Words by Laura Markwardt. Video by The Rec League, Photography by Brenton Salo

Canada is a nation of pioneers, those willing to venture into the wilderness, to strive, to go beyond. It covers 3.9 million square miles (10 million square kilometers) and six time zones – from the temperate Pacific to the Arctic Circle. While all of Canada is mapped, some regions remain untouched and unexplored – mirroring the edgelands of human potential, still to be revealed in the world of athletics. Just as new plains await discovery, so too do great feats of speed and human endurance, waiting for the right athletes to break new ground.

For elite middle-distance athletes Ben Flanagan and Kieran Lumb, the race to push the limits of their potential never ends. As the roar of the 2024 Olympic crowd fades, both runners set their sights on a boundless horizon of new athletic goals. 

“In your dreams, you picture yourself at the Olympics,” says Flanagan. The national record holder dreams big, and his journey to realize that vision has been years in the making.

Hailing from Kitchener, Ontario, Flanagan’s the guy cracking jokes at the starting line, then unleashing a devastating kick in the final stretch. Charismatic and upbeat, he’s mastered the long-game, increasingly shifting to road racing, where he’s become one of Canada’s top marathon and half-marathon hopefuls. “Things change fast,” he says. “There's so much going on in the running world, it's hard to stand out.”

Lucky then, he’s landed on a strategy that works. Back in 2018, Flanagan stunned the running world with a dramatic last-lap surge to take the NCAA 10,000m title at the University of Michigan. Today, based in Massachusetts, the 29-year-old continues to chase goals that feel good. “After that moment, I became relevant in the running world. I just enjoyed the experience and ultimately, that’s what the goal has always been – to have fun.”

Good humor is Flanagan’s signature. Take one look at a finish line photo from his local – legendary – Falmouth Road Race, where he’s topped the podium three times and most recently came seventh, right off the back of his return from Paris in 2024.

Fun? Yes. But to lead the field takes grit. Flanagan’s work behind the scenes is real. “Training, most of the time, is enjoyable,” he insists, “it doesn't feel like a grind.” Just like the flip-switch of a last-lap kick – Flanagan can change gears when his gold-standard strategy doesn’t go to plan.  

In 2021, he narrowly missed the Canadian Olympic team for Tokyo, “it made me realize what it really takes to make the Olympics.” Flanagan responded by swiftly switching focus. He channeled his energy towards a series of remarkable races, culminating in a personal best [1:01:00] at the Valencia Half Marathon in 2022 – smashing the Canadian record at the time. By May 2024, he’d made history again – breaking the Canadian 10K road record [28:09] in Ottawa.

From that moment, all athletic roads led to The Games. This time, Flanagan left nothing to chance. “My main highlight was running the Olympic standard in Boston [13:04:62 over 5000m] to make a step towards qualifying for Paris.” 

Flanagan placed third in the Olympic trials. “I’m proud to have represented Canada at Paris,” he reflects. “Although I wish the race went better, it was an amazing experience.”

Once an Olympian, always an Olympian. Known for his Canadian maple leaf inking, in 2024, Flanagan added the Olympic rings to his forearm, “both are running-related, but they’re also related to goals I set for myself.”

“I identify with my Canadian roots and my Canadian identity, my family and my support group,” he continues, “The support [during the Games] from the entire nation was incredible – I’m proud to be Canadian.”

Flanagan walks a tightrope familiar to many elite runners – process-orientated, consistently committed to his goals, and yet, holding every race result separate from his identity as an all-round athlete. His focus: lazer-sharp, “You accomplish one thing. On to the next.”

The 2024 world stage has been a teacher, “this year at the Olympics, was the most pressure I’ve felt in a long time,” Flanagan says. “Timing is important when the stakes are high. And it's hard to get right. I learned what it's like to prepare for optimal performance.”

That holistic focus on peaking in time for the perfect race fuels Flanagan’s new goals – from upping the pace at global championships to going the distance at marathon majors, “I plan to get the timing right to be my best self when it matters most.” 

Flanagan’s resolve to “have a positive impact on the running world,” aligns with the expansive, Canadian spirit of national record holder, Kieran Lumb.  

Lumb acknowledges that challenge – and resilience – is essential to both athletic and personal growth, “What makes great athletes great, is learning how to get the most out of yourself, even if it's hard.”

Lumb, 26, grew up in Vancouver, BC. His early years – and aerobic engine – honed through cross-country skiing across vast North American snowscapes. “It’s formative,” he says, “being in the mountains.”

Lumb’s sporting ascent has been steady. With a quiet, thoughtful intensity and unwavering focus, he approaches each race like a game of chess, strategizing every move. As a student-athlete at the University of British Columbia (UBC), by 2021, he claimed multiple national titles at the U Sports Championships, and built dominance across middle distances.

By the fall of 2023, Lumb shaved seconds off the 3000m Canadian record [7:38.39], took his first senior Canadian Cross Country title, and came in fifth in the road mile at the World Road Running Championships in Latvia.

The ability to excel across multiple events in a single year is a testament to Lumb’s pragmatic reverence for each race as it comes, “I view each race as a stepping stone towards bigger and better things in the future,” he says. “It’s something my dad once said to me, and it stuck. It helps take too much pressure off any one event.”

Races don’t come bigger than the Olympics. After a season of chasing standards, Lumb’s dream to perform on the world stage came to fruition. “Representing Canada at the Olympic level [in the 1500m] was a huge honor,” he says.

By the time Lumb reached the Games in Paris, he’d positioned himself as a potential finalist – a stepping stone as vast as Canada itself. Where fractions of a second can define legacies, the pressure to perform was palpable. “Being a competitive athlete and dealing with high-pressure situations, your whole year can be crystallized into a handful of very short moments,” he reflects. “It hones your ability to manage that pressure and keep perspective.”

And although Lumb’s Olympic campaign may not have yielded a medal, his sanguine, forward-facing mindset gives him a headstart on his goals moving towards 2025. “A motivation for me is always competing at a high level,” he says – whether that’s pushing to break the 3:30 barrier in the 1500m, or making waves at the World Championships and the Diamond League.

“I think of all the people who’ve supported me to get this far,” Lumb continues. “We say ‘it takes a village [to raise an athlete]’ but as much as that’s a cliché, it’s also true – it takes a lot of people to get a single athlete to one place.”

And from that vantage point, Lumb’s experience builds a new bridge between his North American homeland, his 2024 moment in Paris, and the next stepping stone of his career. “I'm still learning a lot about myself,” he says. “Running is a great avenue [to do that] and it's something I'm excited about.”

A brilliant, new-found clarity can open up in those intermediate spaces between practice and performance – to grow, evolve, and pursue new goals – from the expansive plains of the Great White North, to the boundless horizons of where both Flanagan and Lumb are headed next. “On to bigger dreams, says Flanagan, “the journey continues.”