At the halfway mark of the Rainshadow Running Gorge Falls race last April in Oregon, Alicia Woodside pulled up at a rest station along the course and ordered a cheese burger. Better still if it came with fries to fuel the remaining 50 kilometres she had to the finish line. (Not a typo. The Gorge Falls is a 100-km race. It’s shorter than the 100-mile punisher she’s also run.)
The race volunteers, Woodside wrote after the race, didn’t immediately get her joke. But then they noticed her McDonald’s uniform “and my good ol’ nametag.”
Woodside, 26, raced along technical single track and forest trail. Over 12 hours, she passed Wahkeena Falls, Fairy Falls, Multnomah Falls, Oneota Falls, Dry Falls and even right under Ponytail Falls along the base of the Cascades. She did it all in a cotton uniform from the fast food chain she worked at as a teenager in Port Moody.
“It kept me warm but not too warm,” she said of the surprisingly comfortable and well-suited garment. “I try to keep things light. I can get a little carried away, so for me to do all of the training and running, I remind myself this is for fun, this is a hobby.”
She’ll run the Gorge Falls race again next month wearing finger puppets. One is a mouse, another a parrot. “With them I’m planning for them to have conversations during the hard parts of the race,” said Woodside.
The ultra-marathoner, also a member of the Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»Falcons Athletic Club, doesn’t lead a sedentary life and isn’t one the many girls who grow up only to say goodbye to the organized sports they played in high school or the neighbourhood bike rides with friends.
In that regard and more, Woodside is an exception and now she’s becoming an example.
According Rebecca McNeil, a social media specialist with Mountain Equipment Co-op, the number of Canadian girls participating in sports and recreational activities is declining.
“Anecdotally and statistically, this is happening,” said McNeil. MEC is trying to address this downturn by funding projects and organizations through an initiative called , which takes its inspiration from a U.S. example.
“I think it’s important to have different access points and ways to get into the outdoors because a lot of clubs have more traditional messages, and it can be pretty extreme and intimidating sometimes,” said McNeil. “A lot of these trips are really technical right off the bat and require a certain level of skill and equipment to get in right away. So you already have to be super passionate. We’re trying to give people a little taste… and want people to come away hooked, almost by accident.”
To help counteract these discouraging numbers, Woodside — along with Nancy Zenger and Joanie Maynard — created , a grassroots organization designed to introduce (or reintroduce) young women to the natural playground around them and the fun they can have there. GGW is partially funded by MEC Nation and hosted its first event last week.
“There are so many avenues we can do,” said Maynard, an avid mountain biker who moved to Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»from Quebec.
On March 20, Girls Gone Wilderness took hikers, including some novices, on a four-kilometer post-sunset hike along the Baden Powell Trail on what turned out to be one of the rainiest nights of the season. Two dozen people signed up and many brought plus-ones who wouldn’t describe themselves as hikers. Zenger wore a plush tiger onesie, Woodside was in a vintage ski suit and they held a dance-off and limbo contest to show the women how they can have fun on the weekend without getting drunk at a club.
“You can have fun without alcohol,” said Zenger. The GGW hosts passed out “shots” made from energy drinks and blasted music by Will Smith as contestants jived on a suspension bridge 50 metres above Lynn Creek. They provided ponchos to keep the rain off, and the hike ended with hot chocolate and swag-loaded goody bags.
Emma Thompson, 25, has lived in Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»for six months after two years in Toronto and a bio-chemistry degree from McGill. She joined the GGW night hike to make friends with other adventurers in an attempt to also become more active.
“I am not one of those girls and I know I’m lucky to not be one of those girls,” she said about young women who grow up and stop playing sports or recreational activities.
“I’ve had to make an active effort to not be one of those girls. I have some friends I’d love to bring along to future events. I loved the principle that the price was for you and a plus-one, and the plus-one was intended to be somebody who was curious but didn’t play outside that much in order to try and bring new people into the fold. On Friday… the plus-ones ended up being more into going into the rain.”
The hosts of Girls Gone Wilderness intend to hold events to kick off each season. A mountain biking excursion is in the works and their next outing, an introduction to indoor climbing, is scheduled for April 13 at the Edge Climbing Gym in North Vancouver.
