry fee and make their way through the thick brush and woods of Tennessee’s Frozen Head State Park. Since the event began in 1986, only 15 people have actually finished The Barkley Marathons. No Canadian has ever finished the race but in 2017, Gary Robbins of North Vancouver, B.C. got just about as close as you can get. On t...

The inside look of what it's like for a clean athlete to run in one of the dirtiest races in Olympic history. Canadian Hilary Stellingwerff tells her story of the 2012 London Olympic 1,500m, where six of the 13 finalists were dopers. READ MORE: runningmagazine.ca/womens-1500m-fi…olympic-doping/

Bruny Surin will remember 1999 as the year when everything lined up perfectly. Leading up to the 100m final at the World Championships in Seville, Spain, Surin was fit enough to break a record --and he did. On this week's episode of The Shakeout, we look at one of the most overlooked national records in Canadian running history.

On September 11, 1976, 15-year-old Silvia Ruegger sat in her bedroom writing a note. It read: I will represent Canada at the Olympic Games. She then took the note and tucked it underneath the floorboards where no one else could see it. Eight years later at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, Ruegger became one of fifty women to race at the very first women’s marathon of the Olympic Games and a...

Over the next two weeks, we will be bringing you new podcasts on Wednesday December 27 and Wednesday January 3. Happy Holidays!

At the age of 16, Yves Sikubwabo boarded a plane for the first time, with only a backpack and $100 in his pocket. He was the only Rwandan to represent his country at the World Junior Championships in Moncton, New Brunswick. After a phone call to his aunt, he learns who had actually killed his parents when he was a year old, and that his life is in danger. Sikubwabo must choose between staying alon...