Gunner Shaw - 25 Years Later

By Andre Gerard, November, 2009

Prairie Inn Post - Fall 2009

The 25th Gunner Shaw Memorial Race! Hard to believe it's over 25 years since Gunner died. Sitting on the ferry from Tsawwassen, the ferry full of cell phone toting, lap top packing citizens of 2009, I let my mind jog back over some muddy trails of the past. A string of emails from Duff Waddell, Jack Taunton, Roger Brownsey, and Frank Stebner has churned loose memories of long ago runs and races: of Basil Parkers, James Cunninghams, Shawnigan Lake Half Marathons, Sri Chinmoys, Khatsilano road races, Haney to Harrisons, and Skagway to Whitehorse Runs, to name only a few. Wonderful races, even if memory stumbles over, or past many of the details.

The here and now, though, is intense. Partly, it's because I'm even running. Something else I owe Gun. If he hadn't introduced me to Jack Taunton so many years ago, my knees might still feel as if they were packed with ground glass. Gun made so many connections, started so many friendships, and if it weren't for Jack's Olympic obligations, he too would be here today. I'll just have to run for him, as well as for myself and Gun.

Partly, it's because I'm running for Lions Gate for the first time. After running for the Prairie Inn for years, then not running for some fifteen years, then running unattached for the last three, it's a little strange to be running for a team I've always competed against. Friendships with Duff and Jack will have to find a new, more collegial footing.

Partly, it's because wife Margo and son Sam are also running, and this is the first time Sam has a strong chance of finishing ahead of me. He's been beating me quite handily in training, and even though he's favouring an injured foot, I'm hoping for a real battle with him.

Mostly, though, it's because this run is for Gun, red bearded, gravel voiced and barrel chested, ever generous, he's very close to me on many of these mental paths. Always a legend, never a plaster saint, he'd be 64 and still running today if his alcohol demons and the VW Beatle stopping tree hadn't ganged up to kill him. Hard not to feel sad.

Hard not to feel angry.

Early morning Victoria has got far more homeless people than I remember, and despite the renovations of the downtown area and the new buildings going up, it seems shabby and slightly seamy. There's too much traffic and too much urban sprawl. I take the 6 Mile Inn approach to Thetis Lake and am impressed and dismayed by the massive new four storey condo complexes and the overflow parking lots. Supposedly, one thing we sore-kneed, crotchety relics have trouble with is change. Certainly true as far as urban sprawl is concerned.

We look around the parking lot for the garish, slightly goofy, Road Runner singlets of my new team. Not spotting any, Margo, Sam and I walk up over the small roadway hill and down to the lakeside. The rain is coming down so hard it isn't easy to tell beach and lake apart, except along the beach are several large white tents with dozens of damp, chilly volunteers sorting through race numbers, handing out t-shirts, and preparing post race cookies, oranges, and ever so precious hot chocolate and soup. There's a small, soggy army at work here, and General Bobby Reid has been meticulous in his planning. Armed with gum-boots and a megaphone, he clearly revels in the rain as he dispatches last minute problems. Grinning, I think of John Edwards once describing Alex Marshall as looking like a duck hunter without his gun. Bobby, too, fits the bill.

Rain and beach mud haven't dampened anyone's enthusiasm. Quite the contrary. Excited clumps of runners cluster around portable heaters, getting gear in order, swapping stories, and psyching themselves up. Margo hits a Port-a-Potty and Sam and I wander around like lost calves, bellowing "Any Lion's Gaters here' Any Lion's Gaters here?" Lion's Gaters are elusive beasts, but after five squelching minutes of bawling out, the Porta-a-Potty comes to our rescue as well. From the queue Linda Wong and Newton identify themselves with warm smiles and first contact is made with our new pack.

Singlets donned and race numbers pinned on, Sam and I head out for a quick warm up and orientation. Knowledge of the race finish and the brutal last couple of hills is worth the risk to his sore foot. We shuffle slowly, but my three layers of gear and my brown woolly touque keep me reasonably warm. Not a hope of dry, though. When we get to the hills, I also get steamed up at the trail conditions. Gone are the jagged, ankle turning rocks and foot bruising boulders. Jack Farrell and John McKay have evidently avenged themselves for past injuries. Travesty! Thetis is now wheelchair accessible, assuming any wheelchair could be winched up the slopes.

Several hundred runners are milling around the paved starting area. Bobby is already using the megaphone to squawk instructions over the din. I quickly duck into the trees to join dozens of others who are watering Garry Oaks. Back in the pack Sam and I approach Mark Williams, one of our new team mates, to ask him about his pace intentions. Honestly he answers, "Forty minutes." Foolishly, I decide we'll try to run with him.

Instructions over, Bobby unleashes the stampede, and off we thunder in a rush of adrenaline and rain. Much of the next 44 minutes is a primal blur of mud, body and trees. Pace is nothing; footing everything. I blow up at three kilometres, pass a hobbling Sam at six, blow up again at seven, and battle away with Jim Swaddling over the last kilometre. Despite tripping over a submerged obstacle with meters to go, I finish just ahead of Jim, but my minor smugness is severely rearranged during the awards ceremony, when I find out Jim is a healthy six years older than I am. Talk about tough.

No matter. An incredible race. An incredible ordeal. The skid road ponds have never been as deep. The trails never as muddy. No wonder Sam is so mud spattered as he limps across the finish line. No wonder Margo is chortling, gasping and beaming from ear to ear as she thrashes her way through the water at the finish. No wonder these hundreds of people are so loud and so happy. We're all little kids again, playing in the rain. Some of us literally are little kids. When overall race winner Jason Loutitt accepts his medal, he's got his two year old son perched wetly on his shoulders. Another neat moment.

Adrenaline charged, we trade stories with fellow competitors. Sam was gamely trying to hold off footsteps on a narrow part of the trail when he heard a thump, a grunt, and no more footsteps. Margo, like me, got passed going up "Big Gunner," got mad and going up "Big Bugger" passed all three who passed her. Even better, when the race results came out, she discovered all three were in her category. Frank Stebner, out to take photographs and encourage team mates, got himself lost. Several stories of mishaps and injuries including one, hopefully apocryphal or confused, of a snapping limb. Some people just can't tell the difference between a snapping branch and a snapping ulna.

As I chat and as I listen, I'm looking for faces from the past, faces belonging to Alex "Mother" Marshal. Jack Farrell. John McKay. Vlad "the mad Czech" Pomaizl. Steve "Barman" Barr. John Thipthorpe. Mike Creery. Mike Ellis. Garth Ball. Paul Bowler. Dick "Stud" Palfrey, Chris "G P" Garrett-Petts. Gun's nephew Danny. His brother Dave. His sisters Josie and Lynn. His wife Catherine. His daughter Natalie, now twenty-nine or so and not four. None to be seen, or at least none to be recognized. Poor eyesight compounds with poor memory, as the steady rain has forced me to take off my glasses. Also so many of the faces, like my own, must have changed considerably. Some, too, have almost certainly disappeared.

Alive or dead, though, they, like Gun, have left a wonderful legacy. The crowd here is proof of that. People like Bobby and his volunteers have built this race and others like it into arenas in which we can feel fully engaged and alive and in which we can meaningfully measure and explore deeper parts of ourselves. This is not, like the Olympics, an event only for the elite, only for spectators. For runners and for volunteers, women, men and children, this is an inclusive event, an uplifting event, a community event.

Thinking of Gunner and this event, of feeling alive and of participating, and thinking too of the street people, of the urban sprawl and of the misguided (I suspect that even Jack, if he weren't such a loyal and proud team player, would use this adjective), the misguided energy of the Olympics, I wonder if more of Gun's legacy couldn't be channelled to build a better world. So much has been accomplished in the last twenty five years. Why not more? Think of all that could be accomplished if there were a Gunner Shaw Day on which runners and volunteers would combine to hand out hot soup and warm clothing. Think of how much better a province and society we would have if all the Olympic millions and all the Olympic energy were harnessed to build accommodations and to create support services for the poor and the mentally ill. Impossible dreams? Maybe. Maybe not. After all, twenty five or more years ago, even Gun couldn't have imagined a club or an event as powerful as today's. Alex Marshall, Bobby Reid and the Harriers have done him proud.

A Reply from Jack Taunton

A brief thank you...and in fact words are not enough for bringing Gunner alive again. So many memories of one of my very best friends. A runner built like a power forward, he was on the basketball court and hence his nick name, who never knew how to quit. So many times I had him beat, like at the Commonwealth Trials in Edmonton, super hot when I find Gunner up ahead has fallen with heat exhaustion into a ditch at 30 km. I stop get him fluids and leave my comrade only to have him outsprint me on the line. We ran step for step for step in the last Vancouver Marathon as the 5 laps of the park one week after a heat disaster in Ottawa another Commonwealth Trials I think or Nationals when again both of us became unglued at 36 km and he recovered to finish and as we walked past Bill McIntosh another club mate we made a pact to run Vancouver the next week. John Hill dropped out early and he won Vancouver with Bill second with Gun and myself tied for 4th so all 4 of us could make a BC Team.

So many runs with Andre, Gun and Myself and the dogs many with Gun just off work from an all night shift at the Press or out with his other friends. He would come-to part way through the run and put the hammer down. To keep him on the road he had to phone me in Vancouver every Thursday to report in and I will never forget the missed call which was the last. We lost a character, a friend, a club supporter like no other and a competitor like no other. I will never forget Gun on any run especially the harder the better and Gun is always steps ahead after the hill or 400m of mud and his smile would bring us to our knees.

Thank you my friend Andre, Gun Lives and Duff continues to push us even in our minds from his haunts on his new runs from Bowen Island.

Jake (as the true runners know me)