Kirsten Fleming grew her career building Calgary's running community

Fleming started as the very first paid employee of Run Calgary over a decade ago

Kirsten Fleming can no longer count how many half-marathons and 10K runs she has participated in over the past 20 years — but the feeling of anticipation before a big race never goes away.

“I still get those pre-race jitters,” the executive director of Run Calgary said. “Even when I’m not running, I sometimes get them.”

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Fleming started as the first paid employee of Run Calgary more than a decade ago — though the Calgary Marathon has been around since 1963 as an all-volunteer organization. Before then, her relationship with running intersected with her previous career in journalism through a chance meeting that set her down a new path.

In 2007, while working for Citytv, Fleming was one