Lucia Stafford
The stand-out runner from the tiny Toronto French School team is ready to follow in her family’s footsteps
Canadian Running: You come from a family of runners – how has that impacted your development as runners? Do things ever get competitive between you and your sister Gabriela?
Lucia Stafford: My dad used to be a great runner back in the day (he went to the iaaf World Cross-Country Championships four times) and he encouraged my older sister and I to join the junior cross-country and track teams in elementary school, which is when I started to love the sport. Things between my sister and I definitely used to be competitive, but now with her at university and me just getting back into it after a medical problem, we don’t compete against each other as much. She definitely drives me to run fast and I’m sure that we’ll be competing against each other in the near future. The day I beat her in an 800m will be a huge victory for me.
CR: You are recovering from Graves’ disease, which Gabriela also suffered from previously. How has that impacted your ability to train?
LS: At the beginning of the year I started having some serious problems with asthma during hard workouts. It became really frustrating because I could barely get through a single workout without having an attack. After some tests they figured out it was a hyperthyroid problem. I saw a specialist who told me to stop exercising completely.
It was really weird how my sister and I got the disease so close together; even the doctors said it was unusual. I took almost three months off from running. When I started again after seeing an endocrinologist, I had to wear a heart-rate monitor while doing exercise. I was surprised at how long it took for me to start feeling like myself again. I remember being so stressed because I was way behind all my competitors and teammates and it felt like I was never going to be back to where I was. I was so nervous going into the spring season because I only had a month of serious training before racing at ofsaa, but I came back pretty quickly thanks to my base from cross-country.
CR: Your sister made a bold move and turned down offers to go to American schools on scholarship in favour of staying home to attend the University of Toronto. Although you’re still a while away from university decisions, where you would like to attend?
LS: I honestly don’t know where I’m going to go. I think that if I stay in Canada, I will most likely be going to U of T because of my strong relationships with the coaches, and because it’s close to home, but I want to give the States some serious consideration because of the opportunity offered by the ncaa. There are a couple universities in the States that I have my eye on but it will be a while before I make any decisions and I know it will be an extremely tough one to make.
CR: You attend Toronto French School, which has a very small team. What’s that been like? LS: The school has been really good with signing me up for races and providing transportation so I can compete. We’ve actually started building a solid senior cross-country team with around 10 girls who go out and train in the fall. It used to just be my sister until more girls became interested. The senior track team consists of me and another girl in Grade 9 who does high jump. Our coach is someone on the Varsity track team at U of T who recently graduated from tfs, so he saw our situation and wanted to help us out. We were a small team but last school year Elena Foulidis and I both made it to ofsaa. I ended up winning the silver medal in the 800m, which was so exciting. CR: Who would you name as an inspiration for you? LS: Kate Van Buskirk is totally awesome. I also really like American elite runner Jordan Hasay because she seems so humble and nice but then she kills it on the track. But for me, I’m usually inspired not by one specific person but by things people do or go through. Like my sister coming back from Graves’ disease and repeatedly killing races or my close friends at the track who surprise themselves with amazing performances. For me, I think it’s my teammates and family who inspire me the most, like my dad, for instance. He’s always supporting me and giving me great advice, and it makes me want to work really hard to make the best out of the sport.– CF