A Year of COVID and the Birth of the Sooke Supremes

I took a look at the map and sighed, “Only 100km to go and we’re done.”

“Yep,” my husband, Andy replied.  I glanced at the whole route from St John’s to Victoria.  It was one heck of a journey.  I’d be sad when it was all over. It’s amazing what seven pairs of legs could do. I recalled proudly making the Nova Scotia basket back in August for a lucky winner who virtually ran through my home town, a virtual Christmas in Winnipeg, my birthday in some remote spot on Lake Superior, and Andy’s birthday in Charlottetown. These thoughts all came to mind as I reminisced. Painting rocks in Vanessa’s backyard. Hiding the inspirational rocks on local trails for others to find.

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Back in April of 2020, Canadians were learning how to cope with this new virus called COVID.  We were all in the same boat. With restrictions for no non-essential travel, stay at home policies, shops and restaurants closed, and limited visits with friends and family, we wondered how our worlds would change and for how long. I’m not sure I really understood the extent of the longer-term impacts of COVID at that time.  I feel fortunate to have a broad range of interests and hobbies of which many could be done on my own. My course in Victoria was cancelled. We cancelled our plans to visit aging parents in Nova Scotia, after missing Christmas for health reasons. Parks were closed. Our volunteer work supporting literacy to grade 1 students at a local elementary school came to an abrupt halt. Our gym closed. Our running club group runs were nixed.

However, my bike was on the trainer in the basement.  Our 55km iconic Galloping Goose rail trail stayed open. I could run or walk every day if I chose to. My book shelf was full. I had an extensive stash of stationery. I’m passionate about correspondence writing. We embraced Zoom. My personal trainer and I moved our gym sessions to Zoom. Our family visits moved to Zoom. My course resumed on Zoom. I volunteered to send correspondence to seniors in my parents’ assisted care home. Within six weeks, I wrote and sent over 400 cards and smiles to isolated seniors. I volunteered to organize a few running club events that wouldn’t involve us meeting as a group. I created the Virtual Vancouver Island Circuit Challenge in April. Could our cumulated club mileage get us around Vancouver Island in nine days?  With daily distance tallies and writing daily reports about our club’s location, I engaged 30 runners and walkers. Families with children made signs indicating our locations. It felt as though I had a full-time job with overtime. Then I created “May Marathon Madness.” How many marathons can you complete in a month? We asked for photos of members cheering on our front-line workers from the safety of their own homes. These are the types of things that kept me occupied in the early days of COVID. Friendship, health, family and a sense of fulfillment are the most important things for me in life. COVID or no COVID, I needed to keep these things central to my new and unchartered restricted world. The way I would approach fitness, family, friends and goal setting would change, but not the fundamentals.

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At the end of April, I received an interesting email from a running organization in Ottawa. How would I like to be part of the Big Canada Run? After being slightly incensed that they stole my idea (LOL), I quickly learned that the run would engage running communities from around the globe to commit to 8,000km of distance on foot, crossing Canada from St John’s Newfoundland to Victoria, BC. Teams could be as small or a large as we wanted. We’d have a year to complete the challenge, starting on Canada Day, 2020. I was pumped to create a team.

I contemplated who to invite. We’d be a team and we’d need to support each other for a year. We’d need members to be accountable to walk or run their share of the distance. We’d need positive attitudes and not take ourselves too seriously.  Let’s face it, 8,000km would be no small feat. If one of us was having a hard week, we’d need to be supportive. If one was having self doubts, we’d need to build the confidence. We’d need friends with some grit who wouldn’t quit when the going got tough. I chose people who I thought might fit the bill.  In the end, seven brave spirited souls committed to be the Sooke Supremes Team.

We made bets as to where we’d be on each member’s birthday. We’d celebrate each at an outdoor café. Every member made a basket of his or her home province for the other members to win – Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario, Alberta, and two regions of BC. The baskets were amazing. Everyone took pride in selecting representative items to remind them of home. When interest started to fade, we added the Bad Ass Prairie basket, the Caesar basket, and the prairies Lean, Mean Machine healthy basket, all to be won by meeting motivational criteria. Megen graciously offered to help with planning and take on the western provinces cheering and photos through facebook, and organize the celebration when we reached the end of the journey. She creatively made signs (award winning I might add) to post as we reached various destinations. I engaged my family and friends across the country to take photos from their home towns to post as we virtually passed them following our progress on the map. Maggie added the 100k-in-a-day for a New Year’s Eve challenge and organized hikes, always with a positive attitude. I added the ugly sweater run. Maggie improvised and wore ugly socks. Kayla organized the private facebook page for us and added some youth to our team. Vanessa’s infectious enthusiasm to our ideas was contagious. Kari’s calm, quiet nature and her consistency showed through-out the challenge, participating in everything we did and clocking her kilometers.  Andy was our distance guy and won many of the bets. I made a personal commitment to read a book by an author from every province this year. We shared photos and comments on-line. I sent postcards and art cards from each province to the team members as we virtually passed. Vanessa posted photos from her time in Regina, including a photo of the “corner gas station” from the TV series. We earned 18 badges.

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We were there for Megen’s surgery. We cheered for Maggie’s half marathon. I received tremendous support from the team for my half marathon post-heath challenges. We celebrated our successes.  We supported Kari for the loss of her old beloved dog. We encouraged Andy’s 25-miler. We cringed with Kayla’s bloody knee running incident and the dramatic story she re-lived with photos on facebook. Maggie and I sold books for breast cancer and COVID initiatives for the hospital. We shared our family histories as we virtually passed through our ancestral regions.

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While I was writing this reflective piece for my writing course, I came across a quote “Running has given me many things, but the greatest gift has been the people that it has brought into my life.”  This quote sums up my experience with the Sooke Supremes. In years to come, I expect what I’ll remember about COVID is not the closures and personal inconveniences, but rather the tight knit friendship I developed with The Sooke Supremes during the serious and uncharted year of global death, fear and isolation.  We maintained fitness, developed deeper friendships, and completing 8,000km earlier this week with such a phenomenal group gave me a deep sense of accomplishment. We covered ten provinces in just nine months on our own two feet.   We really rocked. Thanks so much, Supremes!

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