Winter Runners - Wayne MacPhail Photo

During the summer months the sidewalks and pathways of Toronto are chock-full of runners, bikers, dog walkers and strollers. During a long summer run I can pass hundreds of people with out a single interaction. Come January, this changes dramatically, as most people avoid the outside world and the city’s pathways empty of people. Instead of seeing dozens of fellow runners on a long weekend training run, I now pass four or five.   Those of us who keep running outdoors through the winter months are branded as crazy by many of our fellow Torontonians.  I know this, as until last year I was among these naysayers.  I grew up in White Rock, BC, and the thought of running in the painfully cold winter here in Toronto never appealed to me  until I started training for an early spring half-marathon in Waterloo last year.

Having started running last winter, I soon found the ostracization, combined with a collective sense of superiority, creates an interesting bond amongst winter runners.  All of a sudden, after the first major snow fall or cold snap of the year, we start exchanging waves as we pass each other on the street.  It seems like a fairly universal instinct, as I rarely pass a runner, even if they are some distance away on the other side of a street without receiving a wave. Come spring this yearly ritual will melt away with the snow and I’ll go back to my normal big city ways of avoiding contact with the multitude of strangers I pass on the street. Clearly this is not a deep sense of community as the interactions are brief, but it is still fairly significant.  In my experence of small town Canada, people wave to friends and strangers as they pass by on the street, while in big cities we often avoid even this very basic form of interaction – so it’s nice to bring it back, even in this limited seasonal fashion.

All with this small town community feeling provided by winter running there are a lot of other benefits.  A winter running outfit costs a lot less than gym fees or treadmills.  Running creates enough heat which allows you to spend a lot more time outdoors during the winter than you otherwise might.  I find this helps alleviate cabin fever and mild cases of seasonal depression disorder.  Plus there are a slew of great long distance races in the Spring to help motivate you out the door during the darkest evenings of winter.  North America’s oldest road race, the Around the Bay 30KM, stared three years before the Boston Marathon, way back in 1894 and now runs in late March to avoid conflicts with cargo ships entering the harbour.  For those on the West Cost the Vancouver Marathon and Half-Marathon takes place on in early May. Either of these races promises amazing views (of heavy industry or English Bay and lovely mountains).

Around the Bay - Ben Lawson Photo

Do you know of other ways that cold or wet winter weather creates bonds between strangers or fosters a sense of community in the cities or towns that you live in?  Anyone reading this brave enough to cycle through the winter or run in significantly colder regions of Canada? I deeply admire the cyclist that continue to commute to work all winter long, but I’m fairly certain my ride to York University Finch Ave is dangerous enough in the summer, so I’ve not yet joined their ranks.  I can only imagine the intense feelings of superiority among winter runners in Edmonton or White Horse, but maybe the community dwindles down so low that you never pass fellow runners on the streets.  Do winter runner in Vancouver have a bond, or do your mild winters prevent it from developing?