RUNNING IN THE FAMILY
Moms, sons take Sun Run in stride
Running runs in the family for three sets of mother-son participants planning to run in the Vancouver Sun Run on Sunday.
Chris Rickaby, a Learn to Run group leader, clinic co-ordination and area co-ordinator for the 34th annual 10K race, has been taking part in the Sun Run since 2003, when her son, Ryan, and his twin sister Rachel were six years old.
“I used to run cross-country in high school,” said Rickaby, who is self-employed and works in medical billing.
“I had my kids and they were in elementary school and I wanted to get back in shape. So I left them with dad for a couple of hours” and trained with a Sun Run in Training program in New Westminster.
“It sounded like fun. I hadn’t run in years. The first year, I ran it in just over an hour,” she said. And over the years, “I’ve made so many friends, it’s crazy.”
Part of the motivation was wanting to teach her children about an active lifestyle.
“I wouldn’t want my kids not to be active, so I better go out and do something,” she said.
A few years later, when her children joined the run club at Herbert Spencer Elementary, she realized the students, especially the hares who were losing to the tortoises, could benefit from what she learned about pacing and breathing at her clinics.
She helped the school set up a 13-week clinic that takes students through the same techniques and ends with a mini run.
Ryan, now 21 and taking chemical engineering at UBC, remembers the clinics from school, which may have instilled the love of longdistance running in him.
“It definitely keeps you in shape and it’s a great mental stress release and it’s a social activity.”
Ryan is a leader of the Run Stronger group in New Westminster, “pushing people to make better goals,” he said.
He said he has been inspired by his mother staying in shape and helping others run or walk the race for the first time.
“All the participants just love her,” he said.
Ryan helps run the clinics on Tuesdays in the weeks leading up to the race. And he’s gone on to run marathons, the BMO Marathon in May will be his fourth.
The two won’t be running together on Sunday because they have different speeds and their roles as leaders is to stick with the slowest members of their group, but they inspire each other to train during Sun Run season and through the rest of the year.
Zoya Lovell, a group leader for a fifth year, has been running for 15 years, which means her son, Nicholas, 16, has never known her not to be a runner.
Lovell, a travel tour consultant who lives in New Westminster, recalled her first Sun Run with a group at her office, which she walked.
The next year, not wanting to take two hours to walk the 10K, she joined a Learn to Run clinic.
“It was a real kick off to my fitness,” said Lovell, a former smoker who has since that first Sun Run has run a half-marathon and triathlons.
She said running has also helped her to learn how to set goals for herself in other areas of her life and to think strategically.
She also learned how to diarize her food.
Nicholas, her middle of three children, ran last year and this year is a group leader, one of the youngest.
He once played hockey, but his new interest in running allows Lovell to spend more time with him on their shared activity.
“It’s nice that we can go for a run together,” she said.
Running is something Kathy Petts, also of New Westminster, can share with her son, Philip Lemp, 19, but it wasn’t her that inspired him.
“He wanted to get his cardio up and start running more, and he hounded me until I signed up (for the Sun Run),” she said.
The two train with the New Westminster group and plan to start the race together on Sunday, but Philip will “run it as fast as I can” while Petts plans to both walk and run the course.
Philip, who is in his second year of resource and environmental management at SFU, played football at St. Thomas More and worked on his strength more than his cardio training.
He hopes for a career in law enforcement and knows he will need more endurance training to pass the admission tests.
He has noticed an improvement already, being able to run for 70 minutes, compared to earlier when he would be winded after five or 10 minutes.
The two keep each other active by reminding each other about their training schedules.
“We’ll ask each other, ‘Have you got your runs in?’ ” said Petts.
The Vancouver Sun Run, among the largest timed 10-kilometre road race in the world, was started in 1985 by former Olympians Dr. Doug and Diane Clement and Dr. Jack Taunton.