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Ottawa man helps women blaze new trails to success
Mark Sutcliffe, The Ottawa Citizen
Ken Parker is backing women's running in the nation's capital to go places it hasn't gone before. Forty years ago this April, Kathrine Switzer had to enter the Boston Marathon illegally and fight off a physical attack by a race organizer to become the first woman to run the race. In 1967, the Boston Marathon was exclusively for men. To avoid detection, Switzer entered the race using only her initials. Four miles into the race she was spotted by race official Jock Semple, who yelled, "Get out of my race," as he tried to rip the race number from her shirt. Switzer survived the attack and completed Boston in a landmark moment for women's running. Progress has been slow -- it wasn't until 1984, for example, that a women's marathon was included in the Olympics -- but women's running has come a long way since 1967. But for Ken Parker, there is still a long way to go. Parker, the former race director of the National Capital Marathon, is an earnest advocate for women's running and the coach of the Ottawa Athletic Club Racing Team, a club that trains only women. "It hasn't reached maturity yet," says Parker of the women's sport. But it's getting much closer. Today, major marathons like New York start the women's race earlier than the men's, so the women's leaders have the course to themselves and cross the finish line on their own, instead of running amongst a pack of sub-elite men. For Parker, it still isn't enough. Last year, he created a women's-only 5k race in Ottawa so that the focus of the event would be entirely on women. "I want a woman to win the race, not a man won the race and so-and-so was the first woman," says Parker. Parker says it's important for elite women not only to have the opportunity for the spotlight, but also the pressure of running on their own. "I wanted them not only to have the chance, but the responsibility. To have to run with the pace car and break the tape." Parker was very pleased with the results of the first event. More than 200 women entered the race, and 35 runners completed the 5k in under 20 minutes. This June's event has been renamed Emilie's Run, in memory of Emilie Mondor, who trained with the OAC Racing Team before she was killed in a car accident last fall. Parker thinks Mondor had a chance to become an elite marathon runner if her life had not been cut short. That's the upward end of the kind of potential Parker looks for from members of the OAC Racing Team. He stresses the team is not a fitness club or social running group. It's a competitive racing team of about 30 runners, all of whom should be able to do 5k in about 20 minutes or show the potential to get that fast with some training. The club has a growing list of success stories, like Liz Maguire, who on Thursday will be honoured in both the road racing and marathon categories at the Ottawa Sports Awards. Maguire came back to the sport after having two children. She turned 40 in October but had the best year of her career. "Forty is my lucky number," says Maguire, who has been training with the OAC club for three years. In 2006, Maguire set personal bests in five different distances and finished in the top five in at least six events. "Liz is one of the most disciplined, conscientious trainers I know," says Parker. "She works, she has a family and she's just turned 40. But she's still getting faster." Parker says the goal of the OAC team is to coach women to be "as good as they can be for the time they can commit." Now, the obstacles to women in running aren't from race organizers, but from everyday life. Nobody illustrates that better than Tracy Abarbanel, who found time to train last year even though she has three children under six years old, works part-time and was studying for her PhD in psychology. To fit everything in, Abarbanel gets up at 4 o'clock every morning. "I have two breaks in the day when the kids are sleeping," she says. "Definitely one of those two, I'm running. And the other, I'm studying. I do that six days a week." The results are coming for Abarbanel in races and in school. On Monday, she earned a 94 per cent on her latest exam. She is hoping to devote more time to training in the coming season. Both Abarbanel and Maguire say that a critical element of the OAC Racing Team is being able to train with other women. "A lot of women might not have the confidence to go out and train in a mixed group," says Maguire. "It's nice to have an all-women group. It's a very tight-knit group. We're so, so supportive of each other." "There's much more of a common ground for understanding what's going on in the rest of our lives," says Abarbanel. And Parker's dedication to the group has been unparalleled. "He has been such a huge supporter of women," says Maguire. "He's a big reason why women's running is as big as it is." And why it's getting even bigger. | |