'It's what keeps me alive': Calgarian continues walking entire city post-heart attacks

Mark Shupe has 'been around the block' a few times to say the least.

The 60-year-old Calgarian has a passion for staying active and regularly walks about 15 kilometres each day. He set a goal back in 2018 to walk every one of Calgary's streets within five years and he's well on his way to achieving the milestone. 

"I used to run a lot and started having back problems when I turned 50 so it was a struggle," said Shupe. "But I decided to start walking and needed to find something interesting for me to keep going.

"I decided to walk every street in the city and thought that would help keep me motivated and make it interesting."

Shupe, a retired oil-and-gas employee who worked for more than 30 years, was a couple of years and thousands of kilometres into his journey when he had his first heart attack in February of 2020.

He started having chest pains and doctors informed him that he needed to have quintuple bypass surgery. 

"They said you need to have this bypass operation or you’re going to die."

Some of Shupe’s arteries weren't deemed fit for the procedure, but a successful triple bypass was completed. Once he recovered, doctors encouraged him to continue staying active.

"I don't mind doing that because it's what keeps me alive and I actually feel great. I don't feel like I've had two heart attacks."

"I didn't foresee this happening when I set my original goal, but anyone who is interested in following my journey, I would request that they donate money to the Heart and Stroke Foundation, or Calgary's Foothill Hospital, which literally saved my life."

Shupe says one of the original bypass grafts failed, resulting in a second heart attack in November of 2020.  

His heart sustained some damage, but his regular activity has helped exponentially in the recovery process. He's also on beta blockers and unable to raise his heartrate past 142 beats per minute, but that still hasn’t slowed him down. 

Shupe's wife Lana says she's extremely proud of her husband.

"The heart attacks were just a scary wake up call and we're just so grateful that he's here and that he is able to continue to do this.

"He sees it as, you know, an exercise thing, and we see it as a life-giving goal."

Shupe is now working on writing a book called HA, HA (Heart Attack, Heart Attack): How to recover from two heart attacks with a sense of humour.

Calgarian Mark Shupe in hospital after suffering a heart attack. (supplied)

"I KNOW THE WHOLE CITY BY PAGE NUMBER"

Calgary has more than 16,000 kilometres of roadway (all lanes combined), but Shupe isn't walking the main arteries like Crowchild, Deerfoot or Glenmore where it's too dangerous as walkways don't exist.

So far, he's travelled more than 10,000 kilometres with roughly 4,000 left to go. From Hawkwood to Skyview Ranch, Woodbine, Fish Creek, Signal Hill and beyond, Shupe has just about seen it all.

"So many highlights," recounted Shupe. "The mountains, the rivers, the views, and I really like all the ones downtown.

"And then of course there's been a lot of wildlife I've seen. Moose and owls and deer and a couple of times coyotes and that's always really fascinating.”

Each day is a new adventure for Shupe as he logs all of his travels in a City of Calgary map book by highlighting in pen every single street that he has completed.

"I know the whole city by page number," he joked.

"I'm literally all over the map so it depends on if I got a medical appointment in the east, then I go over there and I do some streets. If I had to take the kids down south for some reason, I would go down there and walk some streets."

Shupe used to work at Quarry Park and would regularly walk neighbourhoods on his way home. Now retired, he says he likes to travel to different neighbourhoods each week and complete them little by little.

The end goal is to have all of Calgary's streets walked by the summer of 2023 when Shupe plans to walk his final street with family and friends. 

"The very last day is going to be 17th Avenue and we're going to have a really big party."

HEART EXPERT: "EXERCISE IS MEDICINE"

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in both men and women, yet health experts describe it as one of the most preventable diseases.

Clinical exercise physiologist, and founder of Heart Fit Clinic in Calgary, Diamond Fernandes says "exercise is medicine" and key to a healthy heart.

"One of the best things that people should understand is that these arteries are a muscle, not a pipe," explained Fernandes.

"Inflammation builds up on the lining of the artery wall like a pimple on your face and so reducing inflammation and healing the artery wall and healing the skin through exercise is one of the best medicines that you can take for your heart."

Fernandes adds that heart medication is also helpful in reducing the risk of heart disease, but a healthy diet and regular fitness routine are essential.

"Taking in all your greens and vegetables are very important too because they're high in antioxidants and it prevents the oxidative process that happens inside the lining of the heart and the progression of our artery disease. So to delay that progression is what we focus on at the Heart Fit Clinic."