Friends, I don't know how much more you can say really about this one lady, Sue Clarkson of Inuvik, who successfully completed a marathon, and no less on a broken leg!

From what I have experienced in my own athletic days of yore, I do know that you need to be in tip-top shape. It takes months of serious training just to enter one of these events. And then the pain begins - and stays with you until the last second, and beyond.

She also does the Delta proud as the Firth Sisters, Sharon and Shirley did, with their skiing prowess and accomplishments galore with no less than 50 world-class medals between them, a feat never to be repeated.

I should know something about this myself, having been on the same team as a cross-country ski racer for the NWT, way back when, before a lifetime of boasting about it all took its toll. Now all I can do is beat my weary gums about it, often with no-one to hear the sad tale!

I remember that we used to go out in 30 or 40-below weather, on tracks lit by light bulbs, behind Grollier Hall, in these flimsy racing suits, with only body heat to depend on. Indoors, we trained in the gym with simulated ski exercises, back and forth in socks on the floor, trying to get that right rhythm and technique.

We ate a lot of honey and beans and learned to swallow some pride after each race.

So, it is with much joy that I read about Sue starting to train for the San Francisco Marathon with some friends. It does take some commitment to first take the news of one having lymphoma cancer, an incurable one at that, and then decide to train for the long race to raise money for the deadly disease.

Lord knows this new cancerous plague has taken some of our best ones from the North, Chief Johnny Charlie of Fort McPherson being one.

I knew him as being one tough customer. The first time I saw him he was running a team of dogs along the Dempster Highway, when we asked him about getting his Gwich'in people ready for the Berger Inquiry on the first proposed pipeline.

He just laughed and said he would "be there, in awhile." Think he beat us back to town, too, and we were driving!

There are some races that you enter to win and some, like Mrs. Clarkson's, that she only wanted to finish. For her to do so with a fractured tibia, otherwise known as the shin bone, is a miracle, no less. The pain must have been ungodly.

This, of course, says volumes about that ol "Never Say Die!" Delta spirit. I hope the youth up there take note, that it is not over, folks until the Jolly One hits that note!

For now, and Mahsi Cho, for giving me hope!