My blog post last week was centred on the amazing ecosystem of fierce and fast women in Atlantic Canada and how we are working at elevating each other’s performances.
What you all couldn’t see behind the blog were the supportive women messages flying around between us:
- When I wanna quit I think of all of you ladies getting it done and I push on because I know you all do
- We continue to push each other and you all motivate me to work harder. Well done ladies!!
- There are no fitter women and no better competition to push you than in NS races. I love it and I have no doubt it’s why I’m still racing.
- I love that running is a sport where people are inspiring and lifting each other to greater levels!
My blog ended like this: My training guys are important too. Their absence from this piece doesn’t mean they aren’t important. This poignant line stood out so clearly to me from Lindsay Crouse’s Jan 31 piece: “Female athletes are often presented as inspirational or embattled, instead of just excellent.” This post has been my focus on female excellence. And why not me, too?
So this week, here is my focus on my training guys. I train with the Halifax Road Hammers so these are Hammer Men. There are more Hammer men than Hammer women in the pace group and faster that I run in. So that means that many, many of my miles are run alongside Hammer men. Yes, the women are who lift my heart and fuel my runner’s mind. By numbers, it’s the men who most often fuel my fast feet.
My gal Tonya and I were texting about running practice last week and here’s a snippet of what she was saying:
When you line up for your race, your fitness is a collection of what you put in to training. It’s a collection of the miles and the early morning grinds; the weights you lifted, the ways that you motivated yourself and the food that you put into your body. It’s also a collection of the workouts run alongside your training partners. From my running spot in a pace group running around 4:00-4:05/km for threshold pace, here are the ways in which the Hammer men are helping fuel my fitness. Break it down. Hammer Time (cue MC Hammer soundtrack). In no particular order.
Damian is one of my most long term Hammer running partners, spanning over 3 years. Workouts alongside him are familiar in a way that’s comforting which can counter the work that pushes you quickly into discomfort. Like 7 x 3 minutes. Looks so easy on paper. On the roads, 3 minutes is relentless and oh so long. It’s easier together, when you pull each other along. Damian and I yo-yo in cycles of injury and fitness, ideally landing together for the bulk of a training cycle.
Mike J and I go way back, longer than Damian, all the way back to Matt Sheffield 2008 running days and onto Cliff running days. Gone are my days of pacing with him like early Cliff Boston build days but he’s reliable for a laugh before run workouts. Important when you aren’t feeling quite emotionally prepared for the workout suffer that’s about to be served up by Coach Lee: “into the park today!”
Nick McBride is also from my Cliff’s Antiques days and a regular teammate for early season workouts. We also yo-yo in health and fitness, usually landing together at the start of each training cycle. Nick is an excellent and precise pacer, perhaps due to his accountant brain. Though his standard is to dial up the pace for the final intervals if he is feeling good. At least I know it’s coming! Part of long-term running happiness is keeping things happy and silly. A recurring joke at the beginning of a training cycle is that I must hang onto Nick in workouts as long as possible before he gets too fit for me. Then we will have our annual Pace Group Break Up. My goal this season is to push the breakup off as long as possible. I’ve made it into February so far! Nick is smart and cautious and a planner as well as a fierce racer and those are all ingredients to racing success. These traits will help him and also help me en route to World Masters Athletics Championship in Toronto this summer where we will both race the 5000m.
2017 Pace Break Up
Colin Miller is another runner who will make an appearance in my pace group while he makes his way back to his full speed potential. He’s a runner who puts my own “talking in workouts” to shame. This guy is talking all the time, all the live-long interval day. It makes the work pass faster and makes the work more enjoyable.
Dave has been a reliable running sidekick for several years, with his family living in optimal close neighborhood proximity. Also optimal: the teenage daughter that can babysit when my husband is away as babysitter arrives via a chauffeur who turns into running partner! With Dave, I can get in enough training chatter to maximally reach the runner nerd out level that enables keeping the happiness in the grind. He reminds me to believe in my running self, usually through jokes.
Mike MacKinnon (lots of debate over who the Real Mike is) is a longtime Cliff’s Antiques runner. I originally got my first taste of “running with the fast guys” alongside MacKinnon and Dave Arnold, when Cliff used to pair me up with them at Cliff’s Corner in Point Pleasant Park. The guys would be running threshold intervals and I would be running my vo2max intervals along with them. I would be so proud of myself for running with them. I’ve spent whole seasons running off Mike’s shoulder, desperately trying to maintain contact. Cue photo montage. In one of these photos, you can’t even see any of me except my ponytail, haha. Mike is funny and funny = fun when the work is hard. I have a clear memory of grinding it out in this epic 40 x 1 minute fast workouts mid-winter. He was about to turn 50 and I was trying to tell him a story about Linda turning 50 and it took me 40 rest intervals to get the story out. I think of that every time we run 1 minute intervals.
There’s a collection of young guys who keep me challenged and engaged late in workouts. With guys like Allister, if they haven’t buried themselves in a pace that’s too hot, too early, they challenge me to hang tight in the final faster intervals. My legs are older. Theirs are younger. When their young engines and young legs rev hard, I try to keep on them. Alan lives close by and makes a great long run and warm up partner. It was so helpful to tackle the Valley Half together with Alan this past fall. He’s now laid down a faster sub1:26 time. The 2020 standard has been set.
The jokes are paramount in my boy-squad runs. After last week’s rather epic 36 minutes of continuous work, Alan, Dave and and I regrouped to run the 5+km home. We were tired. “Well, now I have to eat a whole big bag of chips!” proclaims Alan. On this same day, during the warm up run down the park, Alan and I were in stitches over a story from Dave. Dave raced an indoor 3000m in January, as a Masters athlete, in a heat of high schoolers and university guys. After the race (which he ran very fast), Dave says the high school kids were coming up to him to shake his hand and were saying, “Good job, Sir.” Now on Saturday after hammering the Hammer roads, Dave is tired. I say, “Come on, Sir, the only way home is to run there, Sir!”
There is also a collection of fast guys who sometimes “pop in” to my pace when things aren’t super smooth for them. The Bryden Bros are visitors to my crew. They both run like horses and it’s helpful to giddy-up along behind them. They also come with amusing dialogue. In fact, I usually jack my workout effort unnecessarily with Patrick by talking too much. Ian MacIntyre will be coming back to workouts soon, he may stop in and visit at our F 3:51/km pace for a bit. That will be fun. Kenzie sometimes pops in too en route to faster paces.
Erin and Will 
Will, Erin, Patrick
About my favorite time in a Road Hammer season is when the crew starts to complete their goal-races and my race is yet to come. This happened in the happiest way for me this fall. My goal Philly race was one of the last on the calendar. So this means the guys are done their hard racing work and are playing around at practice and I get to play them right into pacing me for my workouts.
This fall, Rami was done and I got to enjoy him as my personal pacer for my last key workouts, about 4 of them. Getting to come into your fitness peak alongside Rami, it doesn’t get much better than that. Like many runners in this city, when I was coming up in the fast ranks, I admired Rami and his running (and presence) from afar. I didn’t know him. Now he’s closing out my training cycles with me. In fact, in one last big workout, 3 x 5km at threshold pace, I had Nick, Dave AND Rami spread out in Eliud Kipchoge inverted V formation in front of me for the first 5km. That rivals Denise in ‘Princess’. I had Rami for the next 2 x 5km. Coach had told me 4:02 pace I think. I don’t know what he told Rami. We finished 3 x 5km at 3:59/km for all and cemented my belief in my fastest years being ahead of me.
Jamie is a longtime friend and teammate from Cliff’s Antiques through now. He runs way up ahead of me but we’ve enjoyed years of early easy morning (“middle of the night” per Jamie) runs where I had to shovel out a second parking spot in my driveway for his car because we would start so early that the overnight parking ban would still be on, ha. He now has a job that no longer requires the extra early miles but I still get to run with him for warm up and cooldown runs. My favorite is when he is still wearing his khakis. Jamie is smart and he is wise and he is encouraging. When I want for my racing self to be smart and wise, I ensure I spend more time with him. Ian Holdaway also has a similar “be calm” presence in warm up and cooldown.
I have been super lucky to cash in on a lot of excellent race day pacing from Hammer guys at various stages in their own fitness. Like this summer, I was racing a local race on PEI. Kenzie and Charlotte were home too. Kenzie sent me a message, “hey, want me to race with you?” Heck yea!
I have had Rami at Natal Day on an “Erin-Maura-Rami” train. Bonus; silly race photos.
Dave has obliged pacing on several occasions, here on the brutal last of the 3 Natal Day loops.
My next pacing need is the Athletics NS Warm Up meet 5000m on May 9, just saying, hahah! Nick and I need seed times for World Masters!
There are guys like Doran and David and Jody who spend more time running with my sister in workouts but their support and chats before workouts keeps my spirits high. I grab warm up and cooldown time with Blair anytime I can, same reason. I get even more time with him during high school coaching seasons as he is my coach partner.
That’s quite a crew. Would make a great boy band.
All of these guys, and the women in my previous blog, enhance the happiness in my running life and the speed in my runner’s stride.
Thanks y’all. Let’s run fast in 2020.
