Another Year, Another Miracle At The Montreal Marathon

For two years now, the Montreal Marathon has been the setting for a little miracle.

It started out in 2009, when a group of runners inspired by the Students Run L.A. program launched a project in Montreal, Canada, to help at-risk youngsters get a new outlook on life by getting off their couches and taking on the challenge of running a full marathon.

They called the project Etudiants Dans La Course, or Students On The Run. They recruited 20 kids from various high schools and about 25 grown-ups from all walks of life to be their mentors. I joined the program about half-way through the year, after discovering its existence through an article in a local paper.

We trained 3 times a week in every conceivable weather, completed races starting from 5K up to half marathons and cultivated the dream. Then, on a crisp September morning, we all gathered on the starting line of the Montreal Marathon and the magic happened : every single kid gave their all and finished the course. And all of them changed forever.

It's an amazing thing to witness.

This year, I started the program from day 1. We had over 30 students at the beginning, many of them angry, confused and out of shape. The first training consisted of 10 minutes of a slow jog, and not everyone was able to run it continuously. There was a lot of huffing and puffing and not so much conversation. Many dubious looks.

Then, weeks passed. Some improvement occurred. We learned each other's names, played some fun games and started getting to know everyone a little bit better. Without even noticing, we went from a couple minutes to a couple kilometers of running, and some of the scoffing and rolling eyes was replaced with smiles and cheers.

It wasn't always easy. You need some serious motivation and dedication to follow through the program. As the year unfolded, we went from 32 kids to about 20. It's all right, the marathon isn't for everyone. The ones who remained formed an ever closer pack, bonding with their mentors and among themselves.

On September 25th, 20 students toed the line, jittery, excited. We'd shared the bus ride with superathlete Pierre Lavoie and were welcome to the course by none other than Canadian running legend Bruny Surin. We wore face paint and hair tattoos, pocketed lucky charms and shared mp3 playlists. We were ready.

The run was long and some stretches were hard, but about 6 hours later, we screamed our last student in; every single kid had made it across the finish line, becoming not only a marathon runner, but a positive, healthy young person ready for the challenges of life ahead of them. And that, my friends, is nothing short of a miracle.

Achaymaa, Jessica, Sarah, Karlenne, Melissandre, Soukaina, Hadi, Carl-Alexandre, Carlos, Nicolas, Keven, Ndembi, Mouamadou, Francois, Francis, Massimo, Akim, Pascal, Zaher, Juan Pablo, you are heroes to me. You hold a place in my heart forever.

Godspeed, my young friends.


A picture album of the event can be viewed here

FlintLand joins the Run Smiley Collective

I am glad to announce that some of the writing you find on FlintLand has made its way to the Run Smiley Collective, a blog of happy runners who share their stories and experiences about every aspect of the sport they like.

I have also joined the Collective as an author and will be writing articles in there as well. I invite you to follow me and other runners there at http://runsmiley.blogspot.com/.


Run Smiley is a collective of Happy Hobby Jogga's Bloggers (Try saying that 10 times when you are drunk), who have come to realise that running is about having fun and smiling. Our aim is to enlighten the running community that the new "cool" in running are not numbers but enjoying the journey our legs can take us.

Urban Runner

“I don't believe in trouble
I don't believe in pain
I don't believe
there's nothing left
but running here again”

It is one solid song after the other. My day started with a befitting “Run, Lola, Run”, save the Lola part. Then Rise Against spilled their guts out, like only they know how to. By the time the first seconds of Bad Religion’s “Sinister Rouge” had elapsed, I was already at full speed.

Running to work makes the world different. While people are sitting in their cars, half-awake, I dash past them at traffic lights, zig-zagging between dozens of urban obstacles, music blaring in my ears. For twenty-five minutes each morning and twenty-five more each night, I’m an urban runner, a strange city-dwelling animal that attracts bewildered looks from pedestrians and drivers alike. I am my own means of locomotion.

I don’t hear the horns and sirens that fill out the usual sound environment. There are only my favourite bands, playing my favourite songs, never in the same order. Music, and the distant pounding of my feet climbing up and down sidewalks. I breathe heavy and push myself a little faster. I’m flying.

On rare occasions, I mix paths with another animal. A lone runner gone for a little breather in the morning or, even less often, another commuter. Almost every time, the scene plays the same; just as we’re about to cross, our eyes lift and stare for a suspended moment, then we both grin from ear to ear. I then keep going, in the absolute delight of having shared a unique moment with a pure, like-minded, stranger.

As soon as my destination is in sight, I know my wild moment is about to end. As my legs slow down and I prepare to climb the stairs to the main entrance, I don’t try to recompose or look fresh. I linger in my animal instant and enjoy the drips of sweat that pearl down my face. I try to hide my amusement as I cross my clean coworkers, all dressed up and smelling of perfume or aftershave, fresh out of the same cars I was dodging at traffic lights only minutes ago. Some don’t even recognize me… or at least act like it. What would they say, anyway?

In that moment, even more than usual, we have nothing in common. They’re just out of a stressful commute, filled with exhaust vapours, braking lights and bad coffee in insulated mugs.

I’m just in the door, still excited of my morning’s obstacle course. Smiling.

I run free.