Al Howie Lived in Poverty, Was Chased by Interpol, and Won Ultras on Beer – Runner’s World
The following story is an excerpt from In Search of Al Howie by Jared Beasley, available now.
The EMTs rapped on the door one more time. Nothing. It was unlocked, so they turned the handle and swung it open. This wasn’t their first time to this address, but it would be their last. Inside the small economy apartment, trash was piled upon trash. Black mold was growing over pans stuffed in the sink, and opened cans of food were scattered on the floor, half-eaten; a heavy stench hung in the air.
Lying on the floor was the man they were looking for, scrawny, with a long, unwashed mane of hair. He was well known in the neighborhood, often seen disheveled like a homeless person, pacing back and forth for hours, stopping to stare at some point in space, down at a stone, or unwittingly at someone. He had never harmed anyone, but he made the neighbors nervous.
“Mr. Howie,” the medical officer called to the man and touched his shoulder. “Al?”
No response.
They took his vitals. He was alive, but comatose. He was put into an ambulance and taken to the hospital, where he remained in ICU for over a week, then moved to a mental ward.
In severe wings of mental wards, patients are divided into two broad categories: Are they able to get out of bed or not? Al’s wing catered to the latter. They were the ones with the least amount of hope, the lifeless living, souls trapped in broken minds and bodies. The ultimate goal of the doctors and nurses is to get them to move. Movement is life.
“You’ve got to get out today. It’s a beautiful day. What do you say?” The nurse grinned. She liked Al. Everyone did. They believed in him, rooted for him. If anyone could move, surely he could. An hour later, when the nurse returned, he was still lying on the bed where she had left him, as always, face down into his pillow, his running shorts on and shoes laced.
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The doctors were familiar with Mr. Howie’s case, but they were stumped. They had tried everything: anti-anxiety meds, anti-depressants and anti-psychotics. They even resorted to electric shock treatments on two occasions. Several living arrangements were attempted in hopes that he could manage some quality of life. He was placed in apartments, halfway houses and group homes with meal service, but Howie was beyond saving. He simply couldn’t take care of himself and was placed in a permanent care facility.
That was the state of Al Howie when I found him in 2014. “He stays in his room, mostly. He has his own ways, doesn’t like to be told what to do, but everyone likes him.” The nurse seemed affectionate when she spoke of him. She said he was excited, but also very nervous to talk to me. He was standing beside her in the office, waiting, as he didn’t have a phone in his own room. The voice that came over the phone was thin and raspy with a thick-as-brick Scottish accent underneath.
The call was awkward. “First, I just want to say that you are a fantastic runner.” No response, just a faint grunt. I brought the Pirate up to help break the ice. “A good runner,” he said, but when asked if he could tell me more, he said, “no.” He made odd sounds as if he was struggling to breathe and grunted often. He reached for air in sporadic gulps like someone on the verge of hyperventilating.
“Do you still run?”
No answer, just heavy breathing, then: “Call back next Wednesday.” The nurse was back on and sounded positive, almost joyous. “That’s more than he usually says.”
“How long has he been in the care of the state?”
“Oh, about, well, over 15 years.”
The following week he opened up a bit, but one thing became clear: he would only talk about running. If you didn’t distract him with questions about his personal life, he could spit out stats like a savant. He had been saving them up for years: “I first ran with your friend in ’84.” His mind was suddenly as sharp as a dart. “I did 137 miles that year. My best was 150.” He went into a storm of numbers and years, one after another. Then just as quickly as his mind opened, it seemed to go dark, and he went quiet.
“What kind of warm-ups did you do?”
The grunts came back for a moment, then he started speaking again. “None, waste of energy.”
“What did you supplement with on your runs?”
“Beer.”
“Beer?”
Courtesy Jared Beasley
“Everybody was stretching and jogging in place. I was there knocking back a pint. Loved the look on their faces when they saw me standing on top of the podium.” He had to repeat that three time for me to catch the accent.
“Drugs?”
“They make a good time better.”
“Has anyone ever written your story?”
“No.”
“Do you want someone to?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want me to?”
“Yes.”
“Just to be clear…”
“Yes.”
“Okay, where should we start?”
“1991, the run across Canada. East to West.”
“Why is that?”
He said nothing – just grunted.
“What do you want people to know?”
“The truth.”
“About what?”
“The whole truth.” Then a thud as the phone hit the table.
So, the next time we began in 1991.
Tomorrow Run – Day 1 – June 21, 1991
It was 9:33 in the morning, an hour late, when the crowd parted like a biblical river and the stoic figure appeared on the road. His face was expressionless, seemingly immune to the cheers from the Newfoundland crowd. He knew better than anyone what lay ahead: over 4,500 miles of hell. His goal was to run across Canada in record time, averaging over 100 kilometres per day. “It’s as close to impossible as you can get,” he told reporters that morning. The mayor and the Elks had laughed, but not Howie. Six years before, he had almost died attempting the same feat.
As Telegraph Hill and the onlookers disappeared in the distance, Howie pulled away at 10 km an hour for the first few miles and then slowed into the infamous groove he was so known for, that stumped the world’s best mega-distance runners: he could literally run 10 minutes a mile, forever. It was midnight when he finally stopped the first night, 114 km from the morning’s start.
The first witness that day to sign the official document log lived on a street named after Terry Fox, Canada’s greatest hero. Fox’s attempt to cross Canada may have cost him his life, but his spirit gave life to millions. As Howie lay down in the camper that first night, the image of Fox was palpable. They had entered their first race together in 1979 at the Prince George to Boston Marathon. Howie had gotten third, but all eyes were on the guy in last place, Fox. He hopped and skipped, as if fighting the cancer that had taken his leg. Howie stood there with every other finisher, wide-eyed, watching in awe as Fox trudged up to the finish on his primitive prosthetic, ten minutes behind the last runner. Howie was at the dinner that night, when Terry, moved to tears by the outpouring of support, announced that he would do the unthinkable and run across Canada – “The Marathon of Hope.”
The next morning, in the middle of Newfoundland, as the sun did its best to warm the freezing summer day, Howie’s feet were again pounding the pavement, his mindset workmanlike. He stared down the same road, the same direction as Fox and the same goal to reach the Pacific Ocean. He was able-bodied, experienced and determined to run it faster than any man or woman had ever done before.
Months of running lay ahead, the first 600 miles on slippery stones they called road shoulder, and all advice from runners and doctors was the same: he would need more cushion. But Howie was a confounding runner; he lived on a steady diet of fish ’n chips and beer, yet he had set the world record in the longest certified race in the world, the Sri Chinmoy 1,300-miler. And he’d done it in three-ounce Ron Hill racing flats, infamously called “ballet slippers” by other runners. Now, eight-ounce Brooks Kona were on his feet crossing Newfoundland on his way to the Pacific. “You don’t want those,” a rep from Brooks had said. A racing flat/triathlon shoe mash-up, they were the lightest shoe Brooks offered and just what Howie was looking for.
Al Howie ran on instinct, nothing like the technology-driven runners of today. No watch. No gels. No compression socks or compression boots, no GPS, no massage therapist, no trainer and no Google Earth–formulated shortcuts.
In the mega-distance world, Howie was already legend. He had won over 50 ultramarathons and numerous marathons, and broke world records as if they were porcelain dolls. In the ’80s, he went against ten teams of relay runners in a 100 km race from Haney to Harrison Hot Springs. One blogger remembers, “Al Howie ran the whole thing as a team of one and was sitting in the hotel lobby having a beer as our team entered for the banquet.” He ran 470 km or 292 miles from Calgary to Slave Lake, won the marathon there and ran the 470 km back. He warmed up for a 24-hour race in Ottawa by running 2225 km (1,383 miles) from Winnipeg to the starting line. He was sponsored by Miller beer and according to them was travelling at a 17-beer-a-day pace. He won the race with a meagre, for him, 121 miles. Al Howie was mega-distance.
Three runners are honored at Mile Zero in Victoria: Terry Fox has a statue behind it and Steve Fonyo has a plaque underneath it, but Al Howie is the only name emblazoned on it. Yet very few know anything about him. Understanding him would be like catching the enigma full stride. His story is replete with fake names, bizarre IDs, alleged kidnapping, poverty, addiction, and deportations. Howie the myth was a number on a page, proven, witnessed and undeniable. Howie the man was like a drifting fog, always disappearing just before you could grab hold. He didn’t even start running until he was 30. He never experienced a “runner’s high.” He lived as an illegal immigrant until 1988, and he never became a Canadian citizen. He had been hooked on drugs and booze, smoked three packs a day, and spent over a decade on the run from Interpol. On top of all that, his name wasn’t even Al.