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Winnipeg Search and Rescue Technician Sergeant Andrew McLean has just been named the Canadian male ultrarunner of the year.  Sgt McLean won the title in June after winning the six-hour, 78-kilometres race at the Canadian Six Hour Ultramarathon Championship race, held at Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario. 

            While many long distance runners might need weeks to recover from such a feat, Sgt McLean donned his running shoes a week later to run another 42 kilometres in the Manitoba Marathon.  "A tiny trot," says Sgt McLean, jokingly, who runs more than 14 hours a week to train for these events.  "Anyone who runs will know it was fairly intense to run these two races pretty much back to back." (Sgt McLean recorded a time of 2:52 marathon split in the Kingston six-hour event and 3:04 time in the Manitoba marathon).

What makes this title, and many others Sgt McLean has earned over the past 10 years, is that Sgt McLean is no lightweight.  At six feet, and 190 pounds, Sgt McLean is bigger and heavier than most long distance runners competing at his level.  He sees his size as a gift, if you will, to be used in pushing himself to achieve his personal best.

"I am very conscious of the fact that I have this ability so I'm not going to waste it," says Sgt McLean.  "I have a very entrepreneurial attitude about my running and my training - I am accountable to myself for my health and well-being, no one else.  So everything I do, and how I train, has an effect on my performance."

That sense of accountability and personal best goes beyond the actual running and training.  For example, Sgt McLean earned this most recent national title not only for his physical strength and endurance, but also "for the support and interest shown for the sport and its participants and those who watch." 

For example, Sgt McLean donated the prize from the Kingston event, a gift certificate for a new pair of running shoes, to one of the volunteers who was spotting him throughout the trek; last year, he donated $1500.00 of his own money to provide uniforms for himself and fellow Canadian team members during the World Cup Ultrarunning event in Japan where he also presented three Canadian hockey jerseys to Japanese politicians; and (in 1995) he raised $4000.00 for the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) by cycling, running and canoeing 500 kilometres over a 68 hour period.

"I try to make sure that more than just myself gets a benefit from my running," says Sgt McLean. "Acknowledging the volunteers and event coordinators is really important to me."

Although Sgt McLean is not required to be this physically fit for his job in the Canadian Forces, (he trains and competes on his own time), being fit certainly does come in handy for his work in search and rescue.  In fact, Sgt McLean hopes to do the Yukon Arctic Ultra run from Whitehorse to Dawson City in February, 2007 - a 13-day, 740 kilometre trek through some of the most beautiful and majestic northern terrain Canada has to offer.

"As SAR Techs we train to be able to operate and survive in Arctic and northern environments so it will be great to do this trek in that part of Canada.  It will be the experience of a lifetime.  Whether I finish first is not the issue.  I just want to do it."

Before he heads up north, though, Sgt McLean has his sights set on another title, this one far more difficult and far more "prestigious" in terms of international recognition.

"I hope to represent Canada in October in Korea at the International Association of Ultrarunners 100 kilometre World Cup. It will be the only chance I get to represent Canada at an international level."

Among his other recent titles, Sgt McLean was named the fastest 160- kilometre (100-mile) marathon runner in Canada last year during the Canadian National Championship known as the Lost Soul Ultra, a grueling trek through the prairie hills of southern Alberta.

The Lethbridge Herald described Sgt McLean as "one of the toughest men on the prairies-heck, anywhere in our Home and Native Land".

Indeed!  Congratulations Sgt McLean - you're an inspiration!

By Holly Bridges