Okotoks runner takes 50 years to get to Boston

By Bruce Campbell
sports Editor

Richard Ellum has been running for more than half a century, now he’s about to add a significant footnote to his running career.
Ellum ran his first marathon, Royal Victoria Marathon on Thanksgiving of 2006, and he did well enough to qualify for the most prestigious one of them all — Boston on April 21.
“I have been running since I was in high school, but I had never ran a marathon in my more than 50 years (of running) because I thought I didn’t have all the time to prepare for it,” the 68-year-old Ellum said. “Now that I am retired, I started thinking ‘Why not?’ but at the time I had never thought about qualifying for Boston.”
Ellum was running in Okotoks with fellow Big Rock Runner Norm Brennand prior to the Victoria Marathon (26.2 miles)and informed him that his goal was a to finish in four hours and 10 minutes.
It was Brennand who informed Ellum that the 4:10:00 was faster than the 4:15:00 qualifying time for runners in the 66-70 age group to enter the Boston Marathon. Ellum shattered that by finishing at 4:01:01.
Now that he’s putting the miles in for Boston, he’s finding out that running all that distance to get ready can be a pain in the butt — literally.
“I have pulled a muscle in my buttocks, which is quite painful and I haven’t been able to get my longer runs in,” Ellum said. “I don’t believe I have gone longer than 15 miles in one run… I will have to run Boston on guts, determination and experience.”
Not only does Ellum have experience, he has shared his experience.
Ellum is a former shop teacher at Foothills Composite High School, where he was also the school’s cross-country coach.
Ellum ran cross-country while in high school in Yorkshire, England.
“I gradually was able to compete in area and county championships and I once ran a 4:37 mile in 1957 — that put me in the middle of the pack,” he said.
He was also one of the organizers of the first Sheep River Road Race, which will celebrate its 25th anniversary on Labour Day.
Now, Ellum is going one step at a time in preparing for Boston.
“I am disappointed in a way because I was hoping to run Boston in about four hours, with the proper training, now I may be looking at around five hours,” Ellum said.
As for Boston’s famed Heartbreak Hill, which goes up approximately 80 feet in elevation over a half-mile between the 20 and 21-mile mark of the race, Ellum isn’t worried at all.
“It doesn’t matter to me one bit,” Ellum said with a laugh. “I run in Okotoks, so I am running up and down hills all the time.”
Ellum won’t be alone in Boston. Fellow Big Rock Runners Jim Cadman, Wayne Gaudet and Jos Brinkhof are also expected to run Boston. Other Big Rock Runners have qualified, but have opted not to run. (Runners can participate in the Boston Marathon up to two years after qualifying at a sanctioned marathon.)

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