Tom Hahn sits at a conference room table in the sparkling new municipal building on Municipal Drive outside Pictou and reminisces about how he got into long-distance running.
The 51-year-old property mapping supervisor at the land registration office reflects on a late-starting running career that includes almost 50 marathons and a dozen appearances in the prestigious Boston Marathon.
When he was attending school in New Glasgow, one of his childhood chums was Justin MacDonald, son of a local gynaecologist. When Tom moved away with his family, the friendship was interrupted but, in the mid-1980s, the two met up again when Hahn settled in the Halifax area.
“Justin was an avid runner and he did triathlons and stuff,” Hahn explains. “We hadn’t seen each other since we were kids and he said, ‘Why don’t you come out for a run?’ I always assumed I was in pretty good shape, so we went out for a little run and I was amazed at how good a shape he was in. He just kind of left me standing there.
“I had done a little running here and there, but I never really knew what I was doing. It’s the kind of thing you have to learn how to do it. It kind of progressed from there.
“Justin moved away, but I sort of maintained the running. I started to learn more about it, I started to read about it, I trained a little more consistently, and eventually I started getting better at it.”
Hahn returned to Pictou County 21 years ago, but before that he came to run in the Johnny Miles Marathon.
“I think it was 1987. I really didn’t even know what I was doing. But I had read a little bit about (marathons). I knew if you ran a marathon, you should train a long distance.
“We lived in Lower Sackville and I used to go out and try to run for an hour and a half or something like that. Sometimes I’d end up walking home because I’d go too fast, or I wasn’t in condition to run that far. So it was a real learning process.”
He came to the Johnny Miles.
“I came down, not knowing for sure what I was going to run, and I hadn’t registered. I had done a couple longer runs, but I can’t even remember how far they were. I remember when I went to register here, they said to me, ‘Full or half?’ I said ‘full,’ just like that. I hadn’t even planned to run the full. I wasn’t even sure how far a marathon was at that time.
“I really didn’t know what I was doing, but I went in it, and I finished it. I actually finished in 3:11, and that wasn’t a bad time when I look back on it now. It was tough and I remember that night, after running it, I couldn’t believe how sore my arms were. I never really experienced that before.”
He thinks back.
“That was a long time ago. I really just remember the euphoria of finishing. I remember, half way through it, thinking, ‘Boy, this is a long way. Am I going to make it?’
“I didn’t even know that you could stop (running) and walk. I thought if I did that they would kick you out or something. So I just kept going. I wasn’t very fast at times, but I got through it anyway.”
He finished unscathed.
“I thought, ‘This wasn’t so bad, I’d like to do another one.’ And I did do another one that fall. I ran in Halifax.”
By then he was training more, and was better prepared.
“I finished in 2:56. I didn’t really think that much of it. A lot of people strive to break three hours and I didn’t realize the significance of it at the time. But here I was, in my second marathon, and I hadn’t trained a lot, although I trained better, and broke three hours.
“That was it for that year. I actually had a couple of years off that I wasn’t doing much running because I had gotten into a restaurant franchise that absorbed a lot of my time. I was working night and day at that. I was doing a little running, but I didn’t race for a couple of years.”
In early 1989 he returned to Pictou County, settled in Scotch Hill, and got back into running regularly.
“I started my job here in January of that year. I came here thinking in the back of my mind that I would get back into running because I had a lot more time then. I was working for the provincial government, so basically I had a Monday-to-Friday job which I hadn’t had when I was in the restaurant business.”
It was on his mind that year that he wanted to run the Johnny Miles again and run some other marathons too.
“I did run the (Miles) marathon that spring, although I can’t even remember how I did now because I’ve done a lot of marathons since then.”
That year he also ran two marathons in Halifax.
“One of the ones in Halifax was good because if you wanted to try to qualify for Boston it was a good spot. It was basically around the (Halifax) Commons 26 times. So it was nice and flat and it gave you the opportunity to really pace yourself.”
Hahn was thinking about Boston and he qualified to enter in 1990 by doing a 2:45 in Halifax.
“I met a few people here in the county who were training for Boston, talking about it. My training was then all geared towards Boston.”
He got a membership to the YMCA in New Glasgow and got into a training schedule. Most of his running was outdoors but he concentrated on his speed on a treadmill.
Next week: Hahn and the Boston Marathon.
Hugh Townsend, a New Glasgow native and long-time sports journalist in Nova Scotia, can be reached by email at htownsend@ns.sympatico.ca.