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Outdoors

Family running a 12,000-mile 'marathon of health'

The eight members of the Chicoine family of Ottawa, Canada, are making a 12,000-mile loop across Canada and the U.S. — largely on foot...

By Merrie Leininger

McClatchy-Tribune

The eight members of the Chicoine family of Ottawa, Canada, are making a 12,000-mile loop across Canada and the U.S. — largely on foot.

The "Marathon of Health" is a 12,000-mile journey the family is undertaking to show the world that small steps can make a big difference in our lives from Vancouver, B.C., across Canada to New York City and back across the U.S. and up to Vancouver.

"All of us run every day, all of us, right now, we're running about 100 miles a day," said dad Ed Chicoine. "I'll run about 15-20 miles each day. Sometimes we only go about 60 miles, it depends on if we have something else going on with the media or high school presentations. We love to give presentations. The kids are engaged, they ask questions, and they're the future and they all get it. Whether they act on it is another thing. We're just hoping to get more people in general to take part in what we're doing."

It was Ed's idea to do this "Marathon of Health." After his brother died at 59 of lymphoma, he decided it was time.

The goal is to bring awareness and get at least 1 million people to sign the online petition (www.marathonofhealth.com) by the end of May 2012. The Chicoines want people to pledge to improve their health and eliminate obesity, as well as sedentary diseases such as Type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart conditions and others.

Not all of the Chicoines had been runners, but they decided their dad's message of healthy living and preventive care was good enough for them to take months out of their lives to join in.

His wife Gaye, and their family Tanya, 27, Ben, 25, Dayna, 23, Karina, 21, Jake, 19, and Whitney, 18, are now over 6,100 miles into the mission, and have 7,000 to go.

They started May 8, and right now, Gaye and Tanya are back home running the family's general store and health food store in Ottawa, but the rest of the family is crammed into a two-person RV that has been retrofitted by the family to provide enough bunks for everyone to sleep.

Karina, 21, took a year off from McGill University to join her family. At the starting point of the trip, she had never run more than 3 miles at a time. She now runs 8-10 miles a day and spends the rest of her time blogging about the adventure and crammed into a tiny RV with her brothers and sisters. Some might call that a nightmare road trip.

"Definitely, at some times, it gets trying. Last night, we were all lying in bed laughing there were five of us back in the bunk beds, and we said, 'Who does this? We are grown people, in these tiny little beds in an RV with our family.' It is quite shocking. Sometimes, you need time to yourself and you need to cool down. But running is what keeps us sane."

Karina said the trip has also brought her future into focus. She was planning a career in business, but recently decided that health issues are where she will be spending her energies.

"I just realized it's my passion. This is just the beginning. We're talking about doing more," Karina said.

Ed says the family has had its share of small injuries and son Jake once had to take off two weeks but they were all healthy when they started, and they have stayed that way by taking care of each other (Ed is a chiropractor who keeps everyone aligned) and eating real food.

"We have eaten out only three times, and other times we do all our own cooking. ... For dinner, we always have a salad, with lots of vegetables — carrots, onions, tomatoes, celery, red peppers, green peppers we make it as colorful as possible. And 90 percent of time, we'll have either chicken, fish, beef or quinoa, lentils or beans, with a rice or a pasta," Ed said. "We also cook in organic coconut oil and olive oil only. We also eat a lot of coconuts and coconut milk, which has saturated fat for your muscles for energy. In the morning, we use a lot of flaxseed, hemp seed and chia seed, sprinkled on cereal for Omega 3s and protein. ... We make our own drinks with chia seed in water with a little bit of lemon. We don't do any power bars or power drinks, and we find that's helped us tremendously."

Ed said that the rate of obesity in Canada and the U.S. is tremendous, with more than 127 million people overweight, and what scares him is the childhood obesity rate is at an all-time high.

"Canada and the U.S. share the same problems with obesity and degenerative diseases, and 80 percent of health care costs could be prevented with changing health. In Canada, our tax dollars pay for all medical care, and right now, 50 percent of our budget goes to pay for that, so instead of treating disease, I'd like to people to take a little responsibility for getting active."

Ed said the family would like to use their petition as a call to governments to move some money to preventive care and incentives for people to be more active and live eat whole foods.

"We could use programs to give incentives to get people to be more active; for instance, if you did a medical checkup every year, maybe you get a tax break. And to tax sugary drinks — they are the biggest culprit for obesity today. Even the power drinks and energy drinks, it's all sugar. Thirty percent of adults are obese in the U.S., and if you eliminate the sugary drinks, you'd get rid of half of diseases today," Ed said.

He said his family has always tried to live without processed foods, even though whole foods and fresh fruits and vegetables are more expensive then the stuff that comes in boxes or bags. However, he said it has been worth it for his family's health.

"We have six kids who, from birth, have never been to a medical doctor other than for accidents. It works, if you apply it."

Karina said she knows the family's adventure isn't for everyone, and admits to sometimes eating the wrong things and having a few drinks, and yes, even thinking that long-distance runners are "crazy," but that she feels so much better now.

"So many people my generation and younger, we're becoming the fast-food generation, and it's amazing how much my body feels differently when I don't eat that. A lot of people don't realize that's how they feel all the time. We are just asking people to think about doing small things like eating real food, stop eating fast food, change from pop to water, maybe walk to school instead of taking the bus."

The Chicoine family has blogs, videos and health and nutrition information on their website, in addition to their petition. Ed points out that the family is not trying to raise money for anything, but just wants everyone to be more healthy.

"We don't want your money, we just want your support.