Run club
prepares
for races

Students train between

classes for marathons

and other competitions
By RICA TALAY

ith marathon season com-
ing up, the Langara Run
Club is a training ground

for students on campus hoping to man-
age their stress and compete with other
Vancouver runners.

The club meets once or twice a week
to run laps around the Langara Golf
Course trail. Some of the members are
training for upcoming races while oth-
ers just run for fun.

Ashley Triebwasser, a first semester
health science student, joined the club
this semester and is training for a half
marathon.

“Tt’s sometimes hard to make time
for running but I have to remind my-
self that it’s a really good de-stresser,”
Triebwasser said. “I find that balancing
[school and running], I can actually do
both better. They kind of go hand in
hand.”

Kinesiology instructor Ryan Cawsey,
who is training for the BMO Vancou-
ver Marathon said running isn’t just
about fitness.

“Often people who have trained for
a marathon start to realize that running
is a really important regular activity just
to manage their mental health,” Cawsey
said.

Steven Tsai, a criminology student
who is taking a break from his studies
to work, is active on the club’s Facebook
page and is also training for the upcom-
ing marathon.

He said resting is the hardest part
while he’s training but it’s important to
know when to limit yourself.

“Tt really relates to knowing what the
body can take,” Tsai said. “Based on
that you'd know where to improve and
know when to rest.”

Nicholas Hare leads the club and
said although the club has roughly 60
people signed up for this semester, they
will get an average of three
to four members com-

ing out for each run.
This is Hare’s first
year ' leading the
club. > H e
“a want-

ed to

lead

it,

simply

because
he wanted
to keep the
club going.
Hare will be
trans- ferring to
UBC next year to
study ge- ography and is
looking for a replace-
ment leader.

“As of right now I
don’t have any idea
about what’s going to
hap- pen next year,”
Hare said. “Perhaps
we can find a replace-
ment leader, that
would be my goal to see
it continue, after I’m

gone.”

Ashley Triebwasser runs laps around
the Langara Golf Course as part of

her half marathon training.
RICA TALAY PHOTO

Clockwise from left: A rider canters in the arena at Southlands Riding Club before the competition; Swagger, one of the rescue horses, playfully nibbles on his

rider's hand; Bronwyn Wilkinson, president of the club, poses in the arena; Margot Vilvang practises a headstand on her horse. cassANDRA OSBORNE PHOTOS

Standing out to get ahead

Riders compete in dressage event, seeking judges feedback

By CASSANDRA OSBORNE

ressage horses and rid-

ers trotted to a start this

weekend at an equestrian

centre in South Vancouver
to gather feedback from judges before
moving to more advanced competitions
of the season.

Judges at the Southlands Riding
Club provided individual feedback
to two dozen competitors about each
movement of their routines, critiquing
both the horse’s and the rider’s athletic
ability and cooperation.

“It’s quite a technical sport,” said
Bronwyn Wilkinson, the president of
the club. “[It’s about] rhythm and sup-
pleness.”

Wilkinson said a common miscon-

ception about dressage is that the brunt
of it lies on the horse’s shoulders but in
reality riding is a
partnership. The
rider and the
horse, Wilkin-
son said, must
connect and
together
to achieve an
apparently ef-

fortless perfor-

work

“There's an element of
competitiveness and
sport to it but there's ...
an enormous element
of humanity too.”

said she focuses on the precision of
dressage.

“You
to make your
horse and you
be so in sync,”
Emrick said,
“[It’s] a conver-
sation back and
forth between
the two of you.
You can't just be

have

mance. BRONWYN WILKINSON one-sided.”
It’s the only PRESIDENT, SOUTHLANDS RIDING CLUB After the
Olympic sport competition,

where animals are involved,” Wilkin-
son said. “Women and men compete on
equal footing.”

Pippa Emrick, a hunting, jumping

and dressage instructor at Southlands,

there was a prix caprilli class to prac-
tice jumps that add an extra element of
mastery to the performance.

In dressage competitions, horses and
riders memorize complicated routines

to show off different forms of move-
ment such as trots, canters, piaffes and
pirouettes. Dressage is often compared
to ballet because of the grace and poise
of the movements.

“Tt requires a lot of athleticism,” said
Margot Vilvang, an instructor at the
riding club. “It requires balance, pa-
tience, strength [and] skill learning.”

Wilkinson, who has witnessed nu-
merous riding competitions, said it is
important to not lose sight of the spirit
of the sport that brings human and
horse together.

“There’s an element of competitive-
ness and sport to it but there’s an ele-
ment, an enormous element, of human-
ity as well,” Wilkinson said. “It takes a
lot of patience and kindness and under-
standing to bring a horse along.”

New Nik

Muslim and Sikh
athletes describe
other options

By SHOJI WHITTIER

hile Nike’s new Pro Hijab is
making waves in the sport-
ing community, athletes

have been wearing religious headgear
on sports fields for years.

At the 2016 Rio Olympics, Muslim
women wearing hijabs won medals in
sports such as fencing, weightlifting
and taekwondo. Athletic headgear has
been available through smaller compa-
nies such as Asiya, a Muslim active wear
company, but Nike is the first to pro-
duce sports hijabs on an global scale.

Sumaiya Fathahulla, a health sciences
student, wore a hijab while playing soc-
cer, basketball and field hockey in high
school.

Fathahulla said she doesn’t consider

e sports hijab old school

it a hassle to wear a hijab while playing
sports, she just wraps it differently.

“They're not a difficulty [to wear] at
all, I think you get used to it,” Fatha-
hulla said. “It’s kind of like turbans, for
example or wearing a hat. You eventu-
ally don’t notice it.”

Some Sikh athletes wear turbans, us-
ing different wrapping styles to secure
them during play.

Harjaap Singh, head of the Langara
Sikh Association, participates in the
martial art form gatka. Singh wears his
turban in the dumalla style, which is de-
signed for martial arts.

“[Many people] consider every type
of turban as the same,” Singh said. “But
there are different types of turbans for
different occasions.”

Hasan Malik, head of the Langara
Muslim Student Association, said he
thinks Nike’s release helps fill an ex-
panding market.

“There has been an emergence of
Muslim women in sports,” Malik said.
“There was the first woman athlete
from America who wore the hijab in

the Olympics last year. So I think they

Sumaiya Fathahulla plays field hockey while wearing a hijab. suai7Te0 PHOTO

noticed that.”

Nike is planning to release the ath-
letic hijab in 2018. It is designed to ad-
dress performance problems by using
a breathable, light-weight fabric that
stays on better during sports activity.

Fathahulla said she is glad that Nike

is making sports hijabs.

“[With] Nike recognizing that Hi-
jabi women athletes are out there, I
think makes it that much more amaz-
ing because it encourages the younger
generation of Hijabi Muslim women to
go for it.”