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By Martin Cleary
They say a picture is worth a thousand words.
When Joe DuVall studied the dramatic newspaper image of the photo finish at the 1978 National Capital Marathon between winner Brian Maxwell and Paul Bannon, he immediately converted his thousand words into thousands of training runs for 400 career road races.
That inspiring picture struck like a lightning bolt for the cigarette-smoking and exercise-shy DuVall.
He wondered how two elite runners could pound the pavement for almost 42 kilometres and then sprint the final 200 metres on Carleton University’s Raven Road to the finish line.
The answer was simple. They had been training for years and ready for any last-minute challenges.
DuVall wanted to get a sense of what road racing was all about. He enjoyed running during high school phys-ed classes as it left him feeling energized at the end.
So, he bought a pair of running shoes at Elgin Sports, a copy of Runner’s World magazine and started running. Little did he know that he would see his life engulfed over the next 46 years by all aspects of running.
Not only has he run a variety of road races, but also he has organized races, coached runners at Earl of March Secondary School, and worked as a full-time employee in the running industry since 2007.
On Dec. 31, he’ll cross the finish line of his 16-year career with Run Ottawa, which started as the assistant to general manager Jim Robinson and will end as director of operations.
Run Ottawa, the group which stages the annual Tamarack Ottawa Race Weekend and the Canada Army Run among its busy fixture list, was scheduled to hold a retirement party for DuVall, 70, on Thursday night at the Prescott Hotel.
It would be a grand time to trade running stories, poke some fun and say thank you to a dedicated, behind-the-scenes worker, who knows the business of staging races inside out and wanted to make sure everything he did was just right so the runners could move quickly and safely over the course.
In the fall of 2005, DuVall returned to his hometown of Niagara Falls, ON., to run a half marathon race. While visiting the race’s Expo, he met Robinson, who had an offer for DuVall that he couldn’t refuse.
Robinson needed “a good man” to take charge of the water stations for the 2006 Ottawa Race Weekend. DuVall gave it some thought and took on the volunteer task with Dave Morrow.
Several months later, Robinson asked DuVall to be his assistant with the Ottawa Race Weekend. The timing was good as DuVall was scrambling, after losing his job a few years earlier with the City of Ottawa.
By November, 2007, DuVall, who had run almost every Ottawa marathon from 1979-95, was hired as Robinson’s full-time assistant. His first assignment was to work at a race Expo in Miami, Florida, and promote the Ottawa Race Weekend.
DuVall asked Robinson “are you serious?” Robinson was dead serious as he had become tired of all the travel involved with attending races around North America.
For the next 16 years, DuVall did “whatever needed to be done” to help stage successful and runner-appealing races.
“I had the good fortune to work with three great bosses,” DuVall said in a phone interview this week. “Jim was the first general manager and fought through the lean years in the 1990s until 2014. He set the tone.
“John Halvorsen had an international focus and expanded the elite fields. The races were always known as being well organized.
“Ian Fraser pivoted. He introduced a retail program and we have a new way to generate revenue. He’s a progressive, shrewd business person.”
DuVall thoroughly enjoyed working with city, provincial and federal officials as well as contractors to help snap together all the pieces of the Tamarack Ottawa Race Weekend puzzle. He also did the same work for other annual Run Ottawa races like the Richmond Road Races, Desjardins Run to Empower, Otto’s Ottawa Canada Day Road Races and Desjardins Great Big Cookie Run.
“I had great relationships with people. It never seemed like work. I loved doing it. And being paid to organize running events … that doesn’t exist for many people. I was on the ground floor for something that’s more commonplace in the United States.
“What a job to have. I was in the right place. I got great experiences working with Jim. I was allowed to learn on the job.
“I once told (Ottawa Mayor/runner) Mark Sutcliffe, and it may sound corny, that I felt I would work for nothing. But the events can be tough with long days. But I’m always dying to go to work. How lucky, I have been.”
DuVall worked for Run Ottawa during an historic time – taking over operating the Canada Army Run in 2008, merging with the National Capital Runners’ Association in 2009 and helping Tamarack Ottawa Race Weekend through the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
While DuVall only has a few more days of work before he breaks the retirement finish line, he’ll keep running his road races, but not the marathon.
He completed 48 marathons in his career and stopped taking the 42.195-kilometre test in 2010.
“I lost my desire to do the training,” said DuVall, who needed a minimum of three months preparation for a marathon. “My first one was Ottawa in 1979. I got the bug and the urge to train. It wasn’t a one-and-done.”
He ran the New York City and Boston marathons, but as much as he liked both legendary races, he found the logistics of dealing with each one too much for him.
“The simpler the better for me,” he added.
DuVall’s running resume includes many local and regional road races. One of his long-time favourites is the Great Raisin River Footrace, which is part of the Williamstown Fair, the oldest annual fair in Canada. The picturesque course takes runners out and back over five or 11 kilometres “along the winding backcountry roads hugging the Raisin River.”
“I used to do it every year, get the kids in the car on a Sunday and go,” he recalled. “I knew a lot of people there. It was fun. Williamstown has more historic plaques (than most towns). It’s like Niagara-on-the-Lake before the Shaw Festival (and other attractions) came. It’s quaint, historic. I’m also a bit of a history nerd.”
If you were looking for DuVall on the American Thanksgiving Day, he was in Berwick, Pennsylvania, with some Ottawa running friends for the annual Run for Diamonds, which was established in 1908.
Not only did he complete the challenging nine-mile race in one hour, 32 minutes, 0.85 seconds for 12th place in the men’s 65-69 age group, but also he was the guest speaker at the pre-race Pasta Dinner.
As he moves into 2024, he already has one item on his retirement list. Yes, it involves running.
When he started running, he read a Runner’s World story about The Dipsea Race, the oldest trail run in America. The 7.4-mile scenic run from Mill Valley to Stinson Beach can be gruelling and treacherous with stairs and steep trails. It’s restricted to a field of 1,500 runners.
Providing the run goes well, he plans to do something more retirement-like after – visit California wineries and maybe Alcatraz Island.
Martin Cleary has written about amateur sports for over 52 years. A past Canadian sportswriter of the year and Ottawa Sports Awards Lifetime Achievement in Sport Media honouree, Martin retired from full-time work at the Ottawa Citizen in 2012, but continued to write a bi-weekly “High Achievers” column for the Citizen/Sun.
When the pandemic struck, Martin created the High Achievers “Stay-Safe Edition” to provide some positive news during tough times, via his Twitter account at first and now here at OttawaSportsPages.ca.
Martin can be reached by e-mail at martincleary51@gmail.com and on Twitter @martincleary.
I first met Joe DuVall when he was a “youngster” working in the Goulbourn Township Parks and Recreation Department (GTP&RD). My oldest son wanted to learn how to play basketball, so I needed a gym and the easiest way to gain access to a gym was via the GTP&RD. In the fall of 1982, Joe and some Richmond runners (Jack deSnayer, John Rogers, Doug Rosenthal and Bill Williams) got together and organized the first Annual Richmond Road Race, which was held on February 13, 1983, as an event during Richmond’s Winter Carnival. I was one of the 77 runners in that initial 10 Km race; i.e., a typical you scratch my back…. In 1990, a 5 Km race was added and the annual event became known as the Richmond Road Races (RRR).
Joe also organized the short-lived Midsummer’s Night 5 Km Race for the Goulbourn Jubilee Singers, which occurred in July and the even shorter-lived Glenn White Sports 5 Km Road Race in August 1989 as part of the Goulbourn Corn Festival. He was also instrumental in organizing a summer basketball camp, the Goulbourn Township senior’s provincial “Olympic” teams as well as being involved in several Terry Fox Runs undertaken at the Goulbourn Middle School, prior to amalgamation. In short, a program organizer for all ages!
I have always enjoyed how well-organized and runner-friendly the RRR have been and, while I have never competed in a road race outside of Richmond, I have spoken with other RRR runners who found the RRR to be as well-organized as any they participated in. The fact that the RRR have endured for more than four decades speaks to Joe’s talents as a leader and as an organizer. Events like the RRR involve a lot of work that is not evident to most on race day. Ms. Louise Rachlis described said activities in her article in The Ottawa Citizen prior to the 1990 RRR; i.e., the course distances have to be measured, approvals from the municipality and police obtained, race forms printed, entries processed, race kits made, permission obtained from the Ottawa Carleton School Board to use the cafeteria and locker room facilities at South Carleton High School, lunch items bought and prepared and, finally, race and door prizes collected and awarded. In addition, volunteers are needed to hand out the race kits, register runners, set up the courses, direct the runners during the race, man the water station, give out the food after the race, set up a sound system, and clean up after the runners have left. I don’t know all of the individuals and/or groups who have volunteered over the years, save for some South Carleton student sport groups and especially the Richmond Lions Club, who have volunteered for every RRR. There have obviously been many others who have volunteered their time and efforts, and we runners appreciate their making Joe’s and the runners’ race day experience as enjoyable as possible – save for the year when Mother Nature “blessed” us with a temperature of minus 20 C with the wind blowing in our faces all the way down the “back stretch” which made for a nasty situation no one could make “enjoyable”. Joe told me that he had never seen so many people with frost bite as he saw that day.
And finally, Joe, I have enjoyed and valued our friendship for lo these many years, and in my book, you have been and are a class act! So, whatever the next phase of your life entails, may you have many years of happiness and good health in what I hope will be at least four decades of fulfilling retirement life. Looking back over four decades of your organizing the RRR, as you once said to me in a totally different context, “Not too shabby!”
Best wishes,
Doug Arnold
Another great snap-shot of Ottawa’s fitness pioneers by Martin Cleary. Way to go Joe. Here’s to active retirement! Best Regards, Dave D.