Some of my earliest childhood memories are of me riding my bicycle alongside my Mom as she trained to run the Manitoba Marathon. I was too young to be left alone at home, and as a stay-at-home Mom, there was no daycare to send me off to. That didn’t leave a lot of solo time for my Mom, so the obvious thing to do was to make it a family affair and have my sister and I join her on her runs. Growing up, I thought this was a normal activity that all families did together. I didn’t think twice about the fact that Mom had to get her run in every day. It was like brushing your teeth - it was just a normal part of our daily life.

When race day rolled around every year, it was again a family affair with my Dad, sister, and I cheering her on and handing off water bottles for the 26.2 mile race. Watching her and all the other athletes finish the race always inspired me and at a very young age I decided that one day, I also wanted to cross the finish line of a race.

At a fairly young age, I began to start running with my Mom. Being athletic and involved in lots of team sports, I was fairly “fit” for a kid, but I wasn’t a runner. Every run got cut short due to me being tired, getting side stitches, or simply getting bored. Looking back at those runs, I can’t thank my Mom enough for the amount of patience she had with me. She was always happy to go running with me even though it surely disrupted her training routine. If she wasn’t so patient with me in those early days, I likely would not have turned into the runner I am today.

As the years went on, I finally decided that in 2009 at the age of 16 that I was going to sign up for a half marathon in the fall. I consistently ran all summer long with my Mom to train for this race. It was great! We bonded over sharing so many miles together and she helped me develop a sustainable and achievable running plan to complete 13.1 miles. It’s hard to believe now that 12km was considered a long run for me at the time!

After the summer of 2009, I haven't stopped running since. The amount of miles I’ve shared with my Mom is unimaginable. We’ve shared miles on the roads, trails, at local races, and international marathons together to this day. I developed so many great habits from her that at this stage of my running career I try not to take for granted that it was just a part of how I was brought up. I give her a lot of credit as to why I’ve been running for more than 12 years and have yet to be sidelined due to injury. Consistency is the key to sustainability and longevity in distance running, and it has taken me 12+ years to be able to run the mileage that I run today.

It wasn’t until the past few years that I even realized it was possible to run in the afternoons or evenings. My Mom is a morning runner, so naturally, I was a morning runner too. No matter how early our school, work, or activity day started, we’d get up earlier to squeeze a pre-dawn run in before getting the day started. I thought this is just what runners did and that running was an activity to be completed in the morning. It didn’t matter that this would sometimes be a 5:00am wake-up call, it was just something that had to be done. Now, as an independent adult and runner, I’ve since realized that running can be enjoyed and completed at any hour of the day, and sometimes a few extra hours of sleep in the morning takes priority. And yes, you can run after work as well!

Living in Alberta, we’re lucky with our winters being fairly mild for the most part, especially compared to Manitoba, where I spent the first 10 years of my life. However, no matter the temperature outside, my Mom made it quite obvious very early on that it’s never too cold outside to run. There’s no such thing as bad weather, just poor clothing choices. So pack on the layers and get out the door. My Mom is tough as nails, and having a role model as such made me think the same thing. I know a lot of people will switch to the treadmill if the weather is too cold. Not my Mom. In fact, I don’t know if she’s ever run on a treadmill in her life before. I’d be much more worried about her trying to run 5km on a treadmill than running 30km outside in -30C weather!

I feel beyond lucky to have grown up with such an inspirational Marathon Mom. When I started running in 2009, it wasn’t a popular sport, especially with kids my age. It was something I did alone and with my Mom. Now, I am happy to say that most of my friends and most of my vacations all seem to revolve around running. I like to remind myself of the early days of running and how the daily grind was something that was ingrained into me at a very young age. It’s hard not to take it for granted and I appreciate all the lessons I’ve learned and miles I’ve shared with my best running partner over the years. Thanks, Marathon Mom, for being my idol, my inspiration, my teacher, and my favourite running partner of all time!