Longer careers are fuelling an unprecedented running boom for women in Canada

The Woodlands Half Marathon in Texas is hardly known for generating eye-popping finish times. It happens in March—long before most top runners come into peak fitness—so it’s the kind of race elites use to get in shape, away from the critical judgment of public message boards.

That is probably why nobody was prepared to witness Rachel Cliff smash Lanni Marchant’s Canadian half marathon record of 1:10:47 by nearly 40 seconds at the race’s 2018 edition. Cliff’s 1:10:08 made headlines across the country. Fans and competitors wondered if the Vancouver, BC resident could eventually become the first Canadian woman to eclipse the 70-minute barrier, and how her new fitness might translate to the marathon. Ironically, it seemed like the person least enchanted by her new record was Cliff herself.

“I knew it would get broken again pretty quickly,” she said, now two years removed from the race. “I knew the level of talent that we have in Canada.”

Cliff was right—her record was broken three times in the next two years. Her foresight was informed by an emerging trend—one whose floodgates, barely opened in 2018, are now ripped off its hinges: Canadian women are running faster than ever. Four of the five women’s national distance records (from the 1,500 metres to the marathon) have been re-written in the past calendar year. Six of the top eight Canadian half marathoners of all time registered their personal best in 2019 or later. Malindi Elmore, a 39-year-old mother of two, ran more than two minutes faster than any other Canadian female marathoner in history in early 2020.

Cliff, who also held the national marathon record before Elmore, traded in her place in history for newfound inspiration. “Losing a record to Malindi, who has a family and two kids, is such an uplifting thing,” said Cliff. “It shows that women are supported to chase this sport longer now. For me, it’s motivating.”

Women having longer running careers, like Elmore, is a probable driver of Canada’s running renaissance. Top athletes like Elmore, Lyndsay Tessier, Emily Setlack and Natasha Wodak are all over 35 years old, and have made it obvious that women can achieve their best results well past their early thirties and even after giving childbirth. We did not always think that way.

When Jacqueline Gareau chased and broke the Canadian marathon record multiple times in the early 1980s, her adversity transcended 42.2 kilometres. Gareau, now 67, grew up in the farmlands of Quebec’s Laurentides region, where kids skated and played broomball (a knockoff version of hockey) for fun. As they progressed towards adolescence, gender roles splintered—the boys became expected to help their fathers with outdoor and menial tasks, while the girls would generally be confined to house duties with their mothers. Gareau, however, preferred the outdoors and was athletic. So, to the dismay of her parents, she started running. 

“My mom would tell me,” said Gareau, “‘Jacqueline, stop that. It’s not good for you. You’re going to ruin your body doing that.’ People didn’t know women could run long.”

Gareau was 23 when the 1976 Olympics came to Montreal. The Olympians made her believe that she could also one day excel in distance events, even though the women still were not allowed to race anything longer than 1,500 metres.

In the next few years, Gareau became inspired by Grete Waitz, the rising star marathoner from Norway who went on to win the New York City Marathon nine times. When she was 27, Gareau broke the national record for the first time, in a time of 2:30:58, in Japan. Despite getting little to no funding or recognition from even local press, she continued to flourish. She won races in Montreal, Ottawa, New York and, most famously, the 1983 Boston marathon, where she set her personal best time of 2:29:27. 

At just 30 years old, she had lowered the Canadian marathon record by nearly six minutes. But soon, injuries struck, from a hallux valgus issue to plantar fasciitis. Gareau now thinks that rushing into high mileage in her twenties limited her from reaching her full potential. “We did not have that foresight back then,” she says. “Now, women don’t rush to perform early, and they peak better,” says Gareau. “We only have to look at how Malindi Elmore ran at her age to know what women can do later in their careers. I think with that technique, I would have run faster.”

But in Gareau’s era, there was little incentive for women to chase long running careers. Trent Stellingwerff, an applied sport researcher at Canadian Sport Institute Pacific, says socioeconomic opportunity, and not physiological limitations, probably led women to leave the sport earlier, historically, than men.  “If women were funded and sponsored less than men to run,” says Stellingwerff, “then there was likely less incentive to compete in running for as long as men,” whose wife Hilary ran the 1,500m at her second of two Olympic Games at age 35.

Stellingwerff suggests that as professional athlete funding equalizes between genders, women are staying in the sport for longer and reach more of their potential. And that’s good news, because, according to Stellingwerff, research does not show a difference between the age of peak performance between women and men.

It’s that in mind that fuels rising stars like 31-year-old Cliff and 29-year-old Andrea Seccafien. A 2016 Olympian in the 5,000m, Seccafien set a new Canadian half-marathon record in February 2020. Her time of 69:38 suggests great marathon potential, but the Guelph, Ont. native who trains in Australia is in no hurry to move up in distance. “People used to think you run out of time for the marathon,” she said, acknowledging that a focus on the 42.2K marks the final phase to a distance runner’s Olympic career, “but now I don’t feel pressured to move up right away. It’s not like there is an expectation placed on women to stop running at a certain age anymore. I might have five more years in this sport or more.”

Whereas Gareau had Waitz as a role model, Seccafien had to look no further than her compatriots to find incentive to keep running faster. When 38-year-old Natasha Wodak set a new national half marathon record and became the first Canadian woman to run under the 70-minute barrier earlier this year, it lit a fire under Seccafien. “When Natasha broke 70 minutes, I was like ‘I can definitely do this,’” she said. “I wasn’t sure if I could run faster, but seeing Natasha do it made it feel more attainable.”

This game of national record leapfrog is making Rachel Cliff talk about her race in Texas in 2018 as if it were a distant memory. But, she knows better than to throw in the towel. If she follows the trend, faster times are likely in her future.

“Women are in a good place now,” said Cliff. “We have mostly equal funding, some of our women are encouraged to seek out training groups all over the world, and our careers are as long as men’s. If our culture can continue to make women feel supported and enjoy it for as long as they like, the rest will keep taking care of itself.”

This article appears in iRun’s first issue of 2020. Read the entire issue here.

An accomplished military major and triathlete, Maj Lesley Quinlan takes on her most challenging operation to date as the Canada Army Run’s newest race director.

“No Ordinary Race.” That’s the slogan for the Canada Army Run. Fittingly, Lesley Quinlan, the event’s newly-minted race director, is no ordinary woman.

Quinlan, a 41-year-old major in the Canadian Armed Forces, has had an accomplished athletic career in the military, including 2018 when she was named as the Military Personnel Command Female Athlete of the Year. Quinlan’s success continued in 2019, with individual silver and mixed team gold at the CISM World Military Games in triathlon in China, and two golds back home: one in the 10K at the CAF National Triathlon Championship (Gatineau, Quebec) and another in the 10K at the CAF National Running Championship (held at Ottawa Race Weekend in May).

It wasn’t a surprise, though, that Quinlan, naturally self-effacing and in the military, where tooting your own horn isn’t exactly encouraged, gives credit for her accomplishments to those who have supported her along the way, including her husband, Chris, her teammates and her eight-year-old daughter, Katherine. “She tells everybody I’m the new race director, including her grade three teacher, who runs as well. I thought that was pretty cute,” Quinlan says.

Yet one of the biggest challenges in Quinlan’s military career may lurk in September from the sidelines in her new role as Race Director for the Canada Army Run. One of Canada’s most popular running events, the race commences with the firing of a cannon and ends with each participant receiving dog tags upon crossing the finish line. Races on offer include 5K, 10K and half marathon distances, as well as the “Victory Challenge,” where participants compete in both the 5K and 10K races. There’s also the Commander’s Challenge, which sees runners race the 5K and half marathon.

No surprise, given the military runs the event, the Canada Army Run has a reputation as one of the most well organized road races in the nation—one that Quinlan’s tasked with upholding. Beyond Quinlan’s bon mots as an accomplished distance athlete who’s witnessed her fair share of both highly organized race events and near disasters, Quinlan says that it’s her experience in expecting the unexpected that makes her equipped to take the helm at this year’s Army Run.

“I’m sort of a bag of left-field experiences,” Quinlan says. Starting as an air cadet as a teenager, she later joined the Canadian Instructors Cadre (CIC), which oversees the safety, supervision, administration and training for the navy, army and air cadets. Quinlan’s now an Army Officer in the Primary Reserve Force, which consists of CAF members from across the country, ready to conduct military operations domestically and internationally.

As a youth, Quinlan swam competitively into her teenage years while also running some cross country and track, but she preferred running in the woods over paved surfaces. Her athletic journey in the forces began when she started competing in Military Pentathlon, which includes shooting, obstacle running, obstacle swimming, throwing and orienteering. “I had no idea what I was getting myself into,” Quinlan freely admits. “It’s very demanding training in the summer, more challenging than anything I’d done to date, but it set me down the path to more serious training and eventually triathlons.”

In the summer of 2003, Quinlan dipped her toes in triathlon, riding a rented bike for the cycling portion of the race. Quinlan enjoyed it enough to buy a road bike and competed in her first Olympic-distance race (1.5K swim, 40K bike, 10K run) in Wasa Lake, British Columbia in 2006, where she learned “a number of lessons,” namely, wear a wetsuit if you don’t want to find yourself quickly at the back of the pack and freezing to death high in the mountains in a glacier-fed lake. “I was standing on the beach with all the other participants, it was a mass start, and I think one other person and myself were ‘sans wetsuits,’ and that was a pretty big clue,” Quinlan says.

However, Quinlan found cumulative success in races thereafter and started to shine as a triathlete, ultimately competing with the CISM team (i.e. the International Military Sports Council) since 2012. Quinlan says her competitive nature and sense of duty played a big part in her rise as a triathlete. “I’m a bit of a competitive person by nature,” Quinlan says. “On the CISM team, I look at it very much like I have a job to do, both as an individual competitor and CISM team member.”

Quinlan’s natural athleticism and drive to compete has led to a whole new level of success in triathlons of late, capturing silver amongst women in the masters’ category at the CISM World Games in Wuhan, China last year, and contributing to gold overall for Team Canada. She also credits her military background in executing often complex tasks under duress as playing a key role in her rise as a triathlete. Quinlan also spent several years taking 911 calls for the police, which hardened her ability to shut down and focus on executing tasks to save lives. However, Quinlan again credits her military experience as a quick lesson in learning the value of teamwork in stressful, shifting environments. “You don’t do things alone or in a silo,” she says. “It’s about being part of the team and leaning on everybody around you as well.”

Quinlan’s coach, Sharon Donnelly, competed at the first ever Olympic triathlon at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, and also worked with the US National Triathlon Team. Donnelly witnessed first-hand how Quinlan would take on multiple stressful challenges during her journey as a triathlete, yet still would rise to the occasion. “No matter if she was able to get the preparation she needed or not, Lesley performed,” Donnelly recalls. “From my perspective as a coach, she’ll take on this new role as race director the same way she takes on her training and race preparation—no stone unturned, flexible and keeping it fun.”

Experience, aptitude and success as a highly trained officer in the military and a talented triathlete all played a significant role in motivating Quinlan to apply for and ultimately become the Canada Army Run’s race director. Yet there’s another key factor for why Quinlan landed the race director role, and maybe the most underrated: she’s a people person. “I am very interested to hear what participants want out of the race, but hope they also understand I’m not always the final authority as there are many players involved,” Quinlan says. “I’m passionate about doing everything that we can here to put on the very best event possible.”

Quinlan also feels honoured as the first ever female race director for the Canada Army Run. That said, it’s not a particularly political issue for her. “I have no soapbox on the subject. The focus is simply on selecting the best person for the job,” she says. “If anything, it’s a good indicator that gender is no longer a barrier to women and positions they can hold.”

Friends and teammates all tell Quinlan that she’s perfect for the Canada Army Run race director role, which she appreciates. However, Quinlan says she’s internally motivated and confident about her new role because she feels she understands what participants want: a fun, well organized race. Quinlan’s also competed in enough events to know where the pitfalls lie, including registration hiccups to corralling participants to the start line and ensuring a smooth baggage collection at the end of the race. Quinlan believes it all comes down to making sure the Canada Army Run is a success again in 2020. “The difference between a good and bad race experience is apparent from an athlete’s perspective,” she says.

And it’s not just her friends and family that admire Quinlan and trust she’ll a make a great race director, so do those all the way up the chain of command, including Lieutenant-General Wayne Eyre, Commander of the Canadian Army, who notes how important the race is in terms of funds for important causes. “Few events have done as much good for as many people as the Canada Army Run. Since 2008, it has generated nearly $4 million for Support Our Troops and Soldier On to support ill and injured soldiers and their families,” Commander Eyre says. “Just as importantly… no one knows this better than our new race director, Major Lesley Quinlan—a soldier, triathlete, mother and now our first female director.”

Major-General Derek Macaulay, Deputy Commander Canadian Army, adds: “Canada Army Run is no ordinary race, just like our new race director. Major Lesley Quinlan, an accomplished Canadian Forces Officer and international triathlete, knows the preparation, attention to detail and effort it takes to successfully get across the finish line. She is the ideal leader to ensure we continue to make Canada Army Run one of the best in Canada.”

As part of Quinlan and her staff moving forward for this year’s race, they know that they have to look at the mistakes in past editions of the race to figure out what could go wrong, including last year’s bottleneck of runners in the 5K and hiccups in participant baggage pickup. Quinlan says she and her team have several measures in place to make sure there are no repeats of those situations. Specifically, the National Capital Commission, charged in part with developing and improving Canada’s Capital Region, has offered a piece of land for a dedicated baggage tent. Quinlan says they’re going to change the corral set up as well, giving racers more time and better spacing at the start, along with fewer constructions at the finish line.

“Along with moving the finished food area a little bit farther up the road in front of the War Museum, these changes are all going to contribute to improving the biggest issues for the 2020 race,” she says.

Finally, Quinlan doesn’t have either a particularly feminist or conservative viewpoint about her new role, as she wouldn’t with any position within the Canadian Military. She does believe, though, that the Canadian Armed Forces should be gender-neutral. While Major Quinlan says she’s proud of her accomplishments and historic appointment, she remains modest to the end. “I’m sure that I’m just the first of many women and other men to hold this post down the road. Competence, dedication and professionalism should trump gender.”

This article appears in iRun’s first issue of 2020. Read the entire issue here.

Dave Carpenter is a staff writer for iRun, as well as a content strategist, writer and photographer based in Toronto.

Things are changing in running and that’s good. When Megan Brown told her truth about coach Dave Scott-Thomas in the Globe & Mail, our sport opened its eyes. Systemic abuse was—courageously—taken to task. From there, Steve Boyd, an outspoken coach at Queen’s University, was fired. His social media comments were deemed a bridge too far. After that, Clara Langley wrote a story on our blog: An Open Letter to Queen’s University from a Woman Who’s Suffered First-Hand Abuse. Taken together, women were inspiring one another to say: enough. Against this backdrop, we release UP IN ARMS, with Krista DuChene, Malindi Elmore, Jacqueline Gareau, Rachel Cliff, Dayna Pidhoresky, Andrea Seccafien, and Megan Brown. It’s not all about #MeToo culture. But, after speaking with Megan, as the magazine’s editor, I felt challenged to bring this issue up to her level. 

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