In December 2007, Laurel Aikin was training for the Boston Marathon. She had qualified at the Ottawa Marathon that year, with a time of 3:41.She came home from a run and, while drying off after a shower, the 48-year-old found a suspicious lump on her breast. It turned out to be an uncommon form of cancer, one that would require two surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation.

Tony Zaremba is a numbers guy. He keeps track of exactly how many kilometres his runners have on them (324 km on his Asics Gel Nimbus 11s). He logs the distance he runs on a spreadsheet. The 46-year-old comes by this habit honestly. He is, after all, a chartered financial analyst.