75 Kilometres For The G&M

First of all, let’s get one thing out of the way. Forty-nine-year-old Nick Brindisi, a Collingwood native who works at Inzane Planet in Creemore, has been running since Grade 7 and has completed about 50 marathons, some official and some unofficial. And Nottawa resident Claudia Johnston, his partner on the endeavour that this article is about, has placed 6th in her 35-39 age group in the last two Ford Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii. As you read this, she will have just finished this year’s race.

So neither of them are crazy to be planning a 75-kilometre run to raise funds for the General and Marine Hospital Foundation. (Okay, maybe a little bit!)
But Nick’s been training for it since the spring, and Claudia, well, Nick says she can do it with her eyes closed.

The idea first formed in Nick’s brain last August, when Johnston asked Nick, an old friend, to kayak beside her on a swim from Wasaga Beach Area 1 to the Collingwood Grain Terminals. That swim was also a fundraiser for the hospital, and when Nick saw the effort that Claudia put out for a cause that was also important to himself, he was inspired to do something similar. And Claudia was happy to pay back the favour and run with him.

And why not just run a 42-kilometre marathon? “I wanted to make it a bit more like a human circus,” said Nick. The most distance he’s ever covered, he said, was 73 kilometres, back in his 20s. And while Nick can run a 3.5 hour marathon, he figures this run will take him about eight to eight and a half hours. “It may not be pretty, but I’ll get through it,” he said.

The run will take place on Saturday, October 15, starting at 7 am. Starting at the grain elevators and running down 6th Line, Nick and Claudia will run down Mill Street at the 27-kilometre mark, likely between 10 and 10:30 am.

If people would like to donate to the hospital foundation in support of Nick’s run, they can visit www.cgmhf.com, click on donate online, and mention the run in the notes when they fill out the form. They can also search for “75 kilometre run” on Facebook or call Nick during the day at 705-520-0110.

“For me, the G&M hospital is amazing,” he said. “I’ve grown up with it, and myself and many family members have used it in trying times. If anything, I want to raise awareness that it needs the community’s support.”