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Annual Terry Fox Run taking place Sunday at Island Lake

September 16, 2019   ·   0 Comments

By Brian Lockhart

When Terry Fox finally had to give up his cross-country run in 1980, others took up the torch and carried on.

As of January 2018, the Terry Fox Run had raised $750 million. It is the world’s largest one-day fundraiser for cancer research.

This year’s annual Orangeville event will take place at the Island Lake Conservation area. It is the third time the Run has taken place on the trails through the park.

Organizers say it made sense to move the Run to a more secluded area after it simply became too dangerous to have a lot of people walking through and crossing the streets in town.

“It’s not just a run any more,” explained Run organizer, Julie Fraser-Koch. “There’s a number of people who run but there’s a lot of people like myself who have been participating in it for such a long time. We’ve got grandparents who turn up with grandchildren in strollers. We have people who have been doing it for over 30 years and they’re no longer running – they’re walking.”

The whole point of the event it to participate, whether you decide to sprint the route or walk it at a leisurely pace. 

“We do two trails,” Ms. Fraser-Koch explained. “We do a 5K trail and a 10K. The Run started 37 years ago. The Run in Orangeville has been going on the same amount of time. When Terry passed away they decided they were going to continue with the run. Communities started organizing. It took a couple of years to get everybody included in this. People starting continuing the run in their small communities where Terry couldn’t finish his run across the country.”

Around 250 have taken part each year in the Orangeville event.

“Everybody will get their registration in and we try to get things kicked off around 9:00 in the morning, but depending on how many people have to help with registration.”

You don’t have to pre-register to take part. You can simply show up on the Run day at the park.

The Terry Fox Run will take place this Sunday, September 15, at the Island Lake Conservation Area.

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