Running is ours to define

Suunto ambassador Lucy Bartholomew has competed at the highest level, landing the top podium spot at a number of ultra races. In 2021, she set an FKT on Australia’s 231 km Larapinta Trail and that same year published a vegan cookbook for athletes. She’s 25-years-old. So young, so many incredible achievements and experiences, and so many more waiting.

Since the pandemic began, Lucy, like all elite athletes, has had to adapt to a radically different sport landscape. For more than a month, due to a lockdown in Melbourne, she couldn’t run further than five kilometers from her front door. The experience has been a blessing in disguise, forcing Lucy to re-evaluate her relationship with running and her vision of life.

But adversity and change shape us and cause us to adapt and flourish in new and sometimes unexpected ways. Lucy is just getting started.

Photo by Andy Lloyd

By Lucy Bartholomew,

Dear ladies of the land,

What an honor it is to be here, to be a part of something special and memorable. Life.

To use our eyes to see the hidden corners of the world, our feet to lift and strike the ground
beneath us, our lungs to take in the air and all that it holds and our smile to share with a stranger, a friend, a moment or the sun.

Today is International Women’s Day. A day marked to raise the awareness of the women and
those that identify as such and all that we bring to the world.

In sport and in running there is a shift happening; a change in the tide that is building and gaining momentum that is exciting and scary depending on the direction it flows. There is a hopeful push towards embracing not only your WHY in sport, but also the WHO you are and the HOW you do it.

No longer are we being told there is only one way to be an athlete.

There’s no minimum pace required to be a runner.
Or a minimum distance you must cover.
A maximum weight permitted to do the sport.
An acceptable clothing size you should wear.
A ‘way’ you should look when you run.

We are starting to realize we decide what we want to do with this sport; go
professional? Make it a hobby? Run around a track, or climb a mountain? Never pin a bib on or
race constantly? Use it to commute to work and nothing more, use it to keep up with the kids or
to explore a new area. Whatever your reason, it is valid and it is worth pursuing.

We, this collective of the incredibly lucky human race that has found sport and running, are
stronger than we will ever know. We are already breaking down walls we thought were made of
bricks, but actually were merely just some tangled vines of perceived boundaries of what we are
capable of and we are starting to cut them back one by one.

You are vital to this process, you are contributing. Every time you put your shoes on and go for
a run, no matter what talk is going on in your head never let it strip you of your pride and
strength in the act of running that you are participating in.

Never overlook the fact that people you see you out running - someone walking past you, or someone in a car, stuck in traffic or driving by, or a child walking home from school - might notice you and feel inspired, see your strength, your beauty and start to wonder.

We don’t get just one day of the year to celebrate women, we get our lifetimes. We celebrate others; our friends or our competitors, we celebrate mother nature and we celebrate
and respect anyone in any corner of the world, in any life situation having the courage to put their shoes on, leave the comfort of their home and enter the unknown.

We don’t know what we will see, what we will hear, smell, or what it might inspire while we’re out there. We don’t know how we are going to feel, how the weather will be, or what the route might look like that day. What I do know is that the unknown is full of potential. YOU are full of potential and YOU have the potential to help others to realize theirs.

You are powerful, you are strong, you are worthy and you are needed.

Fellow lady boss,
Lucy B

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