Ruthie Sloan
Ruthie shares her story of courage and determination as she balances motherhood, trail running, and getting diagnosed with cancer during COVID.
More Than Our Story
Bob Knuckey
75-year-young endurance athlete extraordinaire Bob Knuckey relives his career from his running days as a youth in high school, to his recent Age Group win at this years’ 2023 IRONMAN World Championship in Nice, France.
Highlights
We had a race around the schoolyard. It was like 800 meters, and I finished third and that got me hooked on running. Grade 11 I finished third, grade 12, I finished second… grade 13, I finally I won it.
I've done about 55 marathons... my best one was 2 hours, 28 minutes and 53 seconds in the Toronto Marathon.
In my early sixties, one night after working out with the Etobicoke Huskies, on my warm-down run, I went by a C3 workout with Barrie Shepley, and I got to know him through there and he eventually got me... So that's how I got coaxed into it. I started with duathlons and then for a whole year, Barrie and I argued over whether I would get the swim going... and he won.
Three months before (IRONMAN 2007 Wisconsin) I discovered that I had prostate cancer, so I chose the route of having it removed... I hadn't planned on competing, but the night before the race and I saw the cow medal and I had to have it.
[With no running, and only two bike rides and two swims since surgery, Bob ended up sixth in his age group to claim his medal]
The second time I went to Kona, I had nailed down the pacing on the bike. My nutrition was better and I ended up finishing fourth.
When you finish in the top five, you get a salad bowl. It's a small salad bowl, unless you're the winner, then you get a big salad bowl. So that was my focus for the next few years - to get the big salad bowl.
I think the fact that I am doing it (staying active and running triathlons) has kept me young, and I am going to keep doing it as long as I can. I can see myself when I'm 85... Racing people in a walker because I love to race.
I didn’t really celebrate (after winning my first 70.3 World Championship). I just came back home and started training for the next one.
I noticed a big change in my running form when I turned 50, and I noticed another big change when I turned 70. So you're slowing down every year and that's a little concerning, but as long as I'm not slowing down more than the other 75 year olds, I'm a happy camper.
You’ve got to jump on those injuries.
If you are a runner, branch out and do multi-sport, biking has a lot less strain on the body, swimming has even less. A lot of my running friends, I would say maybe 5% of them that I used to run with are not running anymore because they totally wrecked their bodies.
Second thing is to join a club with a lot of young people in it, which I do. I work my hardest to keep up with all the young people and that keeps me young and just keeps me moving.
I find that if you hava a goal, a lot of people don't have goals, so they don't bother training. I like to have goals and that keeps me in the game, keeps me looking forward to something.
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Daniel
Daniel is an extremely curious person, a wealth of random knowledge and facts. Extremely passionate about a vast array of interests ranging from health to history, science to athletics, everything culinary and the list goes on. Trust us, you would want to be on his team for Trivial Pursuit.
Daniel is also years into his battle with brain cancer. He experienced a seizure while on a Zoom call at work in late 2020 and quite literally, his life changed within minutes. After his operation he started to talk about his story but had always known it was more than just him. From then, More Than Our Story became a PROJECT that has evolved into the starting point it is today.
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Bob Knuckey, 75-year-young, endurance athlete extraordinaire became a 2-time, age-group IRONMAN world champion this year in Nice, France.