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Former Sarnia resident ruminates on running and life in new book

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Harvey Mitro has been running for 45 years. In that time he has accumulated a treasure trove of interesting stories gained during a lifetime of athletic achievement.

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The Sarnia native was bit by the running bug while a student at St. Patrick’s High School.

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Mitro excelled at the sport, winning provincial and national titles. He became the first Sarnian to break the four-minute mile and was talented enough to eventually compete on the international stage.

He was part of the sport’s elite and later passed on his knowledge as a coach and trainer at York University. Mitro’s achievements in the running world were eventually recognized – he was inducted into both the University of Waterloo Athletic Hall of Fame and the Sarnia Sports Hall of Fame.

Now a kinesiologist, personal trainer and coach living in Toronto – and still a runner – Mitro has completed his first book, entitled Taking Life in Stride. It’s a collection of short stories that detail some of his unique experiences while addressing topics that are universal in nature.

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The Book Keeper will be host to an event at the Sarnia Public Library featuring Mitro on Saturday, May 28 at 2 p.m. where the author will read from his new book and discuss who influenced him and supported him throughout his career as a runner, what inspired him to write the book, how he chose the stories he included in the book, what he learned about himself by writing stories from his past and how he tried to touch on themes that would make the book appeal to both runners and non-runners alike.

In an interview, Mitro said he been encouraged to write a book by his clients, who always found the stories he told them to be interesting and purposeful.

“As part of my life as a personal trainer, I meet with clients daily, ongoing for years and years and I found myself telling a lot of stories. That’s how each of us shares our lives with other people, through the stories that happened through our lives,” he said. “I found that I’d tell certain stories over and over again, and my clients would tell me ‘you should really write a book’. There were all sorts of interesting things that happened to me, so that’s where the original idea started brewing.”

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“The second part of that is I found myself landing in this fertile garden, because two of my clients are giants of the literary world,” Mitro added. “One is named David Staines, who was one of the founders of the Giller Prize. He was made a member of the Order of Canada due to his contributions to literature. And the second person is his partner, Noreen Taylor, who founded and ran for 20 years the Charles Taylor prize for literary non-fiction.”

After getting encouragement from Staines – who eventually edited his book – Taylor and a host of other talented writers, including authors Joseph Kertes and Lawrence Hill, Mitro set out to put his ideas onto paper, a process he thoroughly enjoyed.

“I term it an exercise in happiness,” he said. “Some of the more difficult stories that are talking about the more difficult things in life – there were times while I was writing this when I was weeping, I had tears coming down my face because these are real memories with real feelings. But there’s also some comfort in that, looking at these stories as an older person, re-evaluating what was happening back then. So writing this book was a joyful occasion for me.

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“And David Staines was my editor, so as I wrote out these stories as a first-time writer, he’d check the work and tell me to rewrite certain sections and give me little tips,” Mitro added. “The great thing is when someone like David tells you ‘this is good work’, you know it’s good work because this person is a real pro.”

The cover of Harvey Mitro’s first book.Handout/Sarnia This Week
The cover of Harvey Mitro’s first book.Handout/Sarnia This Week jpg, SW

Choosing which stories to include in the book was surprisingly difficult, Mitro said.

“Certain stories stick with you – there are the real ones that are the classics, stories I couldn’t not write about,” he said. “I think I write with a real emotional context and certain stories would speak to me on an emotional level, that’s where they began. But other stories began as anecdotal then went in an entirely different direction.”

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What was originally going to be a fairly straight-forward account of his own experiences became something much more deep, Mitro said.
“So the book became a commentary on so many things about life,” he said. “A lot of people think it’s a book about running, but it’s really not – even non-runners have enjoyed it in many ways because the whole running aspect is new for them. But ultimately it’s a story about life – death, spirituality, fear and anger. There are stories that tackle those things but there are also stories about happiness and joy and the process of aging with running as a vigilant partner.”

Readers of Taking Life in Stride will get the chance to explore themes ranging from fear and horror to warmth and humour, Mitro said, all from the perspective of a runner.

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“I’ve run for the better part of 45 years … three or four times a week, there’s a lot of life that happens there,” he said. “There are parts of the book that speak about running and these great moments, but all of them are given an emotional context. I also have some lighthearted stories too, so it’s not all heavy.”

Mitro said he’s thrilled to be returning to Sarnia to talk about his book. During the event he plans to talk about the influence of local running legends, such as his St. Pat’s coach Pat Brown (there’s a chapter in the book about Brown), as well as his lifelong coach Vito Delben, who has influenced other local athletes.

“When I think back to my Sarnia days, those were my very best running years,” he added. “I moved to Toronto to be with my wife close to the peak of my career, but I had everything in Sarnia – my coach was brilliant and we were doing world class things. So it’s so special to be coming back to talk about it in Sarnia.”

Price of admission for the event is a copy of Taking Life in Stride, which can be purchased at The Book Keeper or at the event, where books will be on sale.

A portion of the proceeds from the Taking Life in Stride will go towards Athletics Ontario, the governing body for running in Ontario.

IF YOU GO

What: Reading and Book Signing with Harvey Mitro, author of Taking Life in Stride

Where: Sarnia Public Library Theatre

When: Saturday, May 28 at 2 p.m.

Cost: A copy of Taking Life in Stride, which can be purchased at The Book Keeper (sarniabookkeeper.com) or at the event itself.

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