Calgary marathon began as one man’s challenge
By: Martin Parnell
Marathon Man
The first Calgary marathon was held on Aug. 10, 1963 when 19 men lined up at Glenmore Stadium.
This was also the first marathon ever to be run in Western Canada. Only 12 men finished the race that day, which took them on an out-and-back course, through the traffic, along Macleod Trail. Thirty-year-old Doug Kyle was the victor in a time of 2:45:54. The rest of the pack ranged in age from 17 to a spry 38.
The marathon was Doug’s brainchild. At that time he was one of Canada’s fastest runners, having competed for Canada at the 1956 and 1960 Olympics, in both the 5,000 and 10,000-metre distances. He was nearing the end of his competitive career and looking for new challenges.
At the 1960 Pan American Games, after competing in the 5,000 and 10,000 metres, he decided to enter and run his first marathon. He placed seventh.
Upon returning home, he somehow convinced his friend Bill Wyllie to join him in his efforts to hold a marathon in Calgary. After all, how difficult could it be? In Bill Wyllie’s words,
“the two of us ‘beat the bushes’ to come up with our 19 entrants.”
In 2003, Calgary hosted its 39th marathon and my first. I had been challenged by my brothers Pete and Andrew to race and on July 23, we lined up at the start. The gun went off and I flew from the start line. After two kilometres, I was well ahead of them but, as I looked back to see where they were, I stepped into a pothole and crashed to the ground. I managed to get up and finished the race, not a great start to my marathon career. I returned to the marathon in 2004, 2009 and 2010, this time staying on my feet.
On Jan. 11 this year, I went to the unveiling of the new Scotiabank Calgary Marathon course. It was held at Eau Claire Market and the keynote speaker was John Stanton. John is the founder of the Running Room and hasn’t always been a running machine.
As a former two-pack-a-day smoker, John was overweight and out of shape. But in 1981, after struggling through a three kilometre fun run with his sons and seeing the look of concern in their eyes, John was inspired to make a complete lifestyle change. Today, John has over 60 marathons under his belt and spends a large amount of his time visiting his 111 stores in Canada and the United States.
Nowadays, around 10,000 runners compete in the annual Calgary marathon events. These include the Centaur Subaru Half marathon, Jugo Juice 10K and AstraZeneca 5K. There’s even a Scotiabank Kids marathon where children walk or run one kilometre at a time and complete the last 1.2 kilometre on May 27, race day. Now that’s sounds a great way of completing a marathon.
I look forward to running the race again this year and experiencing the new course.
Maybe I’ll see you there.
Related stories:
- Marathon shows that running is a small world
- Starting on road to marathons
- Marathon Quest 250 the beginning, not the end
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I hate to be pedantic, but Calgary wasn’t the first marathon to be run in Western Canada, not even close. The 1954 Empire Games famously saw Jim Peters collapse in he stadium, and the British Columbia Championship Marathon – precursor to the Vancouver Marathon, was inaugurated in 1956 (see Roger Robinson’s article in last May’s Canadian Running)
This column pepetuates the inaccuracies from Calgary Marathon’s own website…
My admiration for you remains though Martin!