Ask Louisa Cantelon when she first started running and she’ll tell you it was as a child, running home from school in Brampton, Ontario, with the sun shining on her face and the sky a deep blue.
“It’s funny how you can associate yourself with something that young, but I was ten and can remember the day and know where I was when I realized that I was a runner.”
That memory has never fully left her and at 44 she still uses it to motivate herself at every race and every stop along the way.
“There have been periods in my life when I did not run but I always came back to it.”
She stopped running when her daughter Alexandra was diagnosed at six with leukemia.
A Family's Sorrow
She says the time was devastating not only for her, but for Alexandra’s brothers and sister who had to watch their sibling suffer. When Alexandra passed away at the age of eleven after a five-year battle with cancer, the family went into a deep misery, which Cantelon called “the depth of darkness.”
Waking up and Moving Forward
In 2003 Cantelon woke up one morning, looked outside her window where the sun was shining brightly and decided at that moment she was going to do a triathlon.
Within a few months she entered the Milton Triathlon and although she could not swim well and her bike was a rusty clunker Cantelon managed to finish thanks to her natural ability to run.
Combining Physical Strength with Emotional Strength
What began after Milton was a desire to compete and Cantelon decided to sign up for swimming classes and buy a racing bike so she could become a successful triathlete.
After several more triathlons she competed in her first Ironman in 2005 at Lake Placid, New York, finishing first within the women’s 40-45 age group, but it was her decision to do a 100-mile race (160km) last year in Ancaster Ontario that Cantelon is most proud of.
“I remember running through the forest at night thinking, ‘Man, I am at 100km right now. O.K., I’ve only got another 60 km to go.’ And then I thought, ‘Wow! That is like another marathon and a half!’”
Cantelon finished second, although she admits there were only two females within her age group.
Combining Love of Exercise with a Passion to End Cancer
When Cantelon is not running she is volunteering with the Coast-to-Coast Against Cancer Foundation that she co-founded. The charity raises money through sport for camps and programs made exclusively for children who suffer with cancer.
Last June Cantelon and her co-founders held their largest fundraising event yet, the Sears National Kids Cancer Ride, where 50 people cycled from Vancouver to Halifax in 19 days. The cyclists were able to raise over $1.2 million for camps across Canada and they will be doing it again starting June 13 2009, hoping to raise even more.
“I can’t change what happened to our family,” says Cantelon, “But can I change what happens to other families battling cancer? Sure I can.”
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