On an October morning in Victoria, Jessica Michalofsky began to run.
She started at the corner of Blanshard Street and Pandora Avenue, under trees shading a sidewalk in front of the B.C. Ministry of Health’s main office. From there she ran the distance of two city blocks, or about 600 metres, back to where she started.
Then she did it again, over and over, until she had completed the marathon distance of 42.2 kilometres.
The next day she returned and again ran a marathon around the building. Loop after loop until her body ached and her feet cracked, Michalofsky hit her distance – only to start again the next day.
For seven days and nearly 300 kilometres, Michalofsky has run outside the health ministry office. No one at the ministry has approached her nor asked why she has chosen this route to run. If they did, they’d learn about her son, Aubrey Michalofsky. They’d know why grief, rage and determination are driving the 51-year-old teacher and triathlete to run until she feels heard.
“I was, and am, pretty lost,” she said in a phone interview from her Victoria home. “Aubrey was my only son and it’s pretty hard to imagine life now.”
