TORONTO — When Barbara Adhiya first learned that Terry Fox had run the length of a marathon a day during his journey across Canada, she was shocked.

Like most Canadians, Adhiya had known about the icon’s 1980 mission to raise funds for cancer research through a 4,700-mile run from Newfoundland to British Columbia, but not much about Fox’s childhood, the day-to-day grind of his run and his deep connection to his supporters.