As a behaviour therapist, Mary Newton spends her days encouraging kids to step out of their comfort zones and try new things. So when her husband challenged her to join a track club at age 41, she decided to follow her own advice and be as brave as the youngsters she works with.
“I was absolutely mortified, but I showed up,” she recalls now, two years later. “I was thinking: This is uncomfortable physically, it’s uncomfortable mentally, it’s uncomfortable emotionally. This is probably a really good thing to do for myself.”
Before joining Running Wild Athletics Club at the Gordie Howe Sports Complex, Newton enjoyed what she calls “leisure runs” in nice weather as a form of stress relief. She didn’t think of herself as a runner.
“I never knew anything about running, never did structured running or considered racing or anything,” she says.
In spite of her nerves, that first day on the track turned out to be “super fun.” The Running Wild team was welcoming and, by the end of her workout, her then-11-year-old son had joined her for a few laps — and loved it so much he wanted to sign up too. The two became the club’s newest members.
Since then, Newton has trained and raced on the track, roads, and trails — sometimes lining up beside her son, a shared experience she describes as “one of the best gifts that I’ve gotten.” On the track, she focuses on the 1,500m; on the roads and trails she’s raced up to the half marathon. Next summer, she plans to tackle her first ultra, the Sinister 7 50km. Though she once thought age 41 was late to start running, she’s since met septuagenarians who didn’t start running until their 60s.
Beyond the fitness gains, Newton says structured training and being part of Running Wild — and later the Joggers and Lagers club — has helped her manage stress and given her a strong community. Two of her three teenagers have complex needs, and the demands of constant advocacy can be emotionally draining.
“Running is probably the best therapeutic thing that I’ve ever done for myself,” she says. “During really stressful times when I’ve noticed my mind is running or something in our lives feels kind of out of control and extremely stressful and hard to process, I’ve found that when I get out there and I start running, it’s similar to a meditation … And afterwards, once I’m done my run, my body is in a much calmer state — and so is my brain.”
Running was a lifeline to Newton this spring after she and her son travelled to Vancouver for the Sun Run. They were also there to visit her cousin, Jennifer Darbellay, but just hours before the race, Newton awoke to the news that Darbellay — “the sweetest, most positive human in the entire world” — was among those killed when a man drove an SUV into a crowd of people at the Lapu Lapu Day festival.
In shock and unsure how to support her son, Newton reached out to her father, who encouraged her to still run. Some members of Running Wild were also in Vancouver for the Sun Run, though she didn’t know them well. Still, she sent a text.
“I felt like I needed another adult presence,” she recalls. “I said: ‘Hey, when you’re warming up, could you meet up and walk down with us?’ And there was the calm, quiet presence of running beside somebody else when we were warming up. Someone I didn’t really know ran alongside us and warmed up with us and would put his arm on my back while I was crying. And it just spoke so much to what an incredible community this is and how fortunate I felt to be surrounded by people who genuinely care about you.”
In the weeks that followed, Newton found being in groups overwhelming and stepped back from both Running Wild and Joggers and Lagers, choosing instead to run solo on the trails near her home. Still, her teammates checked in and offered support, helping her navigate her grief.
Newton’s cousin had been a beautiful painter and a firm advocate that everyone was an artist. Newton had never believed this – she couldn’t paint! – but after Darbellay’s death, Newton reflected that if she had been brave enough to run, she could be brave enough to paint.
“I was like: What am I scared of? I was scared of doing something new that I might not be good at. That’s OK,” she says. “There’s a lot of things in life that I probably wouldn’t have tried, but now because of running and realizing it’s OK to not be great at something and it’s OK to try something new, even at a later age, I’ve picked up a paintbrush and I’m painting.”
Newton has since returned to her training groups, with tighter bonds with her teammates. And she’s encouraging them to try new things too.
“We’re often scared to put ourselves in a new environment to try a new thing — but there’s so much out there,” she says.
“If you’re running by yourself – even if you’re worried about paces or you’re shy or you’re anxious – find a running community, find a running club, find a running group, find some friends, and get out there and run with others because it has just brought me so many amazing, inspiring people in my life. I honestly don’t know what I would do without them anymore.”
