When I started writing the Brainsport Times newsletter in 2018, I worried it would be hard to find stories from the Saskatoon running community to share week after week. I suspected my time at the newsletter would be measured in months, if not weeks.
More than seven years later, after writing the Times on evenings and weekends following my day job, I’m stepping away — not because I’ve run out of stories, but because I’m entering a new chapter. I had a baby last spring and, as I prepare to return to full-time work while balancing motherhood and training, it’s time to hand the reins of the newsletter to someone new.
My goal in writing the Times has always been to shine a light on just how welcoming, diverse, and inspiring Saskatchewan’s running community is. Over the years, readers regularly emailed to suggest people I should interview: teammates, parents, friends, and even runners they follow on social media. I’ve spoken with young athletes named to their first national teams and octogenarians who discovered running late in life. With sprinters and ultrarunners. With people who turned to running despite — and sometimes because of — health challenges and crushing grief. With those who forged lifelong friendships and found spouses through the sport.
I’ve lost track of how many times I heard echoes of my own story reflected back at me by athletes I interviewed: people who discovered running in adulthood as a way to cope with a major life transition, then fell in love with the sport.
Like many of the athletes I’ve spoken with, I ran in elementary and high school through track and cross-country programs, then stopped when I went to university. I didn’t return to running until my mid-20s, after moving to Saskatoon for a reporting job at the StarPhoenix. I arrived in the Bridge City reluctantly, having just been laid off from a job I loved in Ottawa, and was feeling lonely and directionless when my colleague Jason Warick — Saskatchewan’s provincial marathon record holder — invited me to join his running group.
At first, I showed up to “Team W” workouts purely for the social connection, running at the back of the pack. Eventually, I became hooked, racing my first half marathon and then my first marathon. When Team W stopped meeting during the pandemic and later disbanded, I kept running as a way to stay healthy, chase goals and meet new friends. Through my work on the Brainsport Times, I’ve spoken with countless masters athletes who continue training and competing into their 60s, 70s, and 80s and I hope I can stay healthy and train smart enough to enjoy the same longevity in sport.
The pandemic — which shuttered gyms and team sports for months — is widely understood to have fueled a running boom, as people turned to the sport because it was one of the few accessible ways to stay active. That boom has been evident in Saskatoon, perhaps most clearly in the number of new running clubs founded over the past five years. When Brian Michasiw opened Brainsport in 1991, the weekly Brainsport run club was a cornerstone of the store and one of the few free run clubs in the city. The club didn’t return following the pandemic, in part because the emergence of so many new groups meant the need was no longer the same. When I put out a call for information about local run clubs last year, I heard back about 14 different groups — some serving specific communities, including masters athletes, self-identifying back-of-the-pack runners, trail enthusiasts and downtown office workers.
At a time when local news is increasingly hard to come by, it’s pretty incredible to have a newsletter dedicated to sharing stories about inspiring people and cool events in our backyard every week. I’m grateful to Brian for investing in the Brainsport Times, which has been sharing stories from Saskatoon’s running community for nearly 35 years.
Though I won’t be writing the Times any longer, I’m looking forward to reading it. I know there will never be a shortage of great stories for the next writer to tell.
To everyone who shared their stories with me and subscribed to the newsletter over the years — thank you.
