Player's Own Voice podcast: Malindi Elmore stopped focusing on results, started smashing records

Malindi Elmore is either Canada's greatest gift to mature athletes, or she's yet another taunt for every runner who is racing the calendar more than the clock.

In January, the now 40-year-old mother of two shattered the Canadian marathon record, running 2:24:50 in Houston. While endurance running fans were letting that sink in, even more amazing facts emerged. This was only the second marathon Elmore had ever run. An even more unlikely detail: she was done with running, burned out, disillusioned, finished ten years earlier.

So how does a decade-retired middle distance runner smash a national endurance record? On the Player's Own Voice podcast, Elmore says the secret was in really, truly no longer caring about the results. As soon as she started running for her own pleasure, on her own program and with her own young family in the mix, her times started to plummet. She's qualified for the Tokyo Olympics now, too, 16 years after she competed in the 1500 in Athens.

Who says there are no second acts in sporting careers?

Malindi Elmore recently wrote about her incredible return to racing for CBC Sports' Player's Own Voice essay series.

The POV podcast is now joined by a new way for athletes to share opinions and expertise about issues in Canadian sports: Player's Own Voice in Studio brings the POV approach to topic-driven digital video episodes

To listen to all three seasons of the Player's Own Voice podcast, subscribe for free on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Tune In or wherever you get your other podcasts.