Running is more than Running: RR Talk

Talk with Bruce’s Marathon Clinic at the Halifax Running Room

I just got home from a fun talk with Halifax Running Room’s Marathon Clinic.  Long time runner, community member and clinic leader Bruce invited me and said that he was looking for a motivational talk about how you can use running for various things other than fitness such as personal goals or social action. He was interested in me talking about my run across The Gambia.  I love coaching and supporting runners so I was happy to do this.

#Love4Gambia Run

In 2011, I ran all the way across the West African country of The Gambia to raise money for the Nova Scotia-Gambia Association, a 25 year old development organization that I had worked with in the country as a nurse.  I ran 25km a day for 17 days to reach the Atlantic Ocean after beginning at the Gambia-Senegal border, marked by a simple concrete cinder block in a farmer’s field.  

I cared deeply about the Gambia, especially the women and children, and when NSGA faced some serious funding challenges, I wanted to do my best to help. By itself, running doesn’t lead to any change in the health of communities of The Gambia.  But it is what I am really good and therefore it was my best tool for social action for women and children in The Gambia. I originally thought that I would train for and complete Comrade’s Marathon in South Africa and call it a fundraising run. But that wasn’t cool enough or unique enough.

I work with teenagers and the idea of my run was actually inspired at a teenage mental health conference.  A youth delivered a keynote address about how his father died by suicide and he woke up one day and decided that he was going to bike across Canada.  And he just went and did it.  I sat there thinking that I was a runner with some talent. I definitely didn’t have time to run across Canada but I bet The Gambia is actually a reasonable (“reasonable”) distance to run across.  

I looked up the distance on Google that night. 424km. And so the idea of Love4Gambia was born.

My run raised $34,000 for the NSGA and it founded an annual Love4Gambia run or ride. The 5th team including Halifax runner/cyclist Luke MacDonald just completed a ride across the country last week.

When I returned home from The Gambia in 2011, I spoke to a lot of people about my run. Most people would ask, “How did you actually do that?  How did you actually run all the way across a country?”

I still don’t really have an answer other than I trained really hard.  I was really, really determined.  And I really, truly believed that I could do it.  

I was lucky to have a CBC reporter approach me and ask me if I would do a radio documentary of my run. I’m so grateful now to have this a memory.

A friend listened to this radio documentary on the day that it played on CBC radio and then said to me, “oh, it made your run sound so easy.”

Maybe this is the case, I don’t know. I can only look at the run and listen to this documentary having been the girl who actually ran it and I’ll tell you, it was far from easy.  This is just a 25-minute snapshot, it’s not the whole story.

That summer, there were never any moments where I thought that I would give up but it was far from easy.  I always knew, or I guess believed, that I would make it but there moments were it was hard.

• I ran 424 km
• I was running 25km/day: more than a half marathon
• In units of time, I was running 2.5 hours a day but 25 km took longer than 2.5 hours.  We rested 90 minutes at the 20km mark.  I stopped every 20 minutes to drink more water at our truck.  So in total, our running day was  8am to 1:30pm.
• The motto was Eat, Sleep, Run

We learned a lot about the human body and spirit on our 424km road to Banjul. I was getting stronger and faster each day.  My body was able to do it.  My support team was originally set up to support me with driving and food and care but they quickly grew to support me while running too.  I ran more kilometers with my teammates than I did solo.

The heat (37-42 degrees) never impacted my running performance because I chose not to let it. Still, it was far from easy. Sometimes we hurt and were tired. But each time we were joined by children and youth, all traces of fatigue and pain vanished.  We were running for these kids, for NSGA programs that impact their lives. With them running next to us, we felt like we could fly.

Many Nova Scotians tell me that they could never run as far as I did or in the heat that I ran in. I think that maybe these people just haven’t put themselves in a situation where they are determined to reach their goal- no matter what. I was just a regular girl with some talent for running who worked really hard for 7 months to prepare for a really difficult challenge. The thing was, it didn’t matter what they thought or what they believed. I made it to the ocean only because I believed that I could do it.  My belief was the only one that mattered.  

And I put in the hard work to make my goal, my dream happen.  I didn’t make it 424km across a hot African country by sitting on the couch.  I made it by training and running 6 days a week for 7 months.  Hard work, preparation and belief in yourself are how you make your dreams happen.

Being a Woman

Being a woman was a dominant theme of my running days in The Gambia.  I anticipated this but not to the extent that it played out.  I expected that my running expedition would exhibit female athletic ability and facilitate breaking down gender barriers in endurance sport participation for women.  I knew that this was a male dominated society. Women in The Gambia are not political leaders.  They are not athletes.  To many men and women, I was an oddity.

When we meet people, Pa Modou and Kebba would proudly introduce me as the runner who is running from Koina to Banjul.  The person would look at me a say, “Her?!”  They were never able to hide their disbelief.  In fact, I’m pretty sure they didn’t even try.  

Most often, they would follow this up with, “Well, how can a woman do that?”  Or “I can’t believe a woman can do that.”  Which is ironic because women literally carry the load of this country on their backs and heads every single day. They are the farmers. They are the ones raising the children. They are the ones bringing water, sometimes tremendous distances, to their families.

Pa Modou and Kebba would reply, “Yes, she can, she is very strong.”  I told these people that I’d see them in Banjul.  I knew that they wouldn’t believe it until I actually did it.

In the end, reaching the shores of the Atlantic, 424km from Koina, wasn’t even enough.  On day 16, Spider’s coworkers came to watch us run.  We ran passed these guys and waved at them.  When Spider returned to work, these men interrogated him.

“Is she really a woman?”

”How do you know?  Have you seen her woman parts?”

Even after seeing me their with own eyes, they doubted that I was actually a woman because of my athletic ability. For these Gambian men, it was easier to believe that I was actually a man in some kinds of disguise.

I met one of Pa Modou’s football teammates after the run ended.

“I’ve been waiting to see you,” he said, “Can I see your legs?”

I’m not sure what he expected but he seemed a disappointed with my sinewy calves.

Ashley and I were on the news on the eve that our plane arrived in The Gambia, before we traveled to Koina to begin the run.  The news is very important and if a Gambian owns or can access a television, they tune in.  A number of people would approach Ashley and I on the street.  

They would look at Ashley and say:

“I saw you and that man on tv.”

‘That man’ would be me.  I do not look like a man.  But it was so hard for Gambians to believe that a woman could run all the way across the country.  It was easier to just believe that I was a man.

Running as Strong Woman in Canada is important too

I don’t want to go out on a political women’s rights soapbox here when talking about running but in North America, we still live in a culture where women are overlooked, undervalued and underestimated.  All you have to do to see this is tune into Trump’s America.

Sport has been an antidote to that for me.  

I posted on International Women’s day that I enjoyed the social media posts of by women athletes most. I appreciated my sport of running for myself, my daughter, all the young women I work with along with the 15 of 17 Love Training More athletes who are women.  I had running practice that evening with the Halifax Road Hammers. I had just hammered out a fast workout in my pace group with four men plus me. A pace group where I am not seen as “fast for woman” but just fast.  Where I am not “strong for a woman” but just strong. Where my body is not valued for the way it looks but for the way it performs.  

On International Women’s Day, USA runner Molly Huddle said it best, “I hope we inspire the rest of the world to catch up.”  

The strides to make in North America aren’t the same as in Gambia but there are atill strides to make.

The fall after I arrived home from the Gambia, I did a full school assembly about my run and the experience for World AIDS Day at the high school where I worked.  When I finished speaking, many youth wanted to talk to me individually. One girl stood out for me.

She was a shy girl.  She spoke so quietly that I could barely hear her.

“Thank you for talking about how a woman can achieve anything,” she said. “I want to do a career than usually men only do. I want to be a paratrooper. People tell me that I can’t because I’m a girl.  So thanks for saying that I can do it.”

Sport, specifically the sport of running, enabled this moment for her.

I work with young people.  I have photos of myself at races and glossy media photos of my club, Halifax Road Hammers, on display. Because it’s important to me that young people see me as a strong athlete AND as a woman. I keep Marathon Canada’s List of Top 100 Women’s Rankings on my office wall, my name highlighted at #74, so that all youth see that this is possible for women. I want the youth I work with to be influenced by this.  Occasionally, I will meet a student for the first time and at some point they will say, “I heard you were some kinda running star?”  Not quite but this always makes me smile.

My own daughter’s world is shaped by this.

This summer, my daughter and I were sitting on my front step and a male runner ran by.  

“Look, a runner.” I said.

“No, that’s not a runner,” she said.

“Yes, that’s a runner.”

“No, mommy,” she said, “That’s a boy and boys don’t run fast.”

I don’t support gender-based stereotypes.  When people look at my children and comment on my son’s busy, active and often-mischievous behavior and say “he’s all boy!” I always correct them and say, “No, he’s a second child.”  But this gender-based comment out of my young daughter’s mouth, based on her worldview and having a mother who can run fast therefore it’s girls who run fast; I can take it. It might offer her some protection from the stereotypes that society will try to push on her as she grows up. And we did talk about the boys who she knows that can run very fast and how your gender doesn’t define your ability, your clothes or your toys.

My sport and the running family that comes with it has had an amazing influence on both of my children.  Through races, race weekends away, team parties and occasional appearances at running practice, my children have come to know my running team and it’s a beautiful thing.

They play dress-up at home with my running clothes. They play imaginary running practice where they pretend to be Lee, Colleen, Maddy and Angus.  They believe that they saw Maddy running on tv at the Olympics ergo believe that competing in the Olympics is totally within reach.

Running is so much more than just running. It has been my tool for social action. It’s been a tool in my toolbox as I raise my children. It’s been something that I pull on in my professional life with young people.  I sometimes wish that non-running members of the public could get a chance to grasp that when they politely ask me: “Are you still running?” Because I’m pretty sure that all they see is a runner leaving her children to log a 30 minute run around the block when it’s so much more at such a deep level.

Beyond the social action, the impact on my chidlren and the influence on youth people in my career, my running and my running family make my personal life more joyful too. My best friends train with my club and it’s our time together.  The Halifax Road Hammers are a vibrant and supportive group of fun and interesting people. We are invested in each other’s success, believe in each other and care about each other.

Races and race weekends are more than toeing the line and running to the finishing shute. They are about enjoying the experience, enjoying being out there together doing what we love together.  They are about celebrating that we got the best out of ourselves after. And if the race didn’t go your way, it’s about your people, your tribe, telling you that it’s ok, you will live another day to try again.