ELIYAH BRAWDY – A STORY OF PERSEVERANCE

I am incredibly grateful for the progress I have made in running and the joy it brings me, and I have peace knowing that I am so much more than a runner. I thank God for the gift and joy he has given me in running. I grew up in a very small town in northern BC. When you live somewhere this small, with limited options for how to spend your leisure time you only have a few options. Most people skied or played hockey; coming from a large family, this was not really an option as the time and financial commitments for those sports was too much for 5 kids! I was fortunate to find running in high school. I ran cross country starting in grade 8 and immediately fell in love. Our practices consisted of two practices a week. For the first practice we would be on the track at my local high school and the second practice we would jog on a trail from the school down to the river where there was an iconic hill. I do not remember the specific workouts but I remember the feeling of running hard, and my high school xc coach telling me to “move my arms faster because your legs will move as quickly as your arms” – something that still comes to mind for me today when trying to run a quick rep. I started racing and did fairly well, I had finally found my “thing”. Fast forward to grade 11, I joined the track team. I remember that first year. I would run all the workouts having no idea of what certain splits or paces meant. I had no concept of what was “fast” and what wasn’t. I know my track coach was sometimes shocked at my inability to run “fast” yet but my ability to seemingly never get tired. Over the course of that year, I improved dramatically. I came in not being able to run close to what my competitors were running and by the end of the season was finishing mid pack at BCHS. Throughout the summer I continued running, I had found something I loved and joined the club track team. Running provided me with solo time, something I craved and needed as a textbook introvert growing up in a large family. I was seeing improvement and started learning about how track workouts function and what paces meant. Going into grade 12 I was excited. I started to think about university and imagined myself running competitively and excelling at the university level. Throughout grade 12 I ran more and more, I got faster and my coach had to actively tell me to run less. Track practice was the best part of my day. I struggled socially in high school, so having something that I was somewhat good at, where I could be around others but also felt in my element was huge. I had big goals and was determined to hit every split during training and rarely came away from a race truly happy with my accomplishment. I think my desire to be the best and continue to improve made me hard on myself. This drive and push to want to be the best I can be is what propelled me forward but it wasn’t without cost. Heading into my first year of university, essentially anything that could go wrong did. The coach I had signed with and was excited to train with was no longer at the university by the fall. I entered the season with what I later found out was a stress fracture, and having run on it for several weeks (do not do this!) it caused a chain of nerve and other damage. This led to a series of repercussions that sidelined me for a better part of a year. I was 17, in a new city, surrounded by new people, and could not do the one thing where I felt truly myself. My first year of university was filled with a lot of tears, of wishing things were different, of early morning pool runs and runs that felt so much harder than I wanted them to. In hindsight, this forced break from running was critical in my longevity in the sport. It forced me to rest, learn how to fuel properly, and to consider who I was outside of running. Throughout the summer, back at home I worked with physio and tried to sort out everything that had gone wrong. I cannot remember the specific timeline, I just know it felt like a really long time. I felt like a stranger in my body, uncoordinated and out of shape. I knew I did not want to return to the environment I came from. I decided to transfer to UBCO. Although after my first year at UBCO I dealt with yet another coaching change, this series of what all seemed like unfortunate events at the time truly did come around. In December of 2019, I first met my coach (who still coaches me to this day), Malindi Elmore. I remember our first meeting so clearly. It was during exam season, on a cold, snowy day at the campus Starbucks. I had torn my calf in a cross country race in the fall and DNF’d. I was a very frustrated, discouraged athlete. I remember sitting across from her and she was very no-nonsense. She listened to my concerns and took out a notepad. On the notepad she scribbled down a walk-run program. It was very simple and I loved the tangible progression I could see on the paper. I took a picture and that was what I did over Christmas break, I walked-ran. Coming into 2020 of course nobody could have guessed what the next two years would bring. While Covid did bring some challenges for me, I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity I did have. In the fall of 2020 myself, along with the majority of the UBCO cross country team lived in a “bubble” up at Big White Ski Resort. We ran together, studied together, ate together and it was truly such a blessing. In what was an incredibly lonely and scary time for a lot of people, I was so fortunate to be surrounded by others living life together and really falling back in love with the sport. The next three years finishing off my degree I consistently fell short of where I wanted to be. To be honest, I cannot think of a single race in my university career where I truly felt I exceeded, or even met my own expectations. I was continually disappointed yet continually showed up. I love running and even though it was not going the way I wanted, quitting was never an option I wanted to consider. I graduated in 2023 and was unsure where to go from there. For my whole life I had felt that I had a plan and now I had no plan. I was envious of my peers who seemed to know exactly what trajectory their lives and careers were on. I started full time work and continued training. The summer was great, training with a few friends yet I felt like my progress was marginal. Coming into the fall of 2023 I was feeling stuck in a job I didn’t like and the long-term relationship I was in came to an end. I had thought I knew what my life was going to look like but now I had no idea. I ran ACXC that year and could feel, even during the race, a need for a change. I decided in the fall of 2023 to quit my job and do some travelling followed by a move to Vancouver. Beginning in January 2024, I spent the next ~7 weeks travelling around Europe and the UK, some with family, some with friends, and some on my own. I continued to run but had no structured training. I simply ran when I felt like it, at a pace that I wanted to run at. For the majority of my time, I was eating pastries and exploring new cities. Toward the end of my trip, I was visiting a (running) friend in the UK. She mentioned to me she had planned to do a 3k road race in Northern Ireland during the timeline I was going to be there. I sent an email to the race director and very soon had also signed up. Prior to the race I did a couple workouts but really had no idea what to expect; I was more excited to just see a new place and be a part of a race in Europe – there were no expectations. The race consisted of a paved loop; because it was Northern Ireland, in February, it was dark and sleet was coming down hard. The start was chaotic (many people fell) but I just ran as hard as I could. When I crossed the line I realized I had run about 15 seconds faster than any 3k time I had ever run on the track in university. When I came back to Canada, I moved to Vancouver almost immediately and had what you could call a “breakthrough” season. I was running workouts and races considerably faster than the year before, and felt way better. Taking some time away from structured training, a break from work/school, (and maybe all the pastries – I’ve continued with that approach) allowed me to reset and ready to work hard towards my goals. Over the past year and half I have continued to race and train hard. I find my goals and expectations quickly jump and it is easy to be unsatisfied or set lofty goals. Thankfully, I have a coach who both encourages big goals and can be realistic about the process. For me, my faith is something that is a very big part of my life. Through my journey as a runner I have often been reminded and needed reminders that that is not where my identity lies. While I am incredibly grateful for the progress I have made in running and the joy it brings me, I have peace knowing that I am so much more than a runner. When I look back on all the ups and downs over the past several years I can see that God has been consistent through it all – I know that even when running is not going well I can lean on Him, and when it is – all the glory and praise should be given to Him!