Ron and Tim tackle the PEC Marathon--race report

Here is Tim's thoughts on his adventures as a first time guide, on a big stage---the Marathon!
Great stuff guys!
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Running with Ron

By Tim Scapillato

From the sands of the Sahara Desert to Sandbanks Provincial Park, Ron Hackett has run some inspirational races. His performance in this year’s Prince Edward County Marathon may not have been legendary, but it was certainly gutsy. And I got to witness it up close and personal.

My run with Ron started when I joined Won with One, a national program focused on the personal development of the blind and visually impaired using triathlon as the catalyst for change. Run by Jan Ditchfield, Accessible Sports Program and Development Manager with the Canadian Council of the Blind, Head Coach Cathy Rober and elite Paratriathlete Ryan Van Praet, Won With One recruits guides and matches them with blind and visually impaired triathletes. 

I became aware of this organization through a Tri-Rudy posting in which Jan was recruiting volunteers to become guides. I decided to answer the call and followed the link to their website where I filled in an online guide application. A few weeks later I was invited to attend a training session with several others who had also signed up. Not long after that, I noticed another posting by Jan, this time on the Won With One Facebook page, in which she put out the call for someone to guide a blind runner who was trying to qualify for Boston. I answered the call once again, and was soon given an e-mail address for Ron Hackett.

Before contacting Ron I Googled him to see what I could learn, and what I discovered blew me away. I came across a YouTube video, which was an excerpt of a television documentary on Ron and his 250-kilometre run in the Sahara Desert in five days in 2009. I also learned that he has completed over 30 triathlons, including two age-group placings at the World Cup level. Feeling suitably humbled and intimidated, and wondering if I’d be able to keep up with him during a marathon, I contacted Ron and we began making arrangements for marathon weekend in Prince Edward County.

With absolutely no guiding experience, I began to wonder what I had gotten myself into. Fortunately, Ryan was available to take me out for a practice run in the Experimental Farm the weekend before the PEC Marathon. So, with 90 minutes of guide training under my belt, I headed off to Picton with my wife, Marian, to pick up the race kits and drive the course on the following Saturday. I familiarized myself with the race route while Marian planned where she would meet us to take photos at several  strategic spots along the way. The course begins in Wellington, then winds its way through Sandbanks Provincial Park and the surrounding countryside, before finishing in downtown Picton. Aside from a few rolling hills, the course is fast, flat and very scenic. It was looking good for a Boston qualifer.

After scoping out the route, we headed to Kingston to meet Ron and his partner, Karen Craig, and to go for a short run together. As it turned out, Ron ended up guiding me through the neighbourhood that he has lived in for the past 30 years. He gave me some quick pointers on how he likes to run with a guide, and I did my best to accommodate. We seemed to get in synch pretty quickly, which was a promising sign. The key, as Ron explained it, is to run it like a three-legged race, with our inside legs moving in unison. With his left hand hooked onto my right elbow, and our inside legs moving in tandem, we ran easily through the neighbourhood, and I felt a little more confident about my job as a guide heading to the race the following morning. However, I was a little less confident about Ron after he told me that his last marathon was about seven years ago, and that he really had only been training for this one for a couple of weeks because he  hadn’t been able to find sighted training partners.

After our short run, Ron had to head out for the evening. He is a drummer and he had a gig to play that night. He was unlikely to get home much before 2:00 am, just a few hours before we would pick him up for the drive to the start line in Wellington. When I realized that Ron was planning to run a marathon on two hours of sleep and two weeks of training with a rookie guide, I started to become apprehensive again—more for him than for me. This would be my first inkling of how tough and resilient this man is. Considering that he had recently run through a desert, this really shouldn’t have surprised me. Nor should it have surprised me when he confided in me that his goal was to qualify for Boston “honestly”—blind  runners must finish a marathon in under 5 hours in order to qualify, but Ron wanted to finish in under 3:45, the cut-off time for sighted runners in his age group. If there was any chance of him doing that, it would be on the fast PEC Marathon route—even with a sore back as the result of pulling a muscle while packing up his drums after the show the night before.

Marian and I spent the night at Karen’s house and enjoyed a relaxing soak in her hot tub to cap off the evening. Karen wouldn’t be able to join us the next day as she was running her first-ever 5K race in the Run for the Cure (which she successfully completed in 40 minutes). When Marian dropped us off at the start line at 7:00 the next morning, it was breezy, overcast and cold. But at least it wasn’t raining. That was the good news. The bad news dawned on me about 15 minutes later when I realized that I had forgotten to wear my Garmin. Not only was this going to be my first time running as a guide; it would also be my first time pacing a race with an analog Cardinal wrist-watch.

As we lined up at the start line Ron explained that the biggest challenge he faces when running in a crowd is stepping on people’s heels. He suggested that we move off to the side where we might find a bit more space for the first kilometre or so. When the gun went off and the crowd began its ritual start/stop run/walk, I did my best to maneuver through the crowd, searching for space and keeping Ron away from the heels of the runners that surrounded us. After the first kilometre we had enough space to settle into a comfortable pace. We passed the 5K marker in approximately 27 minutes. Factoring in the 30 seconds that it took us to cross the start line, I guessed that we were on pace for a sub-4 hour finish, but at such an early stage in the race, that was still very theoretical.

We passed 10K in 52 minutes, running comfortably. By now we had mastered the three-legged running technique and were running as one.  Before we started I wasn’t sure how it would feel to run for four or five hours with someone holding onto my elbow, but after the first hour I barely noticed it. The next seven kilometres flew by as we discussed music, concerts that we had attended, and bands that Ron has played in. We passed 21K in 1:52, still feeling strong, and looking forward to the run through Sandbanks Provincial Park. At this point I calculated that a 3:45 finish was within reach, but we’d have to pick up the pace in the second half. Ron decided to play it safe, however, and not start increasing the pace too early. Given his lack of sleep the night before and his lack of training, that was a wise decision. He explained that the first goal was to finish with a qualifying time and he didn’t want to jeopardize that by burning out before the finish line. Up to this point our pace had been very consistent and I felt that we could hold it all the way to the end. We could pick it up in the final couple of kilometres if he had anything left in the tank.

After passing through Sandbanks we changed direction and headed northeast along East Lake toward Picton. The wind blowing off Lake Ontario was now at our back. We lost the cooling effect of the breeze, but it made the pace a little more comfortable as we began the last 15K stretch. At this point, I told Ron that we had a 10K and a 5K run left to get to the finish line. “Which one do you want to do first?” I asked. “Let’s get the 10K over with,” he replied. Now it was simply a matter of maintaining the pace and knocking off the kilometres.  The “hills” between 32 and 38K were a bit of a challenge, but only because of where they were on the course, not because of their relatively mild grade. We passed 40K just before turning onto the main street of Picton, where we picked up the pace in hopes of finishing in 3:45. But without a Garmin this was still just a rough estimate. As we rounded the final corner I spotted the finish line. It was at this point that I realized that this overall flat race course ended at the top of a hill, but by this time that didn’t matter. I told Ron that I thought we were close to our goal time, so we picked up the pace even more and hoped for the best. As we crossed the finish line I saw Marian’s smiling face to greet us, and then noticed the overhead clock turning to 3:50. I knew that even the slight delay getting over the start line wasn’t going to be enough for a chip time of 3:45. But Ron was thrilled that he was going to Boston next April.

Never one to sit still for long, Ron was back at it later that afternoon, playing another gig in downtown Kingston, still running on only two hours of sleep. This is the kind of stamina that will serve him well as he makes his way through the Newton Hills next April. His goal: train hard and finish his first Boston in under 3:30. Many things surprised me about this man, but not that prediction. I have no doubt that this goal is well within his grasp.

This article will appear in the next edition of the Run Ottawa Club newsletter.