Several Sundays ago I was in the Found Books and Coffee shop in Cochrane. Not only was I there for their excellent latte but also to share a question and answer session with Kari Rose (https://www.karirosehealth.com/ ), founder of the Cochrane Cares Running Club. Kari had sent me an email back in August. It said “Hi Martin! I am in the process of designing the Fall Learn to Run Clinic for Women and was wondering if you were still interested in sharing with the group? We meet at Found after our Sunday runs at 10:00 am. If you are interested, I can send you the dates that are available. Your inspiration and dedication to making the world a better place would be such a treasured experience for all of us! Thank you, Kari”.
Kari’s background includes being a Registered Massage Therapist, BodyTalk Practitioner, Certified Personal Trainer and Pilates Mat Instructor. Kari offers a 10 week “Learn to Run” Clinic from September 29th to December 8th. Training sessions are on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s with a run on Sunday’s. I arrived at Found at 9.45am and a number of the participants were already there enjoying a beverage. While I was waiting I sat down and chatted with several of the runners. They told me that some were beginners and others had run 5ks, 10ks and half marathons but no one had run a marathon.
When everyone was ready Kari started to ask me questions about how I started running and what my favourite marathon was. One of the runners asked how I ended up running a marathon in Afghanistan and I explained that in 2015, I had read about Zainab, the first Afghan women to run a marathon. When she trained men yelled insults and threw chunks of concrete. But that didn’t stop her. She went home and ran hour after hour in her walled garden to train for the event. There were many more great questions and we finished just after 11.00am.
I had copies of my books for sale and they were snapped up. I told Kari I’d come back the following Sunday with a fresh supply. This I did and after more books were bought I stayed for an excellent presentation by Dr. Roger Menta, Sports Specialist (www.movetomove.ca ).
As I was leaving Kari mentioned to me that a number of runners had talked about Zainab, and the determination and perseverance she had shown in running the Marathon of Afghanistan. They had decided that if Zainab could run the 42.2km under such challenging conditions then they would train and run their first marathon in 2025.
Way to go Kari and Cochrane Cares runners. We are stronger together.
© 2024 Martin Parnell
