'I want to run farther': 8-year-old wants boys and girls to run the same race distances
Eight-year-old Isla Morris of Cartwright loves to run and she has no plans to slow down.
This fall alone, she ran five kilometres at the Trapline Marathon, where she even beat some adults, and recently completed a one-kilometre race at the cross-country running regionals in Charlottetown, N.L.
But when she was at that regional competition, Morris realized something that she doesn't believe is fair.
At eight years old, she was taking part in the Participation Nation run, where boys and girls run the same distance. She realized that in a couple of years, when she is in Grade 6, she'll be running a distance of two kilometres while boys the same age will be running three kilometres.
In high school, those distances change to three and five kilometres, respectively.
"People don't know that girls can run the same distance as boys," said Morris when asked why she thinks the distances are different.
Now Morris and her mother, Kristin Pardy-Morris, are asking School Sports N.L. to change the rules so boys and girls of the same age are running the same distances in competitions.
"It would make me feel mad. I want to run farther," said Morris, thinking about how she will feel having to run a shorter distance than boys her age in junior high.
Pardy-Morris used to take part in cross-country running competitions in junior and senior high but says that when she was competing, she didn't think about the difference in distances. It wasn't until her own daughter started competing that she became concerned.
"As a parent I only recognized it then.… What kind of a message does that really send? Because we all know that girls can run just as far as boys and they do in every other situation," said Pardy-Morris.
That's why her mother shared a video of Morris voicing her concerns on Facebook.
"I want to teach her and show her in any opportunity that I can that if you believe in something, maybe speak out against it and maybe try to make a change and she's done a very good job so far," said Pardy-Morris, with Morris interrupting to say, "Thank you very much."
Pardy-Morris first asked School Sports N.L. in 2019 to make changes but never received a response. She believes that was because of the pandemic and the fact that there weren't any school sports last year.
Previous changes reversed
School Sports N.L. has made changes to running distances in the past — increasing the distances girls were running — but found participation "dropped significantly," said Trisha Boyer, acting executive director of School Sports N.L.
"There's things to look at in terms of switching these things up," said Boyer. "We have a lot of females and males that are coming out but they're coming out for fun. They're coming out to maybe perhaps train for their sport of their choice but they're not running as much as Isla is running."
Boyer says that there may be room for a Novice race category, where boys and girls both run two kilometres, and then shift toward having male and female junior and senior high students run the same distance.
"We really need to send a message that both boys and girls can and are capable of running the same distances and having that extra race that's regionally based will allow students to participate in cross-country because a lot of them do it and I think that's painful for them because they don't do the training ahead of time as much," said Boyer. "I think that we definitely need to make it more accessible for them to enjoy it."
Any potential changes to School Sports N.L. regulations on cross-country running distances would have to be voted on at its next annual general meeting, in June.
Listen to the full interview:
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