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A group of Canadian front-line workers, calling themselves The Stress Leaves, found healing through the joy of travel, camaraderie and a serious runner’s high

The Stress Leaves enjoy a pocket of sun and a single beer atop The Quiraing, a landslip on a 6.8-kilometre hike along the Trotternish Ridge on the Isle of Skye. Maitland had dreamt of running the half marathon on her namesake island for many years, and was overjoyed when her colleagues eagerly agreed to join her. ‘I couldn’t believe that I roped that many people in so quickly,’ she marvels. ‘It actually brings tears to my eyes.’ Nasuna Stuart-Ulin/The Globe and Mail

Photography by Nasuna Stuart-Ulin and Stephanie Foden


Science has yet to determine whether running versus walking through rain keeps you drier – but the method you choose is irrelevant when you’re jogging 21.1 kilometres through a gale. Skye Maitland, an emergency room nurse at a busy Vancouver hospital, knew this all too well when she found herself running the Isle of Skye half marathon – nearly 7,000 kms away on her namesake island in Scotland – in the worst weather the event had seen in its 38-year history.

“It’s sort of like this beautiful trap,” she later mused, “because you’ve signed up for it, and once you’re past the start line, you probably will just do it.”

Six months before, she resolved to trade in the chaos of front-line health care for this event; determined to avoid succumbing to the record levels of burnout among her colleagues. Amid waves of COVID, she made the pivotal decision to request a leave of absence, knowing that if it were granted, the already stressed hospital would lose her temporarily – but if it were denied, they would lose her forever.

Her wish came true, though now, she couldn’t help but laugh in disbelief as frigid, unrelenting horizontal rain – whipped over the hills by 55-km/h winds – stung her face. Fifteen kilometres in, she realized she could no longer feel her hands. But her legs hadn’t failed her, and since she’d roped a few friends into this mess, she knew she had to finish.

Up ahead, her teammate, Nicole Warren, was making good time. She too had spent the pandemic working on Canada’s front line, most recently as the nurse manager of a clinic connected to a groundbreaking safe-supply fentanyl program in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Between grueling shifts, the death of her grandmother and a difficult breakup, running became the only thing preserving her sanity.

“Even when I got shingles from the stress, I didn’t stop running,” she said. “The benefit for my mind was way more important.”

Behind her was a drenched but determined Annah MacKay, who’d all but burnt out after nearly a decade working in front-line substance use services at a clinic called Insite and with Vancouver’s local health authority. The night before, she’d read Scottish folk tales to her running-mates, in her best impression of a Highland lilt that had become nearly pathological since her arrival.

But by mid-race, when she found herself whispering “garbage weather” breathlessly over and over, or scream-singing Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love defiantly into the wind, she’d reverted to her Canadian accent.

Further back was Claire Meggs, an emergency care nurse who’d surprised and delighted herself by forgoing music entirely during the race – something she’d never done before. Later she recalled, “I could chit-chat with people around me and interact with some of the volunteers; hear the wind and the rain and sometimes the sheep.” Together, they made up The Stress Leaves, a team name coined by MacKay.

As daunting as a half-marathon sounds, someone with no prior running experience can cross the finish line. I know this because Skye invited me to tag along a mere nine weeks ahead of the race, though I had absolutely no training. Eager to combat my own COVID exhaustion, I’d leapt from my home-office desk (a.k.a my sofa) into an accelerated training schedule, following these brave women into the storm.

I had never dreamt of running even a 5k race, but there was something irresistible about Scotland with its promise of sweeping, medieval vistas, melodious, sexy accents and endless frolicking lambs. As I barrelled through the foreign squall in a state of delirium, I understood that those very sheep, scattered across the drenched hills in their moisture-wicking finest, were surely wondering why humans do such ridiculous things, and insist on doing them in spandex.

For The Stress Leaves, the answer is really just a matter of perspective. “In a way, the weather was really good,” Meggs says, balancing this buoyant thought with gravity, as only a nurse can. “It’s kind of urging you onwards because, well, the only way out is through.”


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