Back on January 10th, following a stroke suffered by my brother, I decided to run the 83 km that is the Niagara Section of the Bruce Trail to raise money for his medical bills, the longest run of my life by over 30 km.

After that run, I had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to tackle the Iroquoia section at some point. Seeing as its 122 km, I put the timetable on winter 2021/spring 2022. Well, I am an impatient person and decided on about a week’s notice to run it on May 22nd this year. This time, I would raise money for Pathstone Mental Health, which provides mental health services to children of the Niagara region.

Because nothing is as fun as it is with friends, I recruited the help of several friends to accompany me. Geoff Gamble ran the first stretch, starting at 3am, then Denny Murray and Jessica Ranalli each ran two stretches of 15-20 km with some Derek Shevel time sprinkled in there, before I met up with Jonathon Toews and Steve Korchinos joined in for the final 25 km or so.

Throughout the day, the entirety of the day, we enjoyed the beautiful sites of the Iroquoia. All of the waterfalls were breathtaking, the many epic views of the escarpment and even the climbing of Mt. Nemo made for a great 19 hours, 53 minutes and 20 seconds (but who’s counting).

My favorite moment was all six of us finishing together, wearing our headlamps with pride. The picture at the end of the Iroquoia is something that I will cherish forever.

Tom Ando