Thirty-year-old track results are for more than mere historical interest. For Diane Palmason, they are personal. Diane, born in Canada but more recently a resident of Blaine, Washington, is a longtime runner — on the track as well as roads — who has set her share of world age-group records. Today she sent me a nostalgic lookback at Toronto 1975 and how she came to be a runner.

Diane writes:
Thirty Years and Counting
July 1, 2005. Canada Day. A day to celebrate my “native land” — and the 30th Anniversary of the start of my current running life. To be honest, I’m not exactly sure that I took those first running steps on July 1, but I do know that this event took place in late June or early July of 1975.
I remember it well, as I had spent the first six months of 1975 being as inactive as I had ever been in my life. Under medical orders. On January 2 I had undergone surgery to correct a congenital spinal abnormality. Bone chips from my right iliac crest were used to surround my 3rd, 4th and 5th lumbar vertebrae so that they would fuse with each other and with my sacrum — a spinal fusion.
To ensure the operation’s success, I was kept relatively immobile in hospital for two weeks. I was then sent home with instructions not to do any bending or lifting for six months, at which time I was to check back with the orthopedic
surgeon.
I remember that session well. I was told that the fusion was looking strong. I was now free to walk for exercise – even swim. But no running! Too much pounding! This from a man whose girth indicated he probably could not run around the corner. However, since the next 30 years have shown his surgical skills to have been excellent, I will comment no further on his instructions. It was not long afterwards that I started to ignore them anyway. I had my heart set on becoming a runner.
Two incidents in May of 1975 had implanted that dream – two dreams, in fact. The first epiphany occurred when I turned to the sports page of the Ottawa Citizen and read the report of the inaugural National Capital Marathon.
The accompanying photo was of Eleanor Thomas, the winner of the women’s race. I was astounded! A woman had run 26.2 miles!
In my school days the accepted wisdom was that women shouldn’t run long distances. We might impair our reproductive capabilities. We weren’t allowed to race any further than 220 yards — and had to be at least 16 before we could even go that far. Now I was looking at the photo of a woman who had run 26 miles further. She looked fine! I was inspired. I would become a marathon runner. (And to H___ with my reproductive capabilities. I already had four wonderful children.)
The second medium to grab my attention was the radio broadcast of an
interview with two man who were organizing the first World Veterans (now Masters) International Championships in Toronto that August. Don Farquharson and Brian Oxley outlined their plans, explaining that there would be competition, in five-year age groups, in all of the traditional track and field events for men age 40 and older, and women aged 35. Imagine! Races on the track for old women like me.
I was 37 at the time, but as far as I knew no-one over the age of 25 or so competed in track meets. How exciting! I would be a masters track runner. Maybe I would even race the mile, the event that had so attracted me as a
teenager.
So it was that in early summer of 1975, six months after my spinal fusion, I began to include a few running steps in my walks. It felt like coming home to me, even though I could barely run for a minute or so before being forced to stop and catch my breath. Being totally inactive for six months or so will do that to you. But it didn’t hurt!!
I was moving pain-free for the first time since the condition of my back had seriously deteriorated a few years before. Soon I was running more than I was walking. As you know, I’ve been running ever since.
I did get to a track meet in August of 1975, though not the international meet in Toronto that so beckoned me. My husband at that time thought it was a ridiculous idea. Besides he needed me to crew for him in a sailing regatta that same weekend. Instead I competed in the Ottawa Business Person’s Olympics (I wonder if they still have such a thing — I doubt it).
Track had gone metric by then, so there wasn’t a mile event. But there was a 1500 meters run. I won the women’s race in 6:02. I would subsequently run more than a minute faster, but I won so much more that day. The excitement of being part of a track meet, the joy of running to the best of my ability — regardless of the outcome — came back to me. And it’s still with me now.
As for the marathon, my first opportunity for that totally new experience came the following spring, with the running of the 2nd National Capital race. There were no “warmup” races at shorter events.
As far as I knew, there were no other road races in the Ottawa area at that time. So I turned up on the start line in early May of 1976 for my first ever road race. It took me 3:54 something, a time I subsequently improved on by more than an hour. I didn’t even “place”, as I recall.
But I won. I won the beginnings of a whole new life. Running, whether on the track, or down the road, or through fields and trails, is at the heart of who I am.
Time to celebrate my 30th anniversary by going out for a run.
(End of story.)
Diane is more than a world-class runner, however. She’s a pioneer of Canadian women’s sport. In fact, she’s a founding member of the Canadian Association for the Advancement and Sport and Physical Activity, or CAAWS.
A history of the organization says:
“The next milestone came in 1986 when Sport Canada, through the leadership of director general Abby Hoffman and program manager Diane Palmason, formally established a policy on Women in Sport that made equality of opportunity for women at all levels of the sport system an official goal. The policy represented the first government step to change the sport system.”
Thanks for checking in, Diane!