HGTV’s Tiffany Pratt poses 10 questions to address your fear of colour

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10:13 am

As a designer who is known for fearless use of colour, I get asked all the time how to use it.

People who are unsure about how to use colour sometimes seem genuinely afraid of it. I had often wondered why until it emerged from me in a recent interview as I blurted out, “I think people who are fearful of colour don’t deeply know themselves. I find these people to be fearful of being different or of standing out in a crowd.”

What I said was unplanned and somewhat shocking (even to me), but it made me realize that my work as a designer involves a deep personal understanding of my clients so I can guide them to the colourful road less travelled.

To help determine if you’re fearful of colour and what colours you should embrace, consider the following 10 questions:

1. When you look at a magazine or see something that you like, what colours do you gravitate toward or enjoy looking at?

2. When you were little, did someone once tell you that you didn’t look good in a colour so you stopped wearing it, and then you stopped using it altogether? Or is there another childhood moment that steered you into a colourless direction?

3. When you choose something bold, do you feel like you are making a mistake?

4. When you get dressed, does your wardrobe look similar to your decor?

5. When you see art, do you usually gravitate toward the same colours and styles?

6. When you add decor pieces to your home, do you always reach for the same thing?

7. When you include colour in your life, do you feel happier?

8. What colour was your bedroom when you were little?

9. How do you feel when you see a rainbow?

10. If you were to paint a picture right now, what colours would you use?

How did you do? Did you identify any colour fear? What colours and shades kept coming up? That colour combination needs to find a way into your home and into your life.

An easy and inexpensive way to bring those colours into your home can be through pieces of art, throw pillows, a throw blanket and a selection of colourful everyday objects. Your phone case should be purple instead of black, your handbag pink instead of brown and your coffee mug yellow instead of white.

As with anything in life, it is always best to start slow. Start with little elements and keep building until one day your home and life are sprinkled with the energy of colour. It doesn’t need to be epic. It just needs to make you happy and feel like an expression of who you are and what you love.

Also remember that tastes change as you do, so be prepared to flow through the colour spectrum as you grow and fall in love with new things. Life is a beautiful palette to be added to as we paint the masterpiece of our lives — there are no mistakes, and in every work of art there are layers of colour.

Working with colour comes easily to me because I love it and feel it inside of me. Colours run through my blood like a rainbow, and I love mixing them up and combining them to achieve different looks. Whether through design or in life, I incorporate colour into everything I do.

Tiffany Pratt is an interior designer and television personality who appears on HGTV Canada’s Home to Win, Sunday nights starting April 29.

Cafe Diplomatico celebrates half a century in Little Italy

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1:53 pm

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Italian mainstay Café Diplomatico was first opened in 1968 by Rocco Mastrangelo Sr. Today, Rocco Jr. has taken over the family-run restaurant, with his wife Connie. She shares their story in honour of the resto’s 50th anniversary.

What’s the secret to the café’s longevity?
We know a lot of our customers by name and we know what they’re having. Which, you know, you don’t get so much anymore.

Tell us one of your fondest memories of the Dip.
When Italy won the World Cup in 2006, people were standing on tables, running out into the streets. We made quite a bit of a noise in the city that year, so everybody knows us as soccer central. We’ve always celebrated the final cup game, and it doesn’t matter whose made it, we still run a full house and put on the big party with the street closure and video wall, so you can actually watch the game outside.

Which celebs have dined at the Dip?
We’ve had quite a few over the years. Harrison Ford’s been there, Rob Lowe, Matt Dillon, Nelly Furtado, Shawn Desman, Sofia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni. Atom Egoyan [movie director] is one of our really good customers. They shot Chloe [the movie starring Julianne Moore and Liam Neeson] out of the restaurant. He comes by a lot.

How are you planning to celebrate the big 5-0?
On August 10 and 11, we’re going to do a street closure. We’ll extend our patio all the way to the street, to accommodate about 400 people, and we’ll put up a bandstand. To commemorate the different decades, we’re going to have music for each decade throughout the day. We’re also working on a wall of fame to commemorate the 50th, to share different moments from the Diplomatico. We’re asking patrons to submit their favourite memory of the restaurant for the chance to win our grand prize

Café Diplomatico, 594 College Street, 416-534-4637

Does Markham need a bike share program?

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Andrew Mannsbach

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10:33 am

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Due to a number of unsolicited bike share program proposals that Markham City Council has received over the last year, a feasibility study has been commissioned by Markham’s transportation department to see if a bike-sharing program could work in the municipality.

The study will look at the opportunities and challenges of such a program as well as the different options for bike share, including station-based (with docks, like the Bixi bikes in Toronto), dockless (where users pick up and return bikes anywhere, using a mobile app to pay and unlock bikes) and a combination of the two.

“We’re trying to understand what the demand is and what the types of bike share technologies out there are best suited for the type of potential demand that exists here in Markham,” said Loy Cheah, senior manager of Markham Transportation. “We think we have a relatively large network already in place. We have a network of 4.8 kilometres of cycle tracks, 90 kilometres of bike lanes, 37 kilometres of multi-use paths and trails and 256 kilometres of shared roadways.”

Markham is also in a unique position as a rapidly growing city with plenty of opportunities to create more cycling infrastructure as it continues to develop, he said.
Peter Miasek, vice-chair of citizen committee Cycling and Pedestrian Advisory Committee and cycling advocate in Markham, agreed.

“Certainly as new areas of the city are being developed, it’s being built with cycling infrastructure from day one, and that’s the better way to go. That’s the opportunity that we’ve got that some cities don’t,” said Miasek.

Ward 1 councillor Valerie Burke, whose area comprises Markham-Thornhill, said she would like to see more opportunities to engage residents in cycling, but she sees some challenges ahead in her ward.

“We’re a mature community, and the design of our community is car-oriented,” she said. “It’s frightening to ride your bike around here. It’s very difficult and challenging to retrofit [the roads] and make them safer for bikes.”

However, with initiatives like the new multi-use pathway on John Street, which is currently in preliminary design stages and will run along John Street from Bayview Avenue to Roddick Road, Thornhill will still be able to have some connected network for active transportation.

If the feasibility report reflects positively for this project, a 90-day pilot program for a bike share program could be initiated as early 2019.

La Diperie brings its chocolate-covered custom cones to Midtown

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Andrew Mannsbach

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10:03 am

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La Diperie’s latest outpost is at 3264 Yonge Street, meaning a whole new neighbourhood will know the joy (and agony) of choosing among 30 chocolate-flavoured dips — from classics like dark and milk chocolate to more adventurous options such as salted caramel and s’mores — to clothe their soft serve vanilla.

Once you’ve done the dipping deed, you can choose to have your cone crowned with as many as 20 toppings, from pistachios to cookie bits to sprinkles, of course.

With hundreds of possible combinations (or maybe thousands — we didn’t do the math), plus milkshakes and hot chocolate for those who prefer to sip their sweets, it’s probably best to make several visits to this frozen treat mecca, just to be thorough.

La Diperie, 3264 Yonge Street, 647 461-8542

Entire Richmond Hill residential block appealed to the OMB

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12:09 pm

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This past February, unit owners at 18 Harding Blvd. near Yonge Street and Harding Boulevard received a letter from their local Ward 5 councillor, Karen Cilevitz, concerning their neighbouring block. It stated that developers had not only purchased the entire block, but had also taken their application directly to the OMB as opposed to bringing it before Richmond Hill Council. The subject lands are currently zoned to allow low-to-medium-density residential developments along Yonge Street.

An appeal was filed at the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) in November 2017 for a development at 9839 Yonge St. that Cilevitz and Town of Richmond Hill staff know few details about.

“I’m largely in the dark about this,” said Cilevitz.

She acknowledged this action was within the landowners’ rights but added, “I find that to be really unconscionable because I am the elected official who’s supposed to be able to speak to my residents and give them all the information necessary.”

Typically, a development proposal will involve pre-submission discussions with the town’s planning department before it is officially filed. Following a thorough assessment, a staff report is issued to town council, and community consultations would be held to inform local residents.

However, in this case, according to Kelvin Kwan, commissioner of Planning & Regulatory Services, Town of Richmond Hill, the owners first submitted their application in November 2016 for a 15-storey mixed-use building, an eight-storey residential building and townhouses for several municipal addresses at Yonge, Harding and Church Street South. Several months later, the owners asked the town to put the applications on hold pending another OMB decision at the neighbouring 9825 Yonge St. After the OMB rejected the application at 9825 Yonge St., the owners at 9839 Yonge St. appealed their own application to the OMB on the basis that no decision had been made by council.

"I have no idea what they’re asking for and whether or not that would be acceptable to the municipality.”

“It was unexpected from the perspective that there had been a lot of inactivity at their request,” said Kwan, “so we didn’t put it through the full public process that we would have normally done for an application had it proceeded along the normal timelines.”

At a March 2 prehearing for this OMB application, town staff was advised that the applicant had acquired the additional lands at 9825 Yonge St. and 11 Harding Blvd., which comprise the entire residential block.

“I can speculate that it’s going to be highrise residential, but beyond that I have no idea.… I have no idea what they’re asking for and whether or not that would be acceptable to the municipality,” said Kwan.

Since the Province of Ontario announced plans to overhaul the OMB last year in favour of a system that would give local municipalities more control, developers had the deadline of December 2017 to submit their applications in an attempt to file under the old rules.

Now that the applicant has purchased additional land, the town is awaiting a new proposal.

“This is upsetting a lot of people, especially those of us that have to face [the development],” said Sharen Bruck, who has lived in the building opposite the proposed block since 2009. “It’s all sort of cloaked in secrecy.”

Despite the prospect of an entire block in the hands of the OMB, Kwan believes that once proposals have been publicly disclosed there will be sufficient opportunities for public consultation. Cilevitz also remains hopeful about the outcome of this hearing.

“My belief is that the OMB will honour our approved official plan and York Region’s official plan and ensure that what ultimately comes here … is in keeping with our approved land use planning documents,” said Cilevitz.

Metroview Developments declined to comment for this article.

Shenae Grimes-Beech on Acting, Blogging, and Growing Up Degrassi

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10:13 am

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Growing up on the set of Canada’s longest running teen drama comes with its own set of pros and cons. For Shenae Grimes-Beech, who got her start playing Darcy in Degrassi: The Next Generation at age 13, the job shaped her into the strong actor she is today, despite making her somewhat of an outsider during high school.

“I was not technically a regular character on that show until my fourth year on it,” Grimes-Beech says. “So I started really tiny and I had to work my way up, and then they gave me my own storyline for the first time, and that’s when I won the Gemini for it, and then they gave me a contract to be a regular on the show. So I really had to earn it, but it was good because it was like boot camp for me. You had to earn your stripes.”

Grimes-Beech spent her first two years of high school at Forest Hill C.I., then switched to Vaughan Road Academy’s Interact program for students with outside commitments. She says growing up Degrassi presented its own set of challenges, especially before she switched to a school with other working kids.

“When I was working, that kind of made me not fit in because girls are catty and I was all of the sudden on TV, so it was kind of like ‘let’s push her out’ kind of vibe, so I was really happy when I switched to Interact because kids were doing the same thing I was doing so I wasn’t weird,” she says.

After graduating from Degrassi High, Grimes-Beech moved on to star in the CW’s upgrade of 90210. When the show ended after five seasons in 2013, she retired from acting to pursue other interests in the fashion world.

Two years later, the Toronto native started to venture back into acting, but making a comeback proved to be more of a battle than she had anticipated. Grimes-Beech wanted to give voice to the twenty-something angst so commonly felt amongst millennials while sharing her love for fashion, so she started her blog, Lost in Lala, where she shares fashion, beauty and décor inspiration.

“I was just full of insecurity, so I started the blog because I was like, ‘surely I’m not the only twenty-something female feeling this way,’ and I said ‘you know what, if five people come here and feel some sense of camaraderie in all this and we can laugh at ourselves together, then great, I’m going to feel better.’”

She’s now garnered 335,000 Instagram followers, and recently soft-launched her own quarterly subscription box called The Badass Box. Grimes-Beech also launched a YouTube channel in October so she can create more video content—another talent she honed while working as a host with POPSUGAR Now.

“I was just saying this morning, I want to host a show in Canada. The POPSUGAR stuff was cool because it was different, having to present yourself with a certain kind of energy all the time,” she says. “It’s a lot of work, I think it would keep me on my toes but I would love to do it on home turf. I love the talent that comes out of Toronto. I’m still like the girl at Our Lady Peace who’s jumping up and down, so I would love to support the homegrown talent.”

Grimes-Beech has been back on home soil recently filming and promoting her new female-driven police drama, The Detail. In the series, she plays Detective Jack Cooper, a rough-around- the-edges homicide detective with workaholic habits and a tendency to colour outside the lines.

“She’s a rule-breaker and I love that about her. I love how unapologetic she is about it, she gets in trouble and she’s like, ‘sorry not sorry,’ like ‘whatever, did I get the bad guy, did I figure it out? Yes I did, so what’s the problem?’ and I love that attitude,” she says.

As an actor who’s been in the limelight from a young age, Grimes-Beech says her character reminds her to be herself unapologetically, and she can relate to many of Jack’s more rebellious traits.

“As someone who has been in the public eye for the majority of my life, it’s hard sometimes because it can feel very stifling. You need to fit a certain mould and tip-toe around certain things and you can’t be unabashedly yourself or swear like the sailor that I do,” she says. “You get older and you finally embrace that you don’t have to apologize for all those things because they’re the things that make you your wonderful self and if people don’t like it then c’est la vie. So I definitely identify with a lot of Jack’s qualities and she inspires me to embrace those qualities more.”

With two other powerful female characters played by Angela Griffin and Wendy Crewson, The Detail is hitting the airwaves at just the right time, and Grimes-Beech says she’s definitely an advocate of the ‘women supporting women’ movement.

“I believe in being very encouraging to one another,” she says. “It’s about cumulatively taking over the world, not just every woman for herself, and I think that’s the way the characters on this show function and behind the camera, that’s the way our cast and crew function, so I definitely am proud to be a part of it.”

Scenes in the show were filmed in various locations around the GTA, and Grimes-Beech says coming back to film in Toronto was a refreshing experience for her—besides getting a chance to hit some of her favourite destinations like Café Crepe, Aritzia and Zara, she says she felt so fortunate to return to the city where she got her start.

“This is my city, this is the city that really made me and has supported me so much in my success out in L.A.,” she says. “And now I get to come home and still feel like this warm welcome. It’s a total honour getting to be back here.”

The Detail premieres on CTV March 25 at 9 pm.

Meals From Memory: Vit Béo’s David Huynh makes his grandma’s dumplings

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Andrew Mannsbach

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4:08 pm

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Like a lot of Asian kids growing up with grandparents at home, chef David Huynh, of the new Vit Béo at Bloor and Ossington, spent his childhood making dumplings with his grandma.

They were 13 in a three-bedroom home in Etobicoke, including aunts and uncles and cousins. When everyone else was at work or at school, Huynh, the youngest, would get picked up from kindergarten by his grandmother, and they would start cooking dinner at 2 p.m.

“It’s slow food,” he says. “And this takes a long time.”

There are more steps to making the dumplings than there are actual ingredients: It begins with finely chopping handfuls of garlic chives, which his grandmother grew in her garden. A dough is formed out of water and a combination of tapioca and rice flours, which envelops the garlic chives. The dumplings are steamed and then pan-fried before being served with a sauce of black vinegar and chili oil. Et voilà: a flat, chewy, doughy, pan-crusty wrapper around a hefty mouthful of tightly packed garlicky greens. That’s the thing he resurrected from his childhood memories to kick off a menu of Vietnamese items.

“This particular dish is comfort for me,” he says about the dumplings. Huynh grew up and moved out of the crowded household. His grandparents eventually passed away.

Vit Béo’s bành he

“I moved on to do different things, learned about coffee and French pastry and worked in bars and tapas restaurants,” he says. “After a little while, you kind of look back, and you don’t know where you came from anymore.”

In November 2014, he and his friends opened up the bar Civil Liberties.

“It was great,” he says. “We were seeing a lot of success, and there weren’t a lot of reasons to be unhappy, but I just felt like I was missing something.… I was talking to my girlfriend Amy about it. We were together when both my grandparents died, and she said, ‘You never really dealt with that. You just moved on.’ ”

He and Amy took off to Vietnam, with a quiet seed of an idea for a Vietnamese dining concept gestating in Huynh’s head. He knew vaguely what he wanted: Vietnamese food, beyond the usual bành mi and pho.

Different food, food he had grown up eating.

“When I went to Vietnam, even that perspective was dwarfed by the complete breadth of the regionality of everything,” he says. “The perspective of Vietnamese food in Toronto [dates back] 40 years. We only have this perspective from 1975 to 1980 when Vietnamese people started coming here.”

But with other Asian cuisines in Toronto, tides were shifting. Susur Lee and DaiLo’s Nick Liu put elevated Cantonese food into the mainstream spotlight. Ramen exploded onto the scene.

“We were all watching this thing happen, and it was only a matter of time before Vietnam was going to take its turn,” he says. “If we were a part of it, we could influence it and shape it the way we want it.”

The menu of Vit Béo has nine items depending on the time of night. It’s mostly stuff that has some sort of personal connection: brown rice congee; bánh xèo, a street food of pork belly and prawns wrapped in a rice crepe; beef pho; Shin instant noodles served with meat and veg; and, bành he, his grandma’s dumplings, with the flavour that brings him home.

“We eat garlic chives all the time,” he says of the star ingredient. “It’s just this beautiful fragrance that’s herbaceous and grassy. It makes me feel like a kid again. It’s how I remember food being. It’s always a therapeutic thing.”

Vit Beo, 858 Bloor Street West.

An American In Paris is a nostalgic and romantic musical for the entire family

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11:15 am

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The Mirvish production of An American In Paris, on at the Princess of Wales theatre until April 29, does not contain that one show-stopping song and dance number, that one performer that is so incredible that it brings people to their feet en masse.

What it does is transport the audience, slowly but surely, to another time and place. The leads win over the audience in increments and then take it to the next level of showmanship with a deliciously intricate and absorbing second half. It’s a musical of substance and style that is wholly satisfying and lingers long after the house lights come on.

An American in Paris has a long history dating back to a George Gershwin orchestral composition in 1928 and made famous by the incomparable Gene Kelly in the 1951 musical film. This stage musical version with choreography by Christopher Wheeldon premiered back in 2015 on Broadway, and won a few Tony Awards on the way to this Toronto production.

Set in Paris in the days following the end of the Second World War, An American In Paris tells the story of American soldier Jerry Mulligan who is inspired to remain in the city of lights and pursue his passion for painting after bumping into a mysterious girl on the Paris streets. After wandering into a café, he strikes up a friendship with fellow American and composer Adam Hochberg and Henri Baurel, son of a prominent French family and closet cabaret singer.

Mulligan and Hochberg, helped by an American benefactor, begin work on a ballet of which, most coincidentally, the mysterious girl, Lise Dassin, happens to have landed the lead. As the story unfolds, we find our two Americans falling in love with Dassin for different reasons and Baurel set to announce his engagement to her. As the love square plays out, we learn more about Haurels relationship to Dassin and the true nature of love and art.

An American In Paris is packed with memorable songs and boasts plenty of beloved standards perhaps none better known and adored than “I Got Rhythm” and “They Can’t Take That Away From Me,” both of which are sung to delightful affect by the trio of male leads.

The set is uncomplicated; a video screen is utilized in modest fashion as drawings of the Paris streetscape are pencilled in with each changing scene. The River Seine is front and centre at times and a Van Gogh worth starry night at others. It all adds to the transportive quality that makes good use of our already romanticized vision of Paris.

The leads are all capable, to be sure. But they don’t grab you at first, instead they work at it and win the audience over with their unique charms. Former National Ballet of Canada dancer McGee Maddox’s Mulligan is perhaps a bit too much Jim Carrey and not enough Gene Kelly at first but he wins our hearts in the end. Matthew Scott’s Adam Hochberg is maybe a trifle too tragic, Ben Michael bestows upon Baurel an accent that is perhaps a little more Russian than French. But we opt to go on the journey with them and they pay us back in full.

Although already a fine almost nostalgic production, the second half is clearly the most adventurous portion with an extended ballet sequence at the end of the show that is a feast for the senses and stretches a wonderfully long 15 minutes. Truly breathtaking work.

Go, have your fun.

An American in Paris is on at the Princess of Wales Theatre until April 29.

Minister of Silly Walks, John Cleese, pays Toronto a visit this month

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10:44 am

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John Cleese is one of the most recognizable comedians on the planet, having first put the world in stitches as a member of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, turning out movies such as Life of Brian and The Meaning of Life and a slew of sketches, including the legendary Ministry of Silly Walks.

Following his stint with Monty Python, Cleese and his contemporaries set their sights on Hollywood. He wrote and starred opposite Jamie Lee Curtis in the award-winning film A Fish Called Wanda. And who could forget Fawlty Towers or his role as Q in the James Bond films and so much more over a career that spans almost six decades?

On April 9, Cleese is making a Toronto appearance to share his stories and humorous insights gleaned from a life in comedy.

John Cleese: Why There is No Hope at Roy Thomson Hall, April 9, 9 – 7.30 pm.

Buzz-heavy throwback band Frigs finally look poised to hit the big time

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Andrew Mannsbach

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2:43 pm

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The story of the rise of Frigs is not unlike many band tales from back in the day. A couple of university pals get together to play at a friend’s show. Said band realizes they freakin’ rock. Others tell them so and it begins.

Frigs’s lead singer Bria Salmena met bandmate Duncan Hay Jennings in Montreal while at Concordia University, and they started playing together “not very seriously” in their last year before moving back to Toronto and adding bassist Lucas Savatti and drummer Kris Bowering.

Salmena grew up in Toronto, attending Rosedale Heights School of the Arts, and Hay Jennings and Savatti were at North Toronto Collegiate (Bowering grew up in Nanaimo, B.C.).

“It was a bit of a slow burn,” says Salmena. “It took us a while to figure out exactly what kind of music we wanted to be making.”

But a friend asked them to play a very early Buzz Records showcase, and after that the band wrote the song “Swampy” for an early EP, Dirty Frigs, in 2014 and garnered a reputation as a band with an epic and intense live show. Soon, the template was set for the sonic adventure to come and led to Frigs recording the band’s debut album.

In Hay Jennings’ apartment, located above an optician in the old Italian neighbourhood on St. Clair Avenue West, the band squirrelled away and, over the course of almost two years, crafted the kind of musical chaos of which rock dreams are made.

“We were experimenting with different equipment and sounds to see what we could create in that space,” Salmena says. “That was where we recorded, and it was a very special time. The entire apartment was covered in wires.”

The result, Basic Behaviour, was released earlier this year.

Part of what makes Frigs so unique and compelling is the combination of Salmena’s honest and emotional songwriting with the grunge-heavy, anarchic blend of rock punctuated by her vocals that range from gutteral growl at some points to gorgeous singing and soft whispers at others.

“I was trying to mess with my range, and I realized I was able to fluctuate back and forth between screaming, or whatever, and singing naturally or properly,” she says, giving a nod to rock legends such as Patti Smith for inspiration.

It’s likely the biggest step forward for a group long pegged as one of the next big bands from Toronto to break.

Frigs plays the Garrison, April 7.

April shower proof trench coats

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Andrew Mannsbach

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1:12 pm

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We asked Jeanne Beker to suss out the city’s best trench coats. Whether you’ll be singing in the rain or stepping out for a night on the town, you can ditch that parka for a stylish new take on the season’s must-have coat.

A) SPORTY POP
Sporting Life, 2665 Yonge Street, $179.95
“I love the raspberry. It’s so upbeat. A cheery coat to brighten a gloomy day!”

B) PRETTY IN PINK
Guess, Promenade Mall, $148

C) BARE NECESSITIES
SMYTHE, $895

D) BABY BLUE
Hunter, Yorkdale mall, $560

E) LADY IN RED
Shopbop, $968.40

F) LBT
Rudsak, Yorkdale Mall, $595

G) PASTEL PERFECTION
Sporting Life, 2665 Yonge Street, $315
“This Soia & Kyo has a very wonderful softness to it, a fluidity.”

H) BUTTONED UP
Andrews, Bayview Village, $590

I) BOLD AND BEAUTIFUL
Maska Mode, Yorkville Village, $459
“Love the colour. It’s really bold. It looks great with anything.”

J) MAKING ME BLUSH
Thursdays, 1130 Yonge Street, $195
“An elegant and feminine coat with a robe-like feel to it.”

Cross-country athlete Martha MacDonald on joining Team Canada

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8:42 am

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At age 18, Georgetown University runner Martha MacDonald is a member of Team Canada’s junior cross-country team and clinched a bronze medal in El Salvador earlier this year. For her to be so accomplished at a young age, you might guess that she’s been running almost since before she could walk.

But MacDonald says she wasn’t serious about running until Grade 10, when she joined the University of Toronto Track Club (UTTC) after running on the cross-country and track teams at Havergal College.

“Like all kids, I ran at the meets in elementary school,” she says. “I thought it was kind of cool, and when some of my friends joined UTTC together to run, I decided to get into it, too.”

MacDonald knew running was the sport for her after her first Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations (OFSAA) cross-country meet in Grade 10.

“I must have come in 60th or 70th, but I just remember seeing the girls who were up front and how tough they were, and I wanted to be like that too.”

MacDonald has done that and more, becoming the 2016 Senior Girls OFSAA Cross Country champion and the 2017 OFSAA Track and Field Championships runner-up before heading off to Georgetown University.

As a member of Team Canada’s junior cross-country team, she took home bronze at the Pan American Cross Country Championships in February in San Salvador.

She cites her coach Hillary Adamson while at Havergal and Taras Radchenko from UTTC as two huge influences in getting her to where she is now.

MacDonald says she’s grateful to have found running.

“The best part about it is doing something every day that you really love. I don’t think a lot of people get the opportunity to do that until they’re much older.”

However, she notes that running doesn’t come without challenges.

“I think in being a female athlete, especially in running, there’s a lot of pressure put on you to look a certain way. But I’ve been lucky to have some great female role models in the sport that have shown me you have to be healthy to run fast.”

MacDonald will race her first five-kilometre race on the track at the Stanford invitational competition, March 30 to 31, and will be running the Canadian Track and Field Championships in July. She hopes to qualify for the International Association of Athletics Federations World Junior Championships in Finland, which would require her to be in the top two in Canada by the end of the qualifying period.

“Down the road, we’ll see. Everyone always says they want to go to the Olympics. Obviously I do, too,” MacDonald says. “But you never know where a sport might take you, so I’m taking it one step at a time.”