Boston Marathon man and OHL executive sets example for London Knights

Basil McRae is in the perfect position to judge what his London Knights are going through.

The Knights start their OHL Western Conference final Wednesday night as part of a must-watch series against the Erie Otters.

However, even though the Knights are among the last four teams standing, they’ve only reached the halfway point.

“Life itself is a marathon,” said McRae, the team’s co-owner and general manager. “The playoffs are long and gruelling.”

McRae knows a thing or two about long, gruelling marathons.

The 55-year-old completed his second Boston Marathon on Monday. It was his 10th career 42.2-kilometre race.

McRae, a former journeyman NHL defenceman, entered his first half-marathon when he was looking for a new form of exercise upon retirement. He developed a passion for running and has completed marathons in New York, Florida, Ottawa, St. Louis, Vienna, Austria and Zurich, Switzerland. He also entered a 30-kilometre trail run in Dresden, Germany.

Monday’s race wasn’t one of McRae’s best.

Facing warm temperatures at the start and a head wind down the stretch, he clocked in at 3:46:49.

“It was a tough day for running,” he said.

“I finished it. I got through it. I never walked a step, which is important. I always like to keep the feet moving, even though I don’t know if I was running near the end or shuffling. I kept it going anyway.”

McRae finished his first Boston Marathon in 3:22:40 in 2009. He qualified again in 2013, but withdrew three weeks before the race because he pulled his hamstring.

Of course, 2013 was the year three people were killed after two terrorist bombs were detonated near the finish line.

“I would have probably been in before the bombs went off. But since I was injured I may have slowed down or took longer coming in,” McRae said. “My wife probably would have been standing right where the bomb was. That’s where she was standing in ’09.

“It was special for me to go back and run it post-bomb,” he added. “It was really something to witness and feel and being involved in. To me, Bostonians are so resilient it’s incredible – them and runners. As great an event as it was in ’09, it was even greater.”

McRae spent Tuesday exploring the city and indulged in some unhealthy beverages and food – namely the Boston Lobster Tail, a flaky cream-filled pastry. He brought a couple home.

He’s a little sore, but he insists he’ll be burning off those desserts sooner than later.

“It always hurts. It just depends on what degree,” McRae said of marathon running. “Hopefully by this weekend I’ll be biking and running again.”

McRae has no plans to slow down. Nor does he want his Knights to either.

“If it was Boston we’d still have a ways to go,” McRae said. “We haven’t hit Heartbreak (Hill) yet. Once you’ve hit Heartbreak (Hill) that’s great, but you still have another five miles to go. We can only hope we can run five more miles. The last five miles are the hardest.”