Betting $1.5-million to build a winner
Two Toronto businessmen have devised a game plan to train powerhouse distance runners

ALEX HUTCHINSON
Special to The Globe and Mail
September 29, 2007

On a blustery Friday afternoon, 28-year-old Andrew Smith is sprinting as hard as he can up Mount Garbage, the grassed-over former landfill site that overlooks Etobicoke's Centennial Park. As he reaches the top, he pauses briefly, before turning to encourage the runners struggling up the hill in his wake - some of Canada's top young distance runners who arrived in Toronto earlier this month to join a quixotic quest for marathon greatness.

More than 13,000 runners from around the globe will take over downtown streets tomorrow morning as part of the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon and its associated half-marathon and five-kilometre races.

But if you happen to be strolling along the lakeshore when the marathon leaders whiz by, you'll find you have some time on your hands before the Canadians come into view. The front pack will probably be dominated by runners from distance-running powerhouses such as Kenya and Ethiopia: At last year's race, the top Canadian man struggled in more than 25 minutes behind the winner; the top Canadian woman was 10 minutes off the pace.

Closing that gap will be no simple task, but two Toronto businessmen have an idea about how to do it. Instead of having the country's top long-distance runners scattered across the country training by themselves, end their proverbial loneliness by bringing them together in one lean, hungry pack. Have them live together, train together and push each other to new heights, and turn Toronto's sprawling network of parks and ravines into a giant urban-marathon haven.

The businessmen, Brooks Canada founders Mike and Paul Dyon, know the group approach will work because it propelled Mike Dyon to four Canadian marathon titles in the 1970s and 1980s. The brothers think that approach will work again - and they're willing to bet $1.5-million on it.

HATCHING A PLAN

The Dyon brothers' brainchild, dubbed the Brooks Canada Marathon Project, was officially launched in January. But it's only in the past month that the training group has reached a critical mass, with an influx of runners from across the country bringing the total to seven men and two women.

The workout at Centennial Park marks the first time the new group will train together, but the conditions are hardly auspicious. Wheeled windsurfers tack up and down a nearby parking lot in the blustery 50-km/h winds, and the 33 C heat and humidity are oppressive.

Two runners fresh off the plane from Vancouver, recent Simon Fraser University grads Richard Mosley and Ryan Day, eye the hazy sky dubiously as they stretch in the grass. "Personally, I'd prefer 15 Celsius and rainy," Mr. Mosley says.

"It's good preparation for Beijing," counters a smiling Hugh Cameron, a veteran coach.

Mr. Cameron's pedigree as a marathon coach is unrivalled in the country. In the 1980s, his training group included the Dyons, Commonwealth Games silver medalist Dave Edge and Sylvia Ruegger, whose Canadian marathon record has stood since 1985. Recent years have produced fewer successes.

"Hugh and I would chat at meets, and we'd chat at workouts," Mike Dyon says, "and we'd say, 'It's not like the old days.' " The plan they hatched was simple: provide athletes with free housing, top-notch coaching, flexible jobs at the Brooks Canada headquarters in Mississauga, physiotherapy and massage, strength training, shoes, clothing and a generous bonus structure for fast times and high placings at key races.

Still, it's unlikely that any of the runners here today will be running the marathon in the Beijing Olympics - a reflection of how far the top Canadians are from world-class (no marathoners qualified to represent Canada at the last Olympics), and how long it takes to develop a good marathoner.

"As far as the marathon is concerned, 2008 is already here," Paul Dyon explains. "We're looking at the longer term, to London in 2012."

The plan came one step closer to fruition with the purchase earlier this month of a million-dollar house on High Park Avenue, a few minutes' jog from the soft trails and rolling hills of High Park. With four units and 11 bedrooms, the house has plenty of extra space for a planned indoor-exercise room when the group takes possession in November, as well as an algae-filled pond in the back that the runners are eyeing half-jokingly for use as an ice bath in which to soak their legs after hard training.

Mr. Cameron has devised an inaugural workout that highlights Centennial Park's very diverse training options. After a five-kilometre warm-up run and a series of drills, stretches and sprints, the runners tackle the heart of the workout: 10 km of hard runs around grass loops, along gravel roads and around the rubberized track, punctuated by short periods of jogging to allow partial recovery, and capped by the grand finale: a gut-wrenching 400-metre sprint up the hill.

The women start each interval 30 seconds ahead of the men, allowing the two groups to finish at roughly the same time. After a few kilometres, the pack has already begun to split up. Mr. Smith, a Scarborough native, pulls away from his teammates. Mr. Day and Mr. Mosley, suffering from jet lag and the unaccustomed heat, drift to the back.

Watching his charges from the top of Mount Garbage, Mr. Cameron records their times in a notebook as they finish each interval - but he's not concerned about the stragglers. "Right now, we're just getting everyone on the same page," he says. "We need to get used to pack running, and promote the synergy of the group." The times will become important later, but for now he's looking for more subtle cues. "I want to see who's got fire in their eyes."

THE LEAD PACK

The Dyon brothers seem like unlikely champions of the idea that runners need to be pampered to succeed. Mike Dyon was in his last year at the University of Toronto in 1977 when he first tried a pair of Brooks Villanova shoes during a training camp in Florida. He liked them so much that he and his brother drove back to the U.S. to buy 50 more pairs - mostly in size 8.5 and 9.

"We figured at worst, we'd have shoes to run in for a couple of years," he says.

Selling from the trunk of their car at local races, they found the shoes were a hit, and before long they became Brooks' distributors in Eastern Canada. As Mike's running career blossomed, the brothers were building what is now a $100-million business.

Fitting in two training sessions a day around the demands of a busy work and travel schedule took iron discipline. Their most memorable performance: a 10-kilometre run during a 50-minute layover in Detroit en route from Grand Rapids. "We changed in the washroom of the plane and ran out of the gate," Mike Dyon recalls. "We figure we have a world record, and we don't think it'll ever be broken, given security these days."

But the context now is different for two reasons, the brothers say. There are far fewer Canadian runners now than there were 30 years ago, simply because there are more sports and hobbies siphoning away potential stars. And the influx of East African runners whose high-altitude birthplaces have trained them to use oxygen efficiently, and who view running as a rare chance to escape from poverty, has raised standards - witness the field in tomorrow's marathon, which includes six Kenyans who have run two hours and 10 minutes or better since last year. Only two Canadians have broken 2:11, the last one in 1985.

With this new reality, says the marathon's race director, Alan Brookes, "you're not going to put anyone in the lead pack if they have a day job."
Mike Dyon agrees: "Sure, there are some easy days where you might only run 15 miles in an hour and a half, and you can go to work after that. But you can't be working full-time."

That proved to be true for one of the project's most promising recruits, 23-year-old Joe Campanelli. After graduating with a commerce degree from U of T in the spring, he struggled to balance the group's training plan with the structured hours of his job as a fund accountant with CIBC Mellon. Earlier this month, he left the Marathon Project in order to continue training on his own.

"It would definitely help my running if I could concentrate on it full-time," he says. "But this early in my career, I'm not ready to take that risk."

Mr. Smith, the veteran of the group, supply teaches, allowing him to choose when to accept work. Rest is crucial, with a training load of 140 to 170 km each week, often running twice a day, plus strength and flexibility work. His wife, Tara Quinn-Smith, is the most accomplished runner in the group, and has qualified for the government "carding" that pays a monthly stipend to top Olympic hopefuls. But the Marathon Project has been crucial in allowing the couple to remain focused on running.

"With carding, there's never a guarantee," Ms. Quinn-Smith says. "With Brooks we have more stability - and the house will be great."

DON'T TALK, RUN

A few weeks after the first workout, the group is doing a 27-km Sunday-morning run along the Humber River. The recent arrivals from B.C., Winnipeg and Timmins have settled in, and the pack is now tight and cohesive, rolling amoeba-like past the occasional befuddled cyclist at just over 3½ minutes per kilometre.

Despite the brisk pace, the runners appear relaxed, the collective energy of their teammates drawing them forward with little apparent effort.

Reflecting on the pack's new coherence, Mr. Cameron is pleased. "The Internet has got blog after blog on what's the problem with our marathoners, and they've completely missed it," he says. "Stop talking about it and do it."