With her Mom by her Side, Julianne Labach is Ready to Run Fast

Former two-time U SPORTS champion is set to toe the line at the 800m in Victoria this week

By: Josh Kozelj

Julianne Labach remembers the nerves. 

When her mother would drop her off at school, the nerves heightened, bubbling into embarrassment, as she compared her mom to the other mothers in the school parking lot. 

Her mom was always a runner. She’d do marathons and half marathons. She’d wear leggings and baggy sweatshirts and run in the morning before dropping Labach off at school. Ordinary lifestyle choices for a runner.  

But to a young Labach, the lifestyle seemed far from ordinary. She was nervous about her mom looking different to the other parents that dropped off their children in ‘regular’ work attire. 

“I was like, ‘Why can’t you be a cool mom! Wearing a dress or something [else]?’” Labach says now with a laugh. 

Years later, with her own promising running career, Labach finally understands the comforts of running clothes. 

“[I was] so embarrassed that she was in running clothes, and now that’s my everyday life. I live in my running clothes, I’m like, ‘I was such a brat!’” 

Labach came to the sport of running pretty late. She played competitive soccer throughout grade school, but during the off season she would run track and compete in meets in her hometown of Saskatoon. Although she never trained competitively, Labach had natural talent on the track. 

She won both the 800 and 1500m at Saskatchewan provincials in grade 12, without track being her major pursuit. 

“I won provincials, but it was for me, not casual, but I wasn’t putting in the training for it and I had a lot to learn.” 

Initially, she was recruited to the University of Saskatchewan to play on their varsity soccer team, but was convinced to run track for the Huskies as well once soccer season was complete. 

Soccer in the fall. Indoor track in the winter and spring. School studies all-year long. For some, it sounds like a daunting tight rope to balance, yet Labach thrived in the yearly routine. 

“It was all I knew,” she said. “Starting right away in first year, that was my new normal.”

In the summer before her fourth year of university, Labach won the 800m and finished second in the 1500m at the Canada Summer Games. It was the first time that she medalled, let alone won, a major national competition and started to think about making the switch to running full time. 

“I was a better runner, like, I warmed the bench more than I like to admit on the soccer team,” Labach said. “I felt like I had reached the end of my potential with soccer, but I thought there was still a lot I wanted to explore with track.” 

Over the next two years, Labach carried that momentum to the university competition circuit. 

She won the 1000m and 600m at the 2018 Canada West indoor track and field championships and was named the conference’s “Outstanding track performer of the year.” A couple weeks later, she took home her first national track and field title: winning the 1000m at U SPORTS track nationals. 

And in her final year of collegiate running, Lacbach won two Canada West individual gold medals and a gold in the 600m at U SPORTS. 

“I think certain people are made to do certain things, and it’s not always just one thing, but I think running is one of the things I was made to do,” Labach said. “I do it because it’s fun and because I love it.” 

After she exhausted her collegiate eligibility, Labach moved on to a post-collegiate running career and started to be coached by Mark Bomba. She found success under the new training program, running a 4:32 mile in February 2020, but one month later the pandemic hit and put racing on pause. 

She time trialed and continued running throughout the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it wasn’t until last summer when she was able to hit the track (officially) again.

“Last year was my first outdoor season with Mark as my coach, so it was the first time that we got to show everyone the work that we’ve been putting together.” 

Labach ran 2:00.88 for the 800m and 4:11 in the 1500m last—three and two second lifetime personal bests respectively. 

She credits the breakthroughs to Bomba’s program and her training partners. In the early stages of the pandemic, she regularly travelled to BC to train with athletes including Regan Yee and Lindsay Butterworth. 

“They’re great training patterns, and it allowed me to work on my aerobic side.” 

In 2022, she hopes to make her first national team—be it at the World Championships or the Commonwealth Games—and break two minutes for the 800m. Labach understands that the Canadian women’s 800m field is incredibly deep, with three women running under two minutes last summer and two already this year.  

“I would absolutely love to represent Canada on the international stage,” Labach said. “To do that, I know it’s going to take a fast time.” 

Outside of the track, Labach’s mother is still a constant presence in her life. 

Today, as Labach navigates a post-collegiate career, unsponsored, she books hotels and flights for travel, times workouts, and hops on the bike to give her daughter support during the tough sessions on the track. 

Labach knows what she needs to do to break the two minute barrier, and regardless of how long that takes, whether it happens at the Track Classic this week or later in the season, her mother will always be by her side. 

“She loves running, she loves track, it’s something we’ve really bonded over,” Labach said. 

“I joke that she’s my ‘mom-ager.’”