Cross-border run: New Brunswick athletes training for international marathon
Some members of Moncton’s La Run Gang will participate in the Bay of Fundy international event in June
It's not every day that someone can say they've run a marathon that crosses into another country.
But Jenna Green and some of the members of her running club will get those bragging rights this summer.
"From what I can tell, the route will be beautiful," Green said.
The Bay of Fundy International Marathon, which is returning on June 22 after a COVID-19 hiatus, connects Lubec, Maine and Campobello Island, in southwestern New Brunswick.
The race starts at the most easterly point of the United States, the West Quoddy Lighthouse, and crosses the border by way of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial Bridge.
Despite current political tensions between Canada and the U.S., Green said she's optimistic the marathon will go smoothly.
"Hopefully ... our communities can come together."
This will be her first time at this particular event, but running has always been a part of her life.
When she moved to Moncton in 2020, she felt she was out of her element.
She had run track and was part of running clubs in Montreal during university, so not finding that team environment when she moved to Moncton was a shock.
"I was really seeking that community aspect, so I decided to start a run club in my neighbourhood," Green said.
It originally included mainly moms and dads in the area, all pushing strollers together, and there were about five to eight members at the time.
But last January, they moved the club's location to Laundromat Espresso Bar on St. George Street, near the downtown area, and changed the name of the club to La Run Gang.
"Pretty much as soon as we changed the name and we changed the location, we started seeing a lot more members come through the doors."
Every Tuesday in the summer around 60 people come out, said Green, but the winter crowd is closer to 30 to 50.
The Tuesday night run is more of a social event, said Green, while on Sundays, the group meets at La Factrie on Albert Street, where they do a longer run, usually up to 20 kilometres.
The group includes a wide variety of runners, according to Dominique Comtois, one of the leaders of La Run Gang.
"I joke often, being like ... you have runners that are competitive, they really enjoy trying to knock some time off their race," he said.
"And so they run [to] get a good time, Comtois said, while "I run to have a good time."
The La Run Gang community has been his way of getting to know more people while staying active in the process.
He said running with the group is for anyone, even those with a minimal level of fitness.
"For me, that's a big win, especially with the last couple years, people need, maybe more, that sense of community," said Comtois.
Florent Vallade, another member of the running club, can attest to that. He moved to Moncton from France two years ago and joined the group a little over six months ago.
"I always used to run alone," said Vallade.
"And since I came [from] France, not knowing anyone, I started the running club, and then I was there every Tuesday since then.
"My best day of the week."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With files from Katelin Belliveau