When Jon Anderson runs, he enters a meditative state. The Swift Current athlete’s focus is so complete that he doesn’t realize what is happening around him and this single-minded energy can put him in harm’s way.
Anderson’s aunt, Laureen Debusschere, says when her nephew runs he is like a Tyrannosaurus rex: tall, powerful and largely uncommunicative.
Anderson, who is 25 years old, has autism and has always been happiest when he’s in motion. He has run since childhood and, in 2020, competed in snow shoeing at the Special Olympics National Winter Games.
But after graduating high school, many of the supports and structures that made it possible for Anderson to stay active disappeared. Then his grandmother died and he transitioned from foster care to a group home. “Because of the hard times, he needed to run,” Laureen recalls.
Laureen and her husband, Alan, live in Saskatoon and are regular participants at the Saskatchewan Marathon weekend. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, they thought, if the race could accommodate Anderson. “We knew the Sask. Marathon was the place to be and we knew that training for him needed to happen on a day-to-day basis so he could enjoy his life,” Laureen says.
So Laureen reached out to race organizer Kim Ali last spring and asked if anyone could serve as a personal pacer for Anderson to keep him safe on the course. Ali put a call out to her contacts and Brainsport owner Brian Michasiw put his hand up immediately.
At the time Ali’s email landed in his inbox, Michasiw was wrestling with his relationship with running and racing. He’d spent so many years chasing personal bests, but was no longer in shape to beat the times set by his younger self. Wasn’t it selfish, he thought, to be lucky enough to run and race but still be disappointed by a number on a clock?
“I was like: I need to get off that train and I want to have a different running experience,” Michasiw recalls. “When I saw the request, I thought: This might be a nice change of pace. Jon or Laureen might see me as doing them a favour. But the truth is, I feel like they’re doing me the favour because I get to experience a race through such different eyes and be there with Jon. And it’s a really amazing experience to help him do his race and to get him across the finish line.”
For Laureen, Michasiw’s offer to run with Anderson was “simply a miracle.”
Michasiw and Anderson met up before the 2024 Saskatchewan Marathon to practice running together. Michasiw chatted away, trying to get to know Anderson better. Anderson finally interjected: “Brian, I think we need to focus on the run,” he said. And so they did.
Michasiw and Anderson went on to run the 10km at the 2024 Saskatchewan Marathon weekend and are poised to do the event together this year as well.
Getting Anderson ready for the race has taken a village, Laureen says. She and Alan can’t run fast enough to pace their nephew, but Alan sometimes bikes beside Anderson as he runs. Michasiw runs with Anderson when Anderson is in Saskatoon and Warren Dudar, the Swift Current-based runner and co-founder of Prairie Sky Running, runs with Anderson every week. Jon calls his foster mom, Beth, several times a day and she encourages him to keep running, to eat properly and to always be grateful. Jon’s dad takes him for two to three short training runs a week and sometimes Jon’s sister, Anne, joins to cheer him on. As well, Anderson’s group home makes sure he’s fuelling for his runs and Sask. Abilities provides him the time he needs in his program.
“Jon loves every part of it,” Laureen says. “It’s just very uplifting, good for the endorphins. All around socially and physically. Jon tends to just want to be by himself. But communicating and being with others through running makes him really happy.”
She is grateful, too, that the Saskatchewan Marathon created the conditions for her nephew to thrive. “They’re just all so very encouraging. And you don’t always have those things happening, especially for people that are different,” she says.
It’s something Michasiw has reflected on a lot since running with Anderson. “In my lifetime running hasn’t always been welcoming to all people,” he says. “We still have a ways to go, but we’ve come a long way from when I was a kid and it was just white guys at races and there were not many women and not very much diversity. And that’s not awesome. Everyone should be welcome — and it’s important to make all people welcome.”
Michasiw and Anderson will be running the 10km at the Saskatchewan Marathon weekend on May 25. If you see them, give them a cheer — but don’t be surprised if Anderson doesn’t cheer back. He’s likely to be too focused on the run ahead.
