Run for Joy is Running to A New Site!

The all new LucySmith.ca is up and running. Please visit my new site @

http://www.lucysmith.ca/

Very soon, this blog will be taken down and will be located @ www.lucysmith.ca/runforjoy.

Postings will continue soon,

Lucy

It Runs in the Family: Brother Dan Finishes 2nd in his Age Group at IM Canada



My knee injury has kept me from competing for most of the season this year, but the rest of my clan is keeping up the Smith family tradition of excelling at outdoor pursuits. Dad, at 73 is racing his bike in the BC Senior Games this fall. Jo, while finishing up her Ph.D, just rode 100 miles to raise money for MS, and Dan just qualified for Hawaii IM on his first attempt. And that was not just his first attempt at qualifying; it's was his FIRST IRONMAN!



I may have been the sibling to pursue a career in competitive sports, but I certainly share competitive spirit with my family members! Growing up in our house was not for the faint-hearted. We turned everything into a competition, even dish washing (doing them in record time etc). If it was Mastermind, Boggle or ping pong, then you better be prepared to take it seriously. Scores counted and and were recorded. We actively searched for things to do where we could try hard and compete. Even if we were hiking, there were rocks to climb UP, and if there was ice on the pond there was an excellent opportunity to have a slide-off. I did a lot of racing around trying to keep up. There was no easy win when playing games with Dan. But I always came back for more.



After years spent racing Lasers, Windsurfers and mountain bikes (with a little triathlon in the '80's: Dan did triathlon long before I did. My running-only training regime was not to be messed with when I was younger), Dan decided to train for Ironman. The day after cheering me on to my 9th place finish at IM Canada in 2007, he signed up. (It gets them every time. Watch the race and you feel compelled to do it).



And did he ever do it. His 2nd place age group finish and Hawaii spot were cause for celebration in the family. His 5 hour bike split made us all proud. We've always been the kind of family that values honest effort and hard work as much as results, and when it comes together for a great day in sport, we can celebrate with joy.



Way to go Uncle Dan, we are proud of you!



Lucy, Maia and Ross

Gold Medal Winner, Open Water Log Kayaking, Ross Watson

It's All Over for another 4 years

Maia and I watched all 3 (or was that 4?) hours of the closing ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics. It was fascinating and fun as CBC had countless athletic music video montages of the games, day by day, medal by medal. Then all the dancers and gymnastics stunts came. I remember being 9 and watching the Montreal Olympics in 76 and that was the first time I remember being moved by the whole Olympic passion, so I sort of know how she felt when I saw the flame extinguished. We both felt sad and emotional. "We have to wait four more years?" she asked.

I got up on Monday morning and noticed the absence of Olympic fever...I couldn't just pop on the TV and watch some cool sports, and some amazing athletes performing their skills. I love the Olympics and the endless parade of interesting characters, events and athletic skill. I love this 2 weeks where you can see diving, gymnastics, volleyball, white water kayaking, swimming, rowing, triathlon, women's distance running and anything besides guys playing hockey, baseball football and racing cars.

Both kids were excited to watch the Olympics, and I don't think was only that the TV was on A LOT and they got to watch A LOT for two whole weeks. One night, while I watched the whole women's triathlon, Maia put out three yoga mats and gave Ross a gymnastics lesson. After Emma Snowsill won the race, Maia asked if there were any more kids triathlons to do this fall. After every gymnastics competition Maia asked me if I had registered her in gymnastics yet. Watching diving made Ross do somersaults. The Olympics are like that; they get you all fired up to do something great. It's like being at an Ironman event. I can't watch an Ironman without wanting to start training for the next one 'right now.'

Here then, are our top highlights of the Olympics this year, as seen through the eyes of a young family:

1. Phelp's 2nd Gold medal in the 400IM relay and when he went ballistic celebrating. Ross loved that part, and called him the 'Puff up man' because of the way he pumped his arms and all his muscles and veins popped out.

2. The commercials are great during the Olympics! There were several good ones, but we liked the Bell one with the baton passing through all the sports, the RBC one where the muffin man builds an empire, and of course, Nike "Courage".

3. Watching Simon in the last 800m of the triathlon. Wait a minute....in 2000, Maia was a tiny baby and I watched Simon do the same thing in Sydney and grab the Gold. Eight years later he does it again and she'll remember his wicked kick this time!

4. Every time any Canadian won a medal or even got close. Maia cheered so hard for all the Canadians.

5. The almost insane clockwork quality to the logistics. Matching rain coats at the outdoor volleyball venue when the typhoon blew through. I swear it was part of the planning. How could everybody have the same pastel blue, yellow and green raincoats and umbrellas that matched the venue so perfectly? This was just one small example of the almost robotic perfection of the games.

Yes, it was a fun two weeks. Despite the controversies and conspiracy theories, the hypocrisy and the commercialization that now comes with high performance sports, some things remain constant about the Olympics and the quest for personal best. I saw it when I was 9, I attempted to attain it when I was 26 and 30 and 34, and I still love it now. I actually don't know what it is called, besides life.

Lucy

Mount Munson, Penticton

Almost Back to Normal

At least I can run around with the kids now, as seen in this photo taken on our family trip and LifeSport triathlon camp in Penticton. That's Ross, flying down the gravel beside me. At this point, I can see that I will be back training by the end of August, just in time for....next year!

10 Minutes of Running for Joy x 4

I remember doing a half Ironman about 2 years after Maia was born, and all I can remember from that run was that I was running without pain. I was so noticably pain free that it was all I could think about. I had spent a year recovering from back and pelvis pain, so just to be running was something to be happy about.

Right now I am up to 10 min run intervals with 2 min of walking, and while things are not perfect with my knee, running for 10 minutes feels pretty good, and the funny thing is...that the two minutes of walking are not bad either. I can look around, breathe, relax and appreciate the surroundings.

Lucy

Slow Bikes and Fast Bum Shorts

The Most Useful Birthday Present EVER


This is my prized purple Mongoose. Lance gave it to me. Lance has given me many useful gifts over the years, many that I still have and use all the time, like my first set of nice Lagostina cooking pots. Lance gave me this bike for Christmas in about 1994. I think he sold his first carbon fibre bike frame in order to buy it for me and I clearly remember how he surprised me by hauling it onto our king sized water bed on Christmas morning. I think that at the time, Lance figured we might get some mountain biking in, but I don't think he could have foreseen just how useful this bike would be.



I have probably logged more miles on this bike than any other bike I have ever owned. This would be owing partly to the fact that I've owned this bike longer than any other bike, and unlike my sponsored Cervelo and Orbea racing bikes, you just don't replace your beater bike every year; then it wouldn't be the beater bike.


It's an ordinary old 35 pound mountain bike with great heavy fenders and a cool bell. I can tow kids on it, and I can ride it in the rain, and I can tool around town with it. I can hop on and off trails, and I can ride it to school with Maia (though she really hates it when I show up in my spandex and colourful jerseys. "Why can't you dress normal, like the other mums?"). I rode it when I was pregnant because I could stay safely on bike paths, and I used it post childbirth as the position is easy on my back. It doesn't get flats and although they are getting old now, it has enough gears to get me up and down hills without too much stress.


Today I rode my 35 pound beast for one whole hour and forty five minutes. My longest ride since Ironman Canada last summer. My purple Mongoose is now the Official Bike of my Knee Injury Rehabilitation, and until I can ride several 2hour pain free rides, I won't even think of getting on my carbon fibre Orbea. If I get on my road bike, then likely I will feel too much like an athlete again, and will try to train, instead of the spinning and strength therapy that riding is fulfilling right now.



Back when I was a 3000m runner I used to train with a woman who fluctuated wildly between being one of the fastest runners in the world, and so injured she would get fantastically out of shape. We always knew she was back in racing shape when her racing suits came out of storage. We called our skimpy little racing shorts 'bum shorts' and for the information of the bikini wearing triathlon masses, track and field athletes have been competing in public in bathing suits for years.


I realize I feel the same way about my mountain bike



I can ride incognito on my mountain bike; meaning other road cyclists don't feel they have to compete with me, as all they see is this nerdy purple bike with a 40 year old woman motoring along. I am left in peace to ride and enjoy the scenery, concentrate on form and getting my leg better. So far so good.





Lucy

What Exactly is a Tomboy: Have You Ever Thought About It?
by Lucy Smith

Copied from the May 2008 Issue of Island Parent Magazine.

When I was a child I was called a tomboy. I remember processing it as a compliment, not a taunt, and took it as praise for being athletic, a fast runner, interested more in the outdoors than talking about dolls and boys. I was naturally athletic and I loved competition. I ran and played soccer and basketball at school. I sailed all summer, loved camping, hiking, rock climbing and back country skiing: anything that tested my physical limits. I took pride in being brave and fearless and tough. As the third and youngest child in an active family, I no doubt got positive feedback for having an independent attitude, and early success in sports only served to encourage my athletic interests. I had boys that were good friends, and all through high school had more boys that were ‘chums’ than boyfriends.

As a child, I felt happy identifying as a ‘tomboy’, and during my adolescence, I believe my athletic abilities gave me inner strength to weather the high school scene. As I became a young woman, however, I gradually came to wonder how the boyish label fit with being a girl: I also liked nice clothes and shoes and had heartbreaking crushes on countless boys. I home permed my hair (with disastrous results) in grade 12, experimented with make-up, and stared at fashion magazines, all the while training for the Provincial Track and Field Championships.

By the time I had reached University and my first women’s studies classes, I had outgrown the tomboy label and was a bona fide elite athlete, starring as a distance runner at University and going on to travel the world competing on national teams. At 23, I knew I wanted to be an Olympian and carve out a career as a professional athlete. I had forgotten all about the word tomboy, until I got to that inevitable crossroads in early adult life, where I had moved away from home and was trying to figure out who I was and what I wanted from my life.

Over the next few years as I became aware of the forces of sexism in our culture, it slowly dawned on me that tomboy was a strange sort of expression to apply to girls. Why would we label an active girl to be ‘sort of’ male? It seemed a little confusing to me, as the messages that I saw around me, mainly through the media, seemed to suggest that being a girl and a woman, had a lot more to do with choosing the right eye shadow and preparing for the perfect dream wedding. Tomboy seemed to be a good thing when I was little; now that I was growing up into a woman, what was I?

For a while in my late twenties I lived in Paris, racing as a professional triathlete on a French women’s triathlon team, but still mainly training with, and hanging out with male athletes, as women professionals were pretty scarce. While I loved the adventure of being in Europe, nothing could have felt more glaringly odd to me as a young woman than being a female athlete in the city of breasts, fashion and fragrance. I looked around at the billboards displaying airbrushed photographs of women without muscles, wrinkles or body hair. I knew that no amount of cream would melt fat or cellulite. I decided that someone was delusional, and it wasn’t me.

Like a lot of women born after the start of the feminist movement I had learned to be wary of media images of beauty, and had learned to be a critical reader and observer of popular culture. Nevertheless it was hard to be an athlete and a young woman and to never, ever see myself reflected in those popular images around me. I didn’t know what to think for many years. I felt so strongly that I needed to reject the ‘girly girl’ image that seemed so false (and dangerous, as I noticed eating disorders, low self esteem and disempowerment) that in a very concrete way, I was rejecting the ‘buy in’ to the culture of beauty that I felt was so demeaning to women because it refused to celebrate who women really were. In rejecting female stereotypes, I did in turn embrace a lot of characteristics that are part of the gender roles of males. And that is the essence of being a tomboy by most definitions.

From a pure etymology angle, tomboy is a word with an interesting history. At first a derogatory word to describe women who dressed like men way back in 1590, it gradually came to mean, as fashions changed and most women started to wear trousers, a women who acted more like a man than a woman, and by the time I was 10, it was considered cute to be called a tomboy.

Or did it only serve, for a while, to give me permission to be less like a stereotypical girl? One has to wonder, why should a girl or a woman who is athletic, sporty, strong, confident, competitive, competent, brave and smart be compared to a boy?
Women, like me, who are athletic and who like to wear mascara off the playing field, are just that: women who like sports among a whole host of other passions. I also like reading and writing and cooking and looking after my kids. As I reflect on my youth, I see that being called a tomboy was more confusing than helpful to me as it created a barrier to people (and myself included) seeing who I truly was. It would have been so much easier as a kid if I could have just been able to accept who I was as an active girl without having to deal with trying to decipher what being a tomboy meant.

Now that I am forty and balancing my athletic career with raising my two young children, my athleticism and accomplishments are embraced and respected. I am honoured to give inspiring talks to women who are beginning a journey to fitness and I enjoy giving back to the community that supports me by being a role model for kids, talking to them in gymnasiums and racing them around soccer fields. Nobody calls me a tomboy anymore and I see many young women who are fearlessly choosing to be athletes. Girls can play hockey, soccer and golf, though still not with the same opportunities as men. The balance is far from equal—there are far greater professional opportunities for male athletes than female, but girls just don’t need to be called tomboys anymore. And when the word disappears from common use and into the history of the language, that will be a good day.

I have noticed that in the post-feminist “Girl Power” movement, there is a strong reclaiming of the term tomboy amongst girls. I see girls trying to infuse power in the term, by saying they are proud to be tomboys. What I envision is a possibility that girls and women can transcend the whole issue of what their position is in relation to traditional power. Instead of responding to the term, I would like to see girls embrace a reality for themselves and one that embraces the whole of their radiant natures.

I have a seven year old girl. She has girl friends that I care about. I want these girls to grow up happy to be who they are. If they want to play with Barbie, then they should be happy about that need to explore. Barbie is an invitation to conversations about why every single Barbie has such crazy long legs, no muscles, such a tiny waist and big breasts, but I still think that if they want to play with dolls that’s just fine. And if my daughter feels like running, skipping or mastering a skateboard, I would like to think that she feels free and happy about that too, and I would hope she doesn't feel that she’s a little bit of a ‘different’ girl and tomboyish because she exhibits such daring and strength.

Last month, I sat on a small chair at a classroom table with my daughter and her grade 2 teacher. The three of us were in the classroom discussing friendships among a group of girls in the class. Her teacher, a compassionate and motherly woman, mentioned that my daughter might like to find other friends who were into sports. ‘You’re sort of a tomboy; maybe there are some other girls in the class who share your interests,” suggested her teacher.

My daughter paused before answering, glanced at me, then looked at her teacher and stated. “I don’t really like that word, tomboy, as it means that I am sort of like a boy, and I’m not. I’m a girl and I like sports and running and stuff. I’m a sporty girl. The word, tomboy doesn’t exist for me.”

My heart did one of those mother bursts: I felt such respect and love that she could reflect on her teacher’s use of words so well. I was surprised that our conversations about what it means to be a girl in this world had created this kind of awareness in her. I admired too, the way her teacher took the comments. She sat up straighter and opened her eyes in that sort of ‘aha!’ way that people get when they look at something through a different lens for the first time. This is a woman with a daughter too, a girl who is passionate about soccer. “I never thought about it like that”, she said. “I can see how you wouldn’t want to be compared to a boy like that.”

Having a career in sports has been a rewarding life path for me. I have travelled the world, had experiences in different cultures, and have met interesting people: all these have enriched my life. I have overcome obstacles and challenges. I have learned how to live with extremely stressful environments and people. I have learned how to stay balanced and in the moment while dealing with the highs and the lows that sport inevitably brings. The knowledge gained from a lifetime of athletic experiences helped me through childbirth and has made me a better parent and partner. After doing three Ironman triathlons and giving birth twice, I am not afraid of anything physically challenging or stressful. By staying true to my dreams, I feel that I have transcended my early tomboy label, and found true joy in my career path.
I am not a tomboy. I am me and tomboys don’t exist for me either.

I might be injured but that doesn't mean that life is dull. (Life is never dull with kids around). This little push bike is built for a three year old to learn how to ride, but that doesn't stop Maia from using it as a stunt bike for her after dinner shenanigans.

This one's for you Linsey!