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Stories from the run commute: “I started running to work in 1979”

Doug run commute

In the years spanning from 1979 to 2000, if a downtown Toronto Bay Street dweller peeled back the curtains soon after midnight and kept their eyes on the sidewalks, they’d be sure to see Doug Smith cruising northward along the nearly empty street.

The avid runner would be one of the few runners out at this time, year round. In the minutes after midnight, he’d lace up his running shoes (in 1979 he owned almost every model sold in stores), zip his jacket and set out. Usually his route would follow Queen Street east towards the beaches but oftentimes he’d dart up Bay. Running in a busy city at that hour of night, the streets are empty of their usual suits.

Midnight running wouldn’t exactly be Smith’s first pick. For over 20 years from 1979 to 2000, he worked as a technician at Bell Canada at the corner of Bay and Adelaide in Toronto. During that time, he would run commute to and from work every day. The later shift started at 4:00 p.m. and ended at 12:00 a.m. It’s not always ideal to head into a run at this hour of night, Smith explains. He’d do it anyway, nearly until his retirement.

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“I used to bike to work,” says Smith. “In those days, not many people were biking. It was gruesome and I’d have daily confrontations with cars.” That’s why he switched to running. His introduction to the sport was in 1978 and when Smith could comfortably run six miles, he began the run commute.

At first he just ran home. That solved the shower issue. Showing up at work drenched in sweat just wasn’t an option and those were the years before the Bell building got its gym. It wasn’t long before starting the running that Smith found out about a detail in the building’s janitors contracts. They were required to shower during their shift. That had to mean there were showers hiding in the building somewhere. Smith went looking and found one located in the basement. Running to work became a go.

“There was this secret shower,” says Smith. “So I got the key. This went on for years. I had my personal shower in Bell Canada.”

He continued running to and from work throughout the 1980’s and 90’s bringing clean clothes to work at the beginning Doug commute2of the week and hauling the dirty ones off on the subway on Friday. He took no weeks off racking up about 2,500 miles a year. He’d wear out five or six pairs of shoes but always had them in rotation.

The run to and from his job as a technician is what trained him for the 35+ races he’d do a year. In the 80s he hit his 500th race. Many weekends during this time period would see a race Saturday and Sunday. His PBs are as follows: 35:50 in the 10K, 1:21:00 in the half and 3:00:10 in the marathon (he hoped for a sub-three at the Vancouver Marathon in 1985).

Running along Queen Street from the beaches, he would race the streetcars as a way to get in his tempo work. “I’d head down the boardwalk to Queen and I’d race the streetcars every couple of days,” he says, adding that those riding it each morning began to catch on and heckle him as he raced. “Oftentimes I’d beat them,” says Smith. Through the two decades he saw some changes to his routes. Mainly, paths by the lake shore became more filled in with mature trees. Mostly, he says, it’s the same.

Eventually, there was a shift in his fitness routine. Bell Canada got a gym in 1984. Smith was the guy responsible for managing it. He put in treadmills, other machines and less clandestine shower facilities to use every day. Slowly he began to phase out the run commute. “I stopped in about 2000,” he says. “I can’t remember why I stopped.” Four years later, he retired from Bell.

Now, in his mid-sixties, Doug Smith is the president of Ontario Masters Athletics (we gave him a Golden Shoe award last year for all of his work and contributions to running in Ontario). His focus has shifted away from the road and onto the track where he trains with the University of Toronto masters track club. He’s hard to miss, flying over the steeple with his full head of silvery dreadlocks. Well into retirement, he’s no longer running at midnight but Smith shows no signs of slowing down.

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