800-meter runner Addy Townsend could have had an Olympian (center distance runner Brit Townsend of Burnaby, B.C.) for a mother, however rising up, she didn’t assume she could be a runner. Now, she’s prepping for the following Olympic Video games on the observe… together with her mother as her coach. How did it occur, and the way did she discover the trail to operating her means, and never in her mother’s shadow?
As she explains it, “I performed all sports activities rising up: basketball, soccer, volleyball–I did every thing. I began to play soccer at an excellent excessive degree, and I assumed that was going to be my sport. I performed all the best way till Grade 12. However I lastly had the thought: I believe I can do higher in operating. And I began to search out that what I liked about soccer was the health of it. Each time it got here to operating, I discovered that half tremendous enjoyable, and everybody else dreaded it. I believe my mother had a secret plan all alongside: she’d maintain me in soccer, simply to maintain the operating going. After which by the point Grade 12 got here, I made a decision after provincials that I used to be going to go to SFU to pursue operating.”
Whereas she jokes about her mother having a grasp plan to make her a operating professional, Townsend is fast to say that her mother has by no means pressured her to (actually) comply with in her footsteps. “Individuals all the time say that, ‘Oh, she will need to have been getting you out operating on a regular basis once you have been younger.’ It wasn’t actually like that. I loved operating, and I might do it after I needed to. However I didn’t really feel the stress, as a result of she knew if I actually needed to get into it, I’d discover my very own means there. She was all the time tremendous supportive of no matter I selected, whether or not it was a special sport or no sports activities in any respect.”
Now, the 2 are in a position to work collectively—and it’s understanding nice. “At first, I assumed it was going to be so exhausting,” Townsend admits. “There have been occasions the place I used to be cussed, and we’d argue a bit. However I believe as I’ve gotten older and I’ve seen how a lot I’ve improved, it’s simply been so useful for me.”
At household dinners, Townsend says her dad and sister typically have to inform her and her mother to depart the observe on the observe. “We’ve set some boundaries, and I believe it really works properly,” she jokes.
Brit Townsend on constructing success at Simon Fraser College
Townsend doesn’t simply prepare together with her mother; there’s an entire workforce she trains with on the observe, and he or she’s sure that’s made her a greater athlete. “Monitor is a tough sport,” she says. “And it’s additionally a person sport. I attempt to make it rather less particular person by being round lots of people who wish to have enjoyable. The runners at SFU are a terrific group of people that all love the observe.”
“To me, Run Your Manner means focusing in your potential, focusing in your objectives and specializing in your self,” Townsend says. “I believe with observe being a person sport, you actually need to have these objectives in your thoughts and attempt to simply actually deal with them. It’s really easy to get distracted and to check your self to totally different folks, but when I can deal with my coaching and my assist system, my objectives and my day-to-day actions, then I can run my means.”
