New Balance Canadian runner of the week: Cynthia O’Halloran

An ice chunk on a dimly lit road sent Cynthia O’Halloran airborne. One moment she was enjoying the steady, even pace of her late January evening run but in an instant, she felt her body flying towards the pavement. She propelled through the air, her lower jaw falling forward ahead of the rest of her body. Before she had a chance to break her fall, she had hit the ground face first with a whack breaking her jaw in four places.

O’Halloran stood up, looking for what caused her fall. In the middle of winter on Oakville, Ont., the sidewalks were icy but she hadn’t expected a crash fall. At the time, it just felt like a minor injury. “I just thought I bumped my chin,” she said though she felt ringing in her ears. She did a quick check: her forehead wasn’t bleeding and every single tooth was in place. But a look at the snow said that something was off– it was covered in blood. She quick scooped up a handful of snow and held it to the bleeding just under her chin changing her mind about meeting her club and turning back for home.

“It was a freak accident,” says O’Halloran. She went home, got herself to the hospital when a precautionary x-ray revealed that her jaw was broken. Four times. For the first time in nine years, O’Halloran would be off the roads for weeks of recovery. “Honestly, for the first couple of weeks I wasn’t interested in running at all,” she says. It wasn’t for fear of injury so much as it was about the level of pain she was dealing with. By week four of her recovery, she was allowed back on a bike. By mid-March, she was cleared for yoga and gentle shorter runs of just a few kilometres. But this downtime has been an adjustment.

O’Halloran started running in her mid-20’s. Back then, she’d take breaks when she needed to. Winters were a struggle with her asthma and she took time off as necessary to establish her career as an elementary school teacher. Then, when she got pregnant with her first child, she tried to keep running but found she wasn’t suited to it. “Some people are great at running when pregnant. It’s not for me,” she says. So she took two breaks for her two pregnancies but after having her second child nine years ago, she put an end to the breaks. She got her asthma under control in cold weather and stuck diligently to her running routine minus easing up post-marathon.

Time off from running

“It was hard but as I took the time off, [I thought] this is the rest that my body has been craving,” she says, also adding that she got the time to reflect on what she wanted from her running going forward. Was it time to take it down a notch? Should she retire from the sport? O’Halloran is 51. She’s seen several years of great racing. She also wondered if she’d be able to get back into the same shape. Plus, there was the time spent at home that she had been missing out on. It was reflection that she needed but as time went on, O’Halloran really missed the sport. “I’ve been itching to get out to run,” she says. “I know I want to run competitively.”

On the road again

Right now, she’s building up her fitness again. She says she has always been the cautious one even before her jaw injury. She’s almost fully recovered now. March Break was a great time to test her ability to lace up the shoes again and get out. Come winter time, she thinks she might get a treadmill to avoid bad lighting and slippery conditions. Right now, she’s even more careful than before. “My eyes are on the road the whole time,” she says.