| “I
was always into running track and field at the city level,”
she noted, recalling her youth some 30 minutes or so down
the road from Birmingham. “At my school, I think
I was good at cross-country because I didn’t stop
to have a cigarette behind the bike shed like most of
my friends were doing.”
Fast forward a few years, with Francis
completing her university studies in Cardiff (Wales) and
looking to explore the world in a way her career aspirations
permitted – “I really thought I was going
to be a backpack geologist – I really liked that
world” – and it was clear her love of running
was not likely to leave her side.
“It was at this point that I realized
that running was really good at keeping me healthy and
was also relatively transportable – you could do
it pretty much anywhere,” she said. Even as the
backpack geologist gave way to a woman who appreciated
all that a small community had to offer, her athletic
endeavours remained central to her story.
“I was more of a fitness runner
in Sudbury, joining local events,” she recalled.
“It was a way of keeping me out of trouble and helping
me make life choices that might otherwise be the other
way. Running is meditative. I started to think about marathon
running, which seems like a natural place for most runners
to go.”
Starting with Chicago, tackling the bucket
list item that is Boston and squeezing a few other Ontario
marathons in between, Francis would discover a fit that
wasn’t quite right. “Cities are fun to explore
(while running a marathon), but they don’t have
the same appeal to me as the wilderness.”
From a seed planted via a brief television
series on to her first crack at the treks that typically
run nearly double a standard marathon, Francis broke the
ice, in the world of ultra marathons, with her 2016 50-mile
race in Haliburton. “It was such a wonderful organization,”
she said, never looking back.
“Not only did they have an incredible
volunteer organization that made you feel like a super
hero at every single aid station, but the runners became
a community pretty quickly. There was this sense of: how
do we help you get through this, regardless of how low
you might feel, how nutrition deprived you might be, to
get you to that finish.”
Winning the women’s event did not
hurt either, when it came to feeding her passion.
Sure, there is the whole physical challenge
that comes with keeping your body in motion, more or less
constantly, for events that might present a cut-off finishing
time of some thirty hours or so. But these races are so
much more than that to Francis and her kind.
“It’s about problem solving,”
she explained. “Whatever this race will throw at
me, I will figure this out. Some of that certainly comes
with experience. I now know that if I take a break, eat
something, walk for a little bit, you will be surprised
at how quickly things will change.”
These are challenges you do not tackle
alone.
“I am fortunate that my husband
(Heiko Leers) goes along with these,” she said.
“I like picking different destinations so that we
can do some travel with it too.”
Yet for as much as the scenery that stands
ahead at UTMB 2024 ranks among the most breath-taking
that Francis will ever experience, this next race is not
about travel.
It’s about finishing – plain
and simple – even for the wonder that is Helen Francis.
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