800-meter runner Addy Townsend might have had an Olympian (center distance runner Brit Townsend of Burnaby, B.C.) for a mother, however rising up, she didn’t suppose she could be a runner. Now, she’s prepping for the following Olympic Video games on the observe… along with her mother as her coach. How did it occur, and the way did she discover the trail to working 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 all the things. I began to play soccer at an excellent excessive degree, and I believed that was going to be my sport. I performed all the best way till Grade 12. However I lastly had the thought: I feel I can do higher in working. And I began to seek out that what I liked about soccer was the health of it. Each time it got here to working, I discovered that half tremendous enjoyable, and everybody else dreaded it. I feel my mother had a secret plan all alongside: she’d maintain me in soccer, simply to maintain the working 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 working.” 

Madeline Wighardt: Run Your Method

Whereas she jokes about her mother having a grasp plan to make her a working professional, Townsend is fast to say that her mother has by no means pressured her to (actually) observe in her footsteps. “Individuals at all times say that, ‘Oh, she will need to have been getting you out working on a regular basis once you had been younger.’ It wasn’t actually like that. I loved working, and I’d do it once I needed to. However I didn’t really feel the strain, as a result of she knew if I actually needed to get into it, I’d discover my very own means there. She was at all times tremendous supportive of no matter I selected, whether or not it was a distinct sport or no sports activities in any respect.”

Now, the 2 are capable of work collectively—and it’s understanding nice. “At first, I believed it was going to be so arduous,” Townsend admits. “There have been instances the place I used to be cussed, and we’d argue a bit. However I feel 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 usually have to inform her and her mother to go away the observe on the observe. “We’ve set some boundaries, and I feel it really works nicely,” she jokes.

Brit Townsend on constructing success at Simon Fraser College

Townsend doesn’t simply practice along 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 an amazing group of people that all love the observe.”

“To me, Run Your Method means focusing in your potential, focusing in your objectives and specializing in your self,” Townsend says. “I feel with observe being a person sport, you actually should have these objectives in your thoughts and attempt to simply actually give attention to them. It’s really easy to get distracted and to match your self to totally different individuals, but when I can give attention to my coaching and my help system, my objectives and my day-to-day actions, then I can run my means.”