Jeremy Fisher: Born to sing and run

There is also an innocence, a release and joy in singing when one allows themselves to do so. Some can sing in public. For others it is a joyful, personal, private thing. This week I am profiling a runner who finds joy in both running and singing, and thinks that, as children, we are almost born to do both.

Jeremy Fisher

I discovered Jeremy listening to an interview and some of his music on CBC Radio. My ears perked when I heard he also was a runner.

Jeremy is a 37-year-old musician living in Ottawa but with roots in Hamilton, where he graduated from Westdale Secondary School and then went on to take an applied music course at Mohawk College.

Jeremy says his grandfather on his dad’s side was a runner, as was his father, who ran well into his late-60s. Aside from running, Jeremy is a cross-country skier, a swimmer and a cyclist.

“I do most of my running in spring and fall and prefer trail to road. I have a two-year-old mini Australian shepherd named Rudy who runs with me now. I take him to off-leash areas and we do circuits or trails. This is new and I’m happy to have an enthusiastic and reliable partner.”

I liked Jeremy’s music and I wanted to know more about the running musician, so I tracked him down for a few questions.

When and why did you start running?

“Running is a lot like music in that I think all kids do it. We’re all musicians and we’re all runners, but some of us stop and some of us keep going. I think both running and music help to keep me feeling young. I’m 37 and still can’t walk up the stairs; I have to run. I was on the track team in middle school and fell in love with the 1,500m race. This led me to join the cross-country team so I could race longer distances in high school. My school’s team was legendary, boasting about 120 runners. We would have to take three school buses to meets!”

Does running help your music in any way?

“Yeah, I’d say so, especially lyrics. Writing lyrics can be like solving a puzzle and sometimes the best thing I can do when trying to find the right couplet or phrase is to go for a run and work through it in my head. Or to clear my head so I can come back to it.”

Any running goals in 2015 or in the future?

“I have to make a conscious effort not to be too goal-oriented in everything I do. I have a competitive nature that can overshadow the inherent joy in some activities. I’ve chosen to turn my passion for music into a career and that can make it tough to balance work and life; I sometimes lose sight of my love for music when it is tangled up in the business side of things. So my goal with running in 2015 is to keep a healthy relationship with it as an extra-curricular activity in my life and to rely on it to break up a long day in studio or give me a breath of fresh air on tour.”

The Canadian running community encompasses a wide range of people of different ages, abilities and reasons for running. The differences create an eclectic group with many different and, I think, interesting stories.

I am not a gifted bard like Jeremy but hope I can spin the occasional tale of running that inspires, motivates or keeps you interested. Jeremy and friends, run on.

*You can find Jeremy on Twitter, on his website or in person during one of his concerts around Canada.

See you on the roads or in the blogopshere.

Do you have a running story to tell?

runningwriter@hotmail.com
You can also find me on Twitter @NoelPaine or on my personal blog.