Norma Bastidas

I had the opportunity to meet Norma Bastidas a few times over the last year or so at various FirstEnergy functions and socials - she was Brett Wilson's date/guest or whatever that fine line is for a while. We hit it off on the idle conversation front - first thing you may notice is the pretty face and smile... often in business settings that equates to the stereotype of trophy girl... but the old don't judge a book by it's cover didn't take long to come through. Norma is motivated and hardcore... which I began to understand when we got to talking endurance events. The endurance events I pursue are sort of like drops in her bucket! I don't consider my pursuits to be too out there, as every time I line up at a start, there's hundreds next to me, but in a corporate setting, it's not overly often I fall into the subjugate category of those conversations.

I take many things from this story, as will others find their connection to it. One I hope to follow more is not to use percieved difficulty or bodily strain as a screening tool for potential courses of action, events, etc. Shying away from physical duress is analagous to bordem in this guys view... humans are resilient, and we can do more than we think we can. The size of a body as observed from the outside is no measure of what's inside... as this petite (~100lbs!) Mexican demonstrates. Nike was right on one thing... just do it.

I've pasted the below article from the Calgary Sun today, link is here, but if they change their archiving later I don't want to link to some dead link I can't find in the future, so sorry for the plagarism. If you read their version, it has more pictures, and proper paragraphs and such.

Six in the City July 14, 2009 - Kelly Doody

The story of single mom Norma Bastidas and the 777 Run for Sight

“So many people are raising kids with visual conditions while being legally blind themselves, so I hardly feel like I’m the hero in this story. My mission is to spread the word about these amazing individuals.”Truly life-changing interviews don’t come along all that often. I’m talking about the kind that leave you wondering whether you could ever have an impact on the world that would compare to the person you’re speaking with. In the words of my mom, shortly after I finished telling her the tale I’m about to tell you, 'it almost doesn’t sound real.'It begins with the ending, in an internet café in Italy. The place Page Six caught up with a lady we’d like to proclaim the Calgarian of the Decade, if we may. Her name is Norma Bastidas. You may remember her as the local mom who was setting out on a little series of long runs a few months ago to raise funds towards fighting her 13-year-old son Karl’s degenerative eye condition called Cone Rod Dystrophy – a devastating diagnosis for which there is currently no cure. As it turns out, Ms. Norma didn’t just go for a few runs, and she didn’t just raise a few dollars. As of Saturday, she became the second person in history to have successfully completed seven grueling ultra marathons on all seven of the world’s unforgiving continents in seven short months. And so far, she has also managed to raise close to $140,000 in support of Operation Eyesight Universal, CNIB and Foundation Fighting Blindness.

A RUNNER GONE WILD
“Today, July 11th about 12:58pm Switzerland time, I crossed the finish line of my last race in the 777 Run For Sight.”Far from unfamiliar with hardship, Norma was born in Mazatlan, Mexico, became a twenty-something daytime television star in Japan, escaped an unhealthy marriage in the United States, landed in Canada in 1993 with her two sons in tow and hasn’t looked back since. The single mom on a mission dealt with the emotional stress of her son’s diagnosis two years ago by starting to run. And once she started running, well, she never stopped.A self-described ‘Mexican running wild’ but too humble to ever call herself an athlete, Norma registered for her first ‘ultra’ in 2007 with only one half and one full marathon under her belt. It was a grueling 125 km trek with 17,000 feet of elevation change over three mountain summits that left her hypothermic on a mountaintop and unable to finish. But it also managed to plant the question in her mind: If she could run 94 km without any real training, how far was she capable of going with a little preparation? Everywhere from the thickest tropical jungles to the windiest tundra plains to the driest deserts in the world, as it turns out, all in support of the blind and visually impaired.

THE SEVEN RUNS OF THE WORLD
“I felt like Forrest Gump in his movie where he is being chased by the bullies and he literally runs free from his leg braces. All of a sudden the heaviness of my legs lifted allowing me to run and run.”No. 1: South America“I could barely stand up, fatigue just overtook me. I hit my first major low when I reached 160 km, my toenail now ripping from my toe and I thought I was going to pass out from the excruciating pain.”The Brazil 135 Ultra Marathon began on January 23, 2009 and ended two days later, where the plane leaving Sao Paolo that would take Norma through Cape Town, South Africa to a Russian research station in Antarctica was waiting. Antarctica, after all, was where the next 100 km – ultra marathon number two – was waiting to be run. But finishing all 217 km of the Brazil Ultra had to happen in less than 48 hours for her to make the flight south. No. 2: Antarctica“The worst thing I could do was to be beaten mentally. Then and there I decided to fight hard until the end. I also decided to be smarter and not to try and keep up with everybody, just to run my race.”Nothing like a quick recovery to successfully complete a blistering cold 100 km run four days later.Marking the course and officiating the one-woman race at the South Pole was Richard Donovan – the only other person on the planet to run seven races in seven continents in a single calendar year. No. 3: North America“I had many emotions during my run today, doubt has been consuming me more than ever, maybe because I didn't anticipate the ripple effect of such a quest.”Number three took Norma north, but nowhere near a jungle this time. It was the 6633 Extreme Winter Ultra Marathon in the Arctic from March 13-16. Proclaimed as the ‘toughest, coldest, windiest extreme ultra marathon on the planet’, it was a non-stop, self-sufficient 193 km race across the Arctic Circle, with racers pulling their provisions on sleds while running from Eagle Plains, Yukon to the banks of the Arctic Ocean at Tuktoyaktuk.No. 4: Australia“When I was planning the races, I wanted it to be the most difficult challenge my body and my mind could ever imagine. I lay here in my sleeping bag feeling sad with the possibility of not being able to accomplish this.”Australia was the next continent to be conquered, which had Norma embarking on a 160 km, 48-hour race known as the Mind Alpine Skyrun Ultra Marathon from March 28-30. In Australia she repeats Bon Jovi’s line ‘Wake Up, wherever you are, this is the life you are supposed to be living,’ forces herself to be a pillar of positive thoughts through the constant pain and discomfort, and wraps her head around the race at hand. No. 5: Africa“Like my best friend from Calgary Nadia Larsson said once when I had a hard time in a race, ‘Run strong and when your legs can't carry you any longer, run with mine.’ Well Nadia, hope you are ready for tomorrow.”With four down, three to go, Norma jetted to Africa for the Namibia 24-Hour Ultra Marathon from May 17-23. For 126 km she ran day and night across a vast expanse of desert, gravel plains, distant ridges and mountains. Barely breaking a sweat, we think, the faces of her kids squarely in her mind and her determination never faltering for a moment. No. 6: Asia“I told myself it’s only pain and to stop thinking of it as a 240K race. Just think about the next check point.”The Gobi March was next up. A run that saw Norma cover 242 km across Gobi, China from June 17-20. As in the Gobi Desert. What Norma calls a ‘tough day in Gobi’ involved a 41.2 km run with a climb in elevation of 1,175 feet, a canyon with ladders, river crossings, narrow mountain ridges, winds so fierce they’d pick up her 105 lb frame and throw her over and a debilitating virus and antibiotics to top it all off. Then there was the blistering heat followed by frigid cold, the blisters, sprains, injuries and dehydration. There was the reality of a seven-day race with no shower, bed, toilet, food or water stations and 49-degree C heat. Just a tent and the dehydrated dinner she carried on her back. No. 7: Europe“Through the three hours of my run, the last few months played out in my head like a movie. Sleep deprivation in Brazil, the pain in Namibia, the laughter in the tent in Gobi, all the amazing moments I have experienced – it was too grand to ignore.Which made last week’s Swiss Jura Marathon from July 5-11 – sweet number seven – seem like a walk in the park. Well, sort of. It was, after all, still a rather daunting 175 km jaunt through the Alps.But with slightly fewer desert-induced blisters to lance, less mush-in-a-bag for dinner and no endless sand dune expanse out front, to Norma it was home free…

THE SUPPORTERS
“I now feel this is as much a part of my life as being at home with my kids is, and I’m sure I can never go back to an office job again.”An instrumental player in getting Norma’s 777 Run for Sight mission off the ground was Calgary businessman Brett Wilson. At the time she took off for race number one, the two were dating. Today the pair share a friendship that runs a lot deeper than most, including a sense of accomplishment in one truly remarkable fundraising feat.“What she set out to do was change the world in terms of awareness around blindness related causes,” Brett told Page Six following Norma’s final race. “She’s done her part, and she’s done an amazing job. Now it’s up to the viral world to step up.”A great deal of the money raised to date came from Wilson’s recent Garden Party – a 600-person affair in his Mount Royal backyard featuring singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan, who treated guests to a performance so intimate and uplifting it left the girls teary and the boys gape-jawed. “We raised double what I had expected,” said the Dragon’s Den star. “Some said it had to do with Sarah, but it was entirely Norma and her cause.”

THE SPONSORS
“I arrived from Geneva to Basel seven days later forever changed. I am still the same mom worrying about her son who has an incurable eye condition but instead of feeling despair I am now full of hope.”While Wilson did his part to call on friends and colleagues to take note of the cause, it was The Bolt Supply House and owner John McCann who’s been Norma’s key sponsor from day one. “Now here is an amazing story,” said Norma. “Bolt Supply sponsored my series not because they wanted to convince people to buy their fancy products, but for the simple fact that they believe in investing in the community.”Thanks to the sponsorship, the pressure came off and she was able to properly train to complete the feat. And by train, we’re talking running a marathon or two a day. Lililime Boutique co-owner Denise Browne-Vervloet counts herself among the legions of Norma Bastidas mega-fans across Calgary and beyond. “What she’s doing is letting everyone know that in order to beat this disease for her son, she’s fighting it with her heart,” said Denise. “What he’s going through in one sense, she’s going through in a physical sense.”

THE ROAD AHEAD
“In the end, somehow instead of feeling like it's the end of a story I am left feeling like this is the beginning of something wonderful.”And for Norma, it certainly does come back to the story of her kids. The moment she was finally able to call home after running the ultra in Antarctica only to hear her younger son Hans excitedly announce he’d just shaved three seconds off his freestyle swimming race, she said, made her forget all about her own frostbitten feet. “I have been going all over the world just to reinforce what I already know. The best place in the world for me is home. Just like Nelson Mandela once said, the world is truly round and it seems to start and end with those we love.”For a woman whose favourite poem is Robert Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken,’ it’s no surprise which way she went when the two roads diverged in a wood. Norma took the one less traveled, and it has already made all the difference. To show your support for this amazing Calgarian and her incredible accomplishment or to read more on the 777 Run for Sight in Norma’s own words, head to http://www.normabastidas.com/.