After months and miles pounding the pavement, R.F. Staples Thunderbirds football coach Jon Kramer is crossing the finish line at his first-ever marathon and raising money for the Hope Resource Centre.
Kramer donated $262 out of his own pocket for every one-tenth of a mile crossed in the 26.2-mile Red Deer Marathon May 21.
For every $20 donated to the campaign, he is throwing in another $6.20 with the goal of raising $1,122 for the Hope Resource Centre. Since May 1, the campaign has raised $877. The fundraiser will be open on the Canada Helps website until May 25.
“I’ve just been so humbled and impressed by the work (Hope Resource is) doing and honestly, it was to leverage something I’m doing for myself to promote awareness for something that’s much more important,” he said.
Hope Resource Centre sees between 15 and 20 clients every week and works with community organizations and schools on family violence awareness throughout the month.
Last year Hope Resource Centre saw 106 clients, 61 of them new, and nearly 60 children. The non-profit centre provides assistance to individuals going through the family and criminal court system in cases of family violence, as well as mental health support and outreach work in the form of a community kitchen and recently a community garden project.
“The plan has always been to do the marathon but probably in the last two months, a lot of my running has taken me past the Hope Resource Centre,” Kramer said. “I don’t run with music or anything. I just run with my own thoughts wherever they go and I felt my heart go, ‘Hey, maybe I can do something for them that I can leverage what I’m doing for myself,’ to hopefully get a little bit of awareness and a little bit of funds directed their way to something that’s a little more real and important.”
Kramer got to know the Hope Resource Centre and executive director Sylvia Yoder through Westlock CONEX, formerly the Westlock and District Drug Task. CONEX brought the T-Birds football team on board to promote resiliency, mental-physical health, drug awareness and abuse awareness.
But it was the running that came first. Kramer laced up his pair of runners about a year-and-half ago as a way to clear his head.
“I found myself in a place where I thought I needed to do something,” he said. “I was being short-tempered and I was feeling lethargic all the time so I knew I had to get out and do something.”
As someone who grew up playing team sports, running didn’t appeal to him at first but eventually he decided to join his wife, herself a half-marathon runner, at the Winter’s End half marathon in Santa Monica, California in February 2016. The idea to run his first-ever marathon — a 42-kilometre feat — came up after the California run and a brief backpacking trip where he had time to mull over his next steps.
“It’s been something that’s good for me, not just physically, but mentally, emotionally, to ground myself and figure out who I am again,” he said. “It’s been good for me that way.”
Since then, he has been blogging for his family and friends about the process of preparing and training for the marathon, and the doubts and confidences that go with it.
“The furthest I’ve ever ran is 16 miles in my training so I’ll have 10 miles of uncharted waters — we’ll see how that goes,” he said. “But I’ve ran a lot of miles since September. There’s a bit of confidence, a bit of anxiety, but at the end of the day, if I fall flat on my face I fall flat on my face. I don’t have a lot of self-worth invested in the thing but I’m serious about it and hope to do well at least.”
The marathon turned it into a family affair, with his two daughters running in the children’s race, and his father and wife lacing up for the 10K.
