Amateur runner from Riverview set to follow footsteps of Olympians in Paris marathon

Marathons are nothing new for Riverview's Colin McQuade. 

But one, in particular, is different from the others — and McQuade will be running it on Saturday.

The inaugural Marathon Pour Tous, organized by Paris 2024, will allow roughly 20,000 amateur runners from across the world to compete along the same route as the Olympic marathon runners. But it will be run at night, sandwiched between the men and women's Olympic events.

"For amateur runners who admire elites and professionals that train on the highest level, you know, and they work so hard to get where they are ... that is like the pinnacle of success, right?" McQuade said.

"So to me, this is the pinnacle race or event in my case."

McQuade's running journey started in 2010. Growing up, he said he wasn't an athletic person. He quit smoking after 20 years, was over 200 pounds and was dealing with depression and anxiety.

Knowing he needed to start exercising, McQuade said he would go to the gym. That was when he noticed people running on treadmills or out in the snow.

He said the crunching of the snow beneath the runners' feet sounded peaceful and even treadmill running seemed to be therapeutic, so McQuade decided to give it a go.

He signed up for his first 10-kilometre Terry Fox Run and started running more consistently.

Since then, he's raced in marathons around the world, including the Abbott World Marathon Majors, the Berlin Marathon and the Boston Marathon.

But around two years ago, a friend of his, who will also be running the marathon in Paris, told him about an app that the Marathon Pour Tous had released.

That app would issue new challenges every week or two, said McQuade. If runners completed them, they would have a chance to be picked out of a lottery to run in the marathon.

Some challenges were easier than others, said McQuade. One of them asked the hopefuls to run five kilometres between 5 p.m. and midnight on Christmas Eve. 

McQuade said each challenge had a draw prize for marathon registration. But he said app users could also build up points by doing challenges and syncing their fitness app to cash in activity for points. In the end, McQuade said he completed about 44 of the more than 60 challenges, and he was also entered into the draw because he had accumulated more than 100,000 points. 

McQuade was also training for a variety of other marathons. Then one morning in March, he was informed that his name was drawn for registration.

"I had 'pinch me moments,' where it's like, 'OK, I'm actually going to go to the Olympics,'" McQuade said.

"I wasn't really touching the ground that morning."

McQuade said he knows the race will be difficult, especially since he won't be sleeping much while trying to watch both the men's marathon on Saturday and the women's marathon on Sunday morning. He said he hopes to gain insights into the difficulty of the course, which is very hilly, while watching the men's marathon.

But the Riverview runner said he is well prepared, and learning that he had been admitted to run the race has helped keep him motivated.

"Sometimes training is tough, and you know, some mornings … you need that extra push. This was the extra push," he said.

"I found that really helped to keep me on track and be excited about going out every day to do my workouts, regardless of what I had on that day."