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 can 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 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 the whole lot. I began to play soccer at a brilliant excessive degree, and I believed that was going to be my sport. I performed all the way in which till Grade 12. However I lastly had the thought: I feel I can do higher in operating. And I began to seek out that what I beloved 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 feel 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 whenever you have been younger.’ It wasn’t actually like that. I loved operating, and I’d do it after I wished to. However I didn’t really feel the strain, as a result of she knew if I actually wished 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 capable of work collectively—and it’s understanding nice. “At first, I believed it was going to be so exhausting,” 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 typically 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 properly,” she jokes.
Brit Townsend on constructing success at Simon Fraser College
Townsend doesn’t simply prepare along with her mother; there’s an entire staff 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 awesome group of people that all love the observe.”
“To me, Run Your Manner means focusing in your potential, focusing in your targets and specializing in your self,” Townsend says. “I feel with observe being a person sport, you actually must have these targets in your thoughts and attempt to simply actually give attention to them. It’s really easy to get distracted and to check your self to completely different folks, but when I can give attention to my coaching and my help system, my targets and my day-to-day actions, then I can run my means.”
