Run, Logan, run.
Run down dusty, ranch roads and up
narrow, steep mountain trails. Run through forests and icy
streams, and keep going over deadwood and around rocks, climbing
above the treeline. Then run farther.
Run because every step is a celebration
of your life -- your spirit -- because every stride takes you
farther from that terrible day 17 years ago. Run because you
can.
Run, Logan Beaulieu, because running
saved you and others need to know.
"My grandmother told me: 'Be
careful how you live because you may be the only bible someone
ever reads,' " says Moe Beaulieu, Logan's dad. "In
some ways, Logan says he's better off because of the accident --
in the way he looks at life.''
The accident is later. First comes
Logan.
At 33, the Edmonton resident is among
Canada's premier ultra-marathoners, which is difficult to
quantify because the sport is loosely organized and even among
extreme athletes, ultra-runners are considered chief tenants of
the lunatic fringe. Truly and figuratively, they are out there.
They race on wilderness courses up to
160 kilometres or more in length, often climbing 2,400 metres or
3,000 metres during a race. They carry their own water and
energy food and must be somewhat self-sufficient because if they
get into trouble, aid stations may be long distances apart.
There is no prize money, no fame, no X-Games.
Rollerblading on a half-pipe, doing
tricks on a BMX bike? Please. What's extreme about that?
"Training is not always that fun,
but the events are like a rebirth,'' Moe, 60, explains.
"It's like you're a child again, running in the woods.
"I don't tell a lot of people
about it because they figure: This guy's lying or he's insane.
Then after they get to know me, they think: He's not lying, he's
just insane. Why would you run 100 miles? Because you can. What
else are you going to say? We were made to move. It's primal.''
So is surviving, and Logan Beaulieu
knows about that, too.
Born in Williams Lake and raised in
Prince George and Penticton, Beaulieu's life changed in a
millisecond during the middle of the night when he was 16 years
old. He was the passenger in a buddy's car that was T-boned at
an intersection in Penticton. Logan's friend, Shaun, died
instantly at impact on the driver's side.
"They thought I was dead, too,''
Logan says. "One of the ambulance guys noticed I was still
breathing.''
When paramedics arrived, Logan's leg
was sticking through the passenger door. The door was not open.
His leg punctured it. Imagine the force required to do that.
No alcohol was involved in the
accident. No charges were laid. Logan didn't quite die that warm
night in 1988, but nobody knew if he'd survive the next one and
the one after that. He was airlifted to St. Paul's Hospital in
Vancouver and spent the next 17 days in a coma.
Moe, separated from Logan's mom, June,
took leave from his radio advertising job in Victoria to stay by
Logan's bedside. Raised Catholic, Moe says he is more spiritual
than religious. But he figures other forces, besides Logan's
will, were at work.
"My grandmother told me when I was
a kid -- my dad left when I was 15 so I spent a lot of time with
her -- she said she would be my guardian angel,'' Moe says.
"She said if I or anyone I knew was ever in trouble, call
on her.''
"I'd talk to Logan and sing to him
songs my grandmother taught me. One night I said: 'OK, son, it's
10 o'clock, so I'm going to leave now and see your cousin.' And
he made a kissing sound. They said it was just a reaction to
pain and the drugs he was on. But I would not believe that he
didn't know I was there.
"His left side was paralyzed, but
he could move his right arm [while unconscious]. One time he had
his hand on my face and started pulling my hair. I said: 'Son,
you're hurting your dad.' So he patted my face and stroked my
beard and relaxed. And the nurses said, 'Look at that.' "
Seventeen days after the accident,
Logan Beaulieu woke up.
Look at that.
"His mom was standing there facing
him when I walked in the room,'' Moe says. "He was really
fuzzy, but he said: 'Mom, here's my big dad.' And I started
crying. At least I knew he could talk.''
Moe didn't allow himself the
selfishness of crying in Logan's presence until then because he
didn't want his sleeping son to know of his anguish and fear.
Initially, crying was all anyone knew Logan could do.
Apart from any neurological damage he
may have suffered, he remained paralyzed on one side.
"Doctors told me I had a
10-per-cent chance to walk again,'' Logan says, before adding:
"Doctors always give you the worst-case scenario.''
Slowly, Logan began to regain feeling
in his left hand. His father had him squeeze a towel to start
rebuilding strength. Logan could barely move. At one point, he
somehow made it to the end of his bed and tried standing.
"Of course, I fell on the floor,''
he says.
A wheelchair was brought in and Moe
would bustle Logan into it, then order his son to use his good
hand to wheel himself a few metres.
"That is where my recovery
began,'' Logan says. "That's when I decided I was going to
walk again, I was going to beat this.''
Moe says a therapist told him, if all
went well, Logan might be able to get out of the wheelchair in
six months. He was out of the wheelchair in three weeks. But it
would take much longer for him to run.
Transferred to the GF Strong
Rehabilitation Centre on Laurel Street, Logan took daily walks
around a grassy clearing. Moe half-carried him at the beginning.
Later, Logan would merely lean on his dad's shoulder. Soon he
was holding on only to Moe's arm, then eventually began hobbling
around the park solo, using a cane and mostly dragging his left
leg along against its will.
"I'd walk with a very bad limp,
walk slowly,'' Logan says. "It felt like a football field I
was walking around, a really big field. But I've seen it since
then and it was only a little field.''
"I had to use a lot of tough
love,'' Moe says. "He knew I loved him, but I had to be
almost like a drill sergeant. It's human nature to take the easy
way out.''
After several months of rehab and a
brief return to Penticton, where his mum lived, Logan moved to
Victoria to live with his dad. There was too much pain in
Penticton.
Logan worked with physical therapists
and occupational therapists, strengthening his body and mind.
Moe rented an apartment for Logan, across the street from his
own home, so his son would have a sense of independence and
learn to be self-sufficient.
Then Logan started to run. He had been
an active kid, but was no jock.
In Grade 5, Logan had finished fifth at
the B.C. cross-country championships in Richmond. Jarrett was a
runner, too. All the Beaulieus were.
"Dad had us going out on
three-mile runs, three days a week,'' says sister Roxanna.
"My dad's a bit eccentric.''
Running became Logan's therapy. Running
rejuvenated his body and cleared his mind.
"Apart from the endorphins rush,
running is great therapy in itself,'' he says. "It's great
for the mind, especially when I was going through school (after
the accident) and found it difficult.''
More than anything, Logan says, running
restored his self-esteem.
Moe was a runner. Is a runner. He has
completed 94 marathons and ultras. He remembers running as a
teenager most of the way in a "walkathon'' near Camrose.
Decades later, he took up running more seriously. Moe entered
his first ultra-marathon at age 42. Logan did his first at 21,
five years years after he should have died in his friend's car,
five years after doctors told him he had a one-in-10 chance to
walk again.
"I ran 401 laps in case there was
a miscount,'' Logan says. "I wanted to make sure I did 100
miles. I love running. It was something I could do, something I
could be good at.''
In 12 years, Logan has run 20 ultras
and three marathons. He ran six ultras last year and plans to do
nine this season. The first of these is next Saturday, the
50-kilometre event in the Keremeos Kruncher, part of a series of
B.C. trail races organized by his father.
Logan moved to Edmonton two years ago
because he wanted a change, something Moe, who says he had 13
jobs in 30 years, can relate to. Moe says Logan is the living
bible his grandmother talked about. Logan has lived and worked
in Northern Ireland, Australia and Fiji, befriending people
everywhere. He is pondering a couple of job offers in Edmonton,
and is leaning towards accepting one from Wal-Mart.
"He's not 100 per cent, but he's
95 per cent,'' Moe says. "And he uses that 95 to such an
extent that it's like 150 per cent compared to other people.''
Logan admits his memory can fail him.
He occasionally pauses in mid-sentence. But no one who talks
with him would suspect the horror he has overcome. He says most
of his friends don't know about the accident.
"I used to kind of hide from it,''
he says. "I suppose I still do. It was when I was 16; so
much has happened in my recovery since then. It's almost like it
was a lifetime ago.
"I hate to say it, but the memory
of it has faded. I just had to get on with my life. I was young
enough. So much has happened to me, I sort of forget how much I
went through. You get caught up with other things.''
Logan says he hopes to attract sponsors
who will help him become a role model for other accident
victims, proof that odds are beaten, that you can run gloriously
even after being told you might never walk or -- as his father
says -- that you can be reborn far, far down the trail.
