Sun Run Weekend

My friend Cari is running the Sun Run this weekend. There was a good article on her in the Vancouver Sun yesterday:

Cari Kuzyk is discovering that motherhood and elite running can make for a compatible combination.

A former three-time NAIA cross country champion at SFU, Kuzyk felt her days as a competitive runner where pretty much over when she and her husband decided to start a family. But now that son Payton is a robust two and a half year old toddler, Kuzyk is finding there are ways of combining her role as a mother and still get back into the competitive world of racing.

"I thought I was finished as a runner," laughs Kuzyk, who is training for the 10K April 23 Sun Run. "However, I've found running is a sport that fits pretty well with being a stay-at-home mom. Payton is still my focus, but I'm back in competitive running and Payton seems to enjoy being outdoors and coming to my races."

After completing her college days at SFU -- where she competed as Cari Rampersad -- Kuzyk worked for a while for the Better Business Bureau before leaving to start a family. She resumed training again last June and, with the workouts going so well, she decided to enter the Canadian cross country championships in early December at Jericho Beach. To her surprise the result there was a top-10 finish in the short course 6K race. That was good enough to earn her a spot on the national team as well as a recent trip to Japan for the world championships.

"I was a bit shocked to make the national team," admits Kuzyk, a Cranbrook native who trains under Jerry Tighe with the Hershey Harriers Track Club. "The first few months after getting back into training were a bit hard. But it got better after that."

With the Sun Run coming so soon after her April 2 race in Japan Kuzyk -- a psychology major who also won a NAIA 3,000-metre indoors crown while competing for SFU -- isn't quite sure what to expect from herself at the Sun Run, which she hasn't contested for several years. Her focus for the summer is on the Canadian 10,000-metre track championships which will be held in Abbotsford in June.

"I used to run 10K races, so it's not that big an adjustment," notes Kuzyk, who ran an 8K at the cross country Worlds in Japan. "It's definitely a competitive thing for me. I want to see what I can do."