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Player's Own Voice podcast: Lauren Bay-Regula

Canadian softball pitcher Lauren Bay-Regula, shown during her last Olympic game in 2008, discusses the pain and pleasure of returning to competition thirteen years and three children after she retired from the sport. (Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press - image credit)
Canadian softball pitcher Lauren Bay-Regula, shown during her last Olympic game in 2008, discusses the pain and pleasure of returning to competition thirteen years and three children after she retired from the sport. (Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press - image credit)

Lauren Bay-Regula is exactly where she wants to be.

Thirteen years since the last time she played Olympic fastball, the pitcher is back on the mound, throwing heat and helping a team of mostly much younger players wrap their heads around playing the game at the highest possible level.

Just a few weeks before their first tilt (a 4-0 win over Mexico) and a few days more before the Tokyo opening ceremonies, Anastasia Bucsis caught up with the mother of three.

It has not been an easy return to full-time sport for Bay-Regula or her business partner/husband. But he and the kids got behind her dream. She needed every bit of that support while she was working her way through serious postpartum depression, and the lingering miserable memories of having missed the podium by a tiny margin back in 2008.

Compared to that, throwing fastballs for the first time in a decade was a piece of cake.

Player's Own Voice will be working straight through the Tokyo Olympics, dropping episodes every day or two. Intimate conversations with athletes at the pinnacle of their careers.

Like the CBC Sports' Player's Own Voice essay series, POV podcast lets athletes speak to Canadians about issues from a personal perspective. To listen to the entire fourth season, subscribe for free on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Tune In or wherever you do your other podcast listening.