Running Around the Sauvé House

The Sauvé Year can be quite intense.  A key part of staying healthy and balanced during the year is fitness.   Some Scholars attend daily spinning classes at the gym; many participate in weekly yoga led by Simone, a fabulous instructor; others take up the latest workout regimens P-90x and TRX; and others yet participate in pickup matches of Sauvé Soccer (dominated by the Kenyans Paul and Esmael, as well as by Mohammed and Josh).  Yet this post will describe the sport this year’s Scholars have taken to a new level of adventure and competition: running (i.e., the second most boring sport after curling).

Early in the Sauvé Year, Steph and Ethan, along with Steph’s boyfriend Fred, participated with thousands and thousands of runners in the Montreal Half Marathon.   Conditions weren’t perfect: their training regimen was pathetic; the race day weather was scorching; Ethan didn’t sleep the night before.

Yet it was a blast.

Ethan achieved his goal of breaking Sarah Palin’s Half Marathon time.  He also avoided humiliation by beating, in a photo finish, a guy pushing a child in a stroller.  He did, however, lose to a man in a full Batman suit.  Which was okay, since Batman is a superhero.

Steph was on track for winning the Half Marathon, had her boyfriend Fred not held her back. 

The runners had a great Sauvé cheering section, in Esmael, Simangele, Dechen, and Yimin.

Steph then, despite taking the winter off from training, ran another half marathon in April, narrowly missing her two-hour goal by just 16 seconds.  In recounting her performance, Steph noted, “At one point the course was so windy that I could see all of the runners literally being blown over to one side. It was hilarious to watch until I also got pushed in the same direction.” 

Other Sauvé Scholars have also taken up the cause of running.

Mohammed, a smoker, is not one of them.  He does, however, occasionally cycle.  So in order to explore the city together, on several occasions Mohammed hopped on his bicycle to join Ethan on his training jogs.  It didn’t work out well.  As Mohammed said, “I got tired despite biking while Ethan wasn’t tired and he was running.”

Josh, hands down, wins the Adventurous Runner prize.   He doesn’t run on streets, or even paths.  He just points his body at Mont Royal’s thick forests, closes his eyes, and runs straight through the trees, ponds, mud, etc.  He also doesn’t run on flat surfaces - only straight up the side of the mountain.  Inevitably, he returns from his runs full of thorn pricks, mud, and sometimes gashes. 

A few months ago, Josh was out with a friend on one of his crazy wilderness jaunts, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw a giant white ball, deep in the forest.  He screamed, “PUFFBALLLLLLL!” Leaving his jogging companion bewildered and unaccompanied, he ran straight through the woods to collect his lunch.  A puffball, as we all later learned, is a gigantic mushroom – the size of a soccer ball.   When he brought it home to the Sauvé kitchen, we were convinced that eating it would kill us.  Josh sautéed it with butter, garlic, salt, and pepper, took the first bite, didn’t die, and it turned out to be one of the yummiest snacks prepared in the Sauvé House all year.

Oh, and one last thing.  Desiree McGraw, Executive Director of the Sauvé Scholars Program, and a former competitive runner and coach, is planning a comeback during the 2012 - 3 Sauvé Year, including potentially leading weekly Sauvé Scholar runs.  To next year's Scholars: take her up on it!  And look out for those puffballs.