Among the thousands of runners registered for the GoodLife Fitness Victoria Marathon, there are just as many reasons to run.
Some are private and some are public.
For Brentwood Bay life coach Don Goodeve, it’s an opportunity to expand a personal challenge into a public one. Goodeve said he began running a few years ago and after conquering a 10-kilometre run, set his sights on the half-marathon. But the personal fitness goal wasn’t enough.
“I was looking for a good reason, beyond myself,” he said. “I needed something to really give it meaning.”
As a life coach, he said his values line up with the work of the Creating Homefulness Society, which runs a therapeutic community for homeless people at Woodwynn Farms.
“The core of Woodwynn’s work is transforming lives, which is pretty much what I do for a living. So I found it very easy to align with that as a cause,” Goodeve said.
As a Central Saanich resident who lives only four minutes away, he drives past Woodwynn Farms regularly. He has raised more than $1,000 for the project.
Richard LeBlanc, executive director of the Creating Homefulness Society, said Goodeve’s commitment has sent a ripple effect of inspiration through his team, especially given recent backlash against the project that some have dubbed “NIMBYism.”
“It’s enormous in the significance that he comes from our neighbourhood,” LeBlanc said.
Although Goodeve may not reach his $10,000 fundraising goal, his public support has already made a difference to LeBlanc.
“The money is secondary to the show of support for sure,” LeBlanc said.
Running is more personal for Stephanie Timmer, who took up running 10 years after a degenerative visual impairment forced her to stop the sport she loved.
Timmer — a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and Paralympian in the fields of shot put, javelin and discus — was a competitive cyclist before she began losing her sight. When she was diagnosed with macular degeneration in the mid-1990s, she stopped all activity; if she couldn’t bicycle, she didn’t want to do anything.
But after nearly a decade of inactivity, which she said she spent “getting over being blind,” she set out to change things.
“I just got tired of being tired,” Timmer said. “Running gives me energy.”
Timmer, who flew from Naperville, Ill., to Victoria on Friday, estimates that she has run between 20 and 30 marathons since she began losing her vision. This will be her first run in Victoria and her second in Canada — she has also run in Vancouver’s BMO Marathon.
Timmer retains about 25 per cent of her vision, but she will run with the help of local eye doctor Judith LeRoy, who read the call for volunteer guides on the marathon website.
“I was like, oh my gosh, I would love to do that,” LeRoy said. “It really combined both my passions of running and vision.”
LeRoy was one of 19 volunteers who responded to the call, according to Running for Change and Running Eyes founders Rose Sarkany and Chris Morrison. That meant more than enough support for the four members of the online Running Eyes community who plan to run this Sunday, according to Sarkany and Morrison.
The Qualicum Beach duo created the group to connect visually impaired runners and guides after Sarkany, who is visually impaired, learned about guides at the Boston Marathon (she had run “very carefully” to qualify for that race.)
Running Eyes now has about 365 online community members, she said.
The 34th annual Victoria Marathon takes place Sunday. Start times begin at 6:30 a.m. and continue through 10:15 a.m.
