The will to show up and do good work each day is a powerful force - it’s the essence of successful distance running. Consistency is Eliud Kipchoge running through dozens of kilometres in two minutes and 50 seconds. It’s Glace Bay’s Dan McNeil morphing from a math student to a 2:24 marathoner to an orthopaedic surgeon. It’s our coach placing 10th in Rio at the age of 36. It’s thankless three-minute loops, it’s endless meal hall suppers, it’s Interlock Race Weekend.
Year after year, without fail, we square off against teams from Quebec and Ontario a few weeks before the AUS championship and a few more before nationals. The race exposes us to out of conference competition and reveals if we are ready to face the beasts we hear about on Trackie forums and results pages. Interlock is also a reminder that the end is coming and that, for just another month, we must stay diligent, healthy, and hungry - we must stay consistent.
On the topic of consistency, I will leave you with an anecdote. I still remember Paul MacLellan’s first run with the X-Men. It was in 2014, and he was a recruit, still in grade 11. We ran the West River loop in the middle of January, despite it being frozen over. Paul slipped around and fell four times. His face was bloodied, his running tights ripped. We were sure that, by taking Paul out for a run on the iciest day of the year, we had lost any chance at recruiting him any further. But he showed up the next day.
Five years later, I suspect Paul still wipes out when the thermostat reads below zero (not great balance on the guy) but he’s still around. As of this week, he became one of very few X-Men to run in five Interlock races. More on that below, but this year, he was our top guy.
That’s consistency. Hail and Health.
AUS/RSEQ Interlock
On Saturday Oct. 12, the X-Men and X-Women faced their biggest challenge so far at the RSEQ/AUS Interlock meet at Parc Maisonneuve in Montreal. The 8k races featured some of the nation’s top athletes coming from Ontario, Québec and the Maritimes.
Men’s Race
The X-Men showed great strength and poise in their first meet away from Nova Scotia this season. Led by fifth year veteran and Antigonish native Paul MacLellan, the White and Blue scored 122 points and claimed third place, falling only to Université Laval and Queen’s. The X-Men beat their conference rival Dalhousie by six points, and this week rank ninth overall in U SPORTS, their highest placing so far this season.
MacLellan, who was 12th overall in a time of 25:33, said that a good workout on Wednesday gave him confidence that he would run well, despite coming off a heavy week of training. Now, he thinks the team is in a good spot heading into the championship races.
“We have a young team this year and our performance at this meet was strong,” he says. “Now is the time to review past races and talk with teammates to come up with a strategy to accomplish individual success, but most importantly to claim the AUS banner.”
On Monday, MacLellan was named the St. FX Boston Pizza Athlete of the Week.
Women’s Race
The X-Women ran well in a deep field, placing seventh overall. They were led once again by third year runner Jane Hergett, who placed 12th in a time of 30:50. St. FX alum and current Dalhousie Tiger Catherine Thompson finished one spot behind Hergett in 30:54.
Hergett said she let the lead pack get away from her too early in the race, but finished her first 8k race of the season aggressively. She thinks the race was a valuable learning experience for the team.
“I felt that everyone did really well tackling both the increase in distance and the increase in number of runners,” she says. “The whole team should be proud of the race and excited for AUS.”
Seniors Paige Chisholm and Ashley Robson were the second and third X-Women across the line in 31:41 and 32:00, respectively. They were 29th and 31st overall.
For a more visual recap of the team’s weekend in Montreal, check out sophomore Graydon Staples’ vlog. It’s 10 minutes well spent.
Graydon’s Uncut Video
Next Race
The X-Women and X-Men will race next at the AUS championship on October 26 in Fredericton, NB. Women race at 12 p.m. and men at 12:45 p.m. (EST).
Interlock full results here!
Interlock photos here!
UPEI Invitational
Photo: UPEI Sports Information
A few St. FX athletes stayed closer to home and competed at the UPEI Invitational meet in Charlottetown last weekend. Tanna Burke and Lauren Liem led the X-Women and placed eighth and ninth overall. Madalyn Higgins of Acadia was the top finisher. Times for the women’s race were unavailable at the time of publication.
Leading the way for the X-Men was fourth year runner Addison Derhak, who claimed first place in a time of 26:49. Lars Schwarz of St. Thomas and Daniel Maguire of UPEI were second and third, finishing 12 and 17 seconds behind Derhak, respectively.
Read St. FX Athletics’ recap here:
New Coach, New Plan
Most of you who read this newsletter can appreciate the wrath of Coach Bernie Chisholm. We’ve all dealt with it in phases:
We feared it in our first practices as rookies, we hated it when he urged us to “give 50” after cresting a hill, and we endured it when we noticed our fitness gains. Now, we cherish it, for how it has made us tough as nails (and perhaps a bit creaky on some mornings.)
Photo: Atlantic University Sport
The athletes on campus today might come to fear, hate, endure, and cherish a new set of workouts, coming from a the new wrath of a new leader. Coach Eric Gillis has taken bits and pieces from various phases of his running career to construct his own training plan which, in some ways, differs from what we know. He says:
I trained with Speed River in Guelph, Ont. full-time between 2006 and 2017, and a few summers before that while still attending St. FX. Most of what I'm doing now at X is based on the work I've done or seen during this time. I was fortunate to have Dave Scott-Thomas, one of the best endurance coaches in the sport, as my coach for 15 years. I find that using his work, and remembering what worked for me, is a good starting point for coaching collegiately. Between Bernie Chisholm and my coaching colleagues at X, there is a wealth of knowledge locally I can draw from too, I feel fortunate to be surrounded by these people.
Photo: Canadian Running Magazine
Gillis tells us what a typical week of training for the X-Women and X-Men looks like nowadays:
Sundays (Off) - We use this day to set up the week
Monday - easy run + light turnover (strides) + strength with St. FX strength and conditioning coach Josh Crouse.
5x 200+100m. We're extra conscious of form during these sessions, our cues are "hands down and back," and "heels under."
Tuesday - "Flex day." Athletes have the option to go solo and practice mindful running
Wednesday - Interval day. Most closely resembles race day work. We do up to 10k of work, at least half of it at race pace or faster.
Thursday - Easy run with team + functional core work that I lead. It’s a routine I learned from Chris Munford, the strength and conditioning coach who worked with University of Guelph and Speed River.
Friday - Easy run with the team.
Saturday - race, or long tempo of 15 to 35 minutes total. This day is our longest run of the week. After races, we do a long cool down.
The Team’s Reaction to Eliud Kipchoge’s 1:59:40 Marathon
Unless you have been living under a rock, with no Wifi or access to Instagram stories across the world, you now know that marathoner Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge smashed the mythical two-hour barrier on Saturday morning in Vienna, Austria at the INEOS 1:59 Challenge. Although the record could not be ratified (because Kipchoge used pacers, had help at fuelling stations, and was the only athlete “racing”) his mind-warping run made millions of running fans -and sports fans - stand still.
Here, members of the X-Women and X-Men share their initial reactions to Kipchoge’s timeless run:
Photo: Time
Luc Gallant (second year): I wasn’t surprised one bit! When you have a time trial set up perfectly, the outcome is bound to be amazing. Everything was perfect from the eight pacers behind the car, to the weather conditions, to the out and back course with no turns or inclines! I am now curious to see if the two-hour mark will be broken on a real course in my lifetime.
Ashley Robson (senior): When I thought of him doing this incomprehensible achievement it helps inspire me to believe we to can go beyond the range of our limits. Mom always tells me to get into my pain box when I was thinking of how he could achieve this I thought I will practice smiling more when the pain box arrives.
Graydon Staples (second year): Seeing Kipchoge break the 2-hour marathon mark is very eye-opening and adds another achievement to his large palmarès. As well, the very next day Brigid Kosgei breaking the women’s world marathon record in Chicago by a comfortable margin really shows the youth in the sport that anything is possible as long as you set your mind on it.
Photo: NY Post
Addison Derhak (Senior): I thought the performance was incredibly inspiring. It’s amazing how fast he can run. Now he can encourage other people to chase their limits and eventually do the same.
Breanna Sandluck (second year): After watching the full two hours of the marathon and seeing how determined Kipchoge was to beat the clock, I think it’s incredible and inspiring to show that no human is limited. Can’t wait to see what the future holds for the marathon.
And this week, on “Remember Them?”: Dan McNeil
When Dan McNeil left his hometown of Glace Bay, NS to pursue physics at St. FX, he likely had no idea that he would eventually become one of the most successful marathoners in the history of the X-Men program. Even less might he have expected to be working in an operating room a few years later. Here, the Halifax-based 33-year-old tells us about his years at St. FX and beyond. He might be an orthopaedic surgeon in training, but his most impressive feat might be his record for most miles run in a week.
1) What was your reasoning for attending St. FX?
Coming out of high school, I wanted to do a physics degree. I met Dr. (Douglas) Hunter, a longtime physics professor, now retired, who sold me on the physics program. After two years I ended up changing my major from physics to math, but it was the physics department that originally attracted me.
It also didn’t hurt that StFX had recently won national titles in hockey and basketball, so there would be lots of good sports to watch.
2) What is your favourite running memory at St. FX? Favourite non-running memory?
Favourite running memory was beating Dalhousie in 2006 to win the AUS cross-country championship in Antigonish. It was the first AUS title for the men’s team. Dal was better all season, but we had some guys come through with big races to beat guys that they shouldn’t have beaten, and we pulled out the win by one point.
In terms of non-running memory, it would have to be all the trips to races. Watching Rudy every bus trip, the girls driving the wrong way leaving Boston, talking to the homeless guy in Victoria for hours after the guys had a terrible race, pre-race meals, hot pots, and so on.
I guess that’s sort of a running memory. But it’s those types of memories, and all the friendships from St. FX that persist, most of which are related to cross-country for me.
3) After your time at St. FX, your running really took off. You now have run the marathon in 2:24:00. What is it that made running eventually work for you?
Brendon Chrus and I decided to do the Johnny Miles marathon in 2008. We both figured that we wouldn’t be doing much running once we were done at St. FX, so we wanted to do at least one marathon while we were still in decent shape. I ran 2:48 and Brendon ran 2:44. I really fell apart after 30k, and so I wanted to give it another shot.
Looking back at the training that guys like Jerome Drayton and Bill Rogers did, they were running way more mileage. So I started increasing my mileage. A lot. As my mileage increased, my marathon times kept falling. Eventually I ran 2:24:00 at the Ottawa Marathon in 2014. I was running 200 miles per week in my high mileage weeks leading up to that marathon.
4) You also spent some time in Kenya. Tell me a bit about why you made that trip, and what your experience was like.
I was in Kenya for about seven weeks in 2013. I was in medical school at the time, but I was fortunate to have some time off from school, and was focusing on marathon training. Eric Gillis and Reid Coolsaet were going to be training there, and Lee McCarron talked me into going with him to join them.
It was tough. Between the altitude and all the hills, I don’t think I ever had an easy run. I was sore everyday and frankly I was happy when it was time to leave. But I had some very good races in the weeks and even months after my time there.
More importantly, though, it was an excellent cultural experience. From a running perspective, just to see how many great runners there were was quite astounding. And running is so central to the way of life there. And then also seeing the simplicity of life in general.
Trip to Kenya - Left to Right: Dan McNeil, Lee McCarron, Coach Eric Gillis doing his best Graydon Staples impression.
5) Amidst the running, you found some time to attend medical school. How did the level of commitment compare to that of undergraduate school?
In a word, I guess I’d say different. There’s a lot more independence in medical school. You can probably get through medical school doing less work than you did during an undergraduate degree. There aren’t really any assignments or papers, and less frequent tests or exams.
But like almost anything, you get out of it what you put into it. Bernie used to say that championships are won in the off-season, the season is just for picking up the trophies. It’s the same sort of thing, if you want to be ready when you are finished, then you have to put in the work along the way.
6) In what capacity do you practice medicine now?
I am in the final year of my orthopaedic surgery residency training. This has been five years of training, following the four years of medical school. So at this point, it means that I am doing parts of surgeries, and in some cases entire surgeries, with appropriate supervision. The types of surgeries that we would do include things like hip and knee replacements, knee and shoulder scopes, and fixing fractures like broken hips and ankles.
7) What are the best parts of the job, the worst parts?
The best part of the job is probably that it can make such a big difference in the quality of life for people. Hip and knee replacements are two of the three surgeries with the biggest improvement on quality of life for patients (apparently cataract surgery helps too.) You can help people with injuries and broken bones to get back to their normal lives after an injury.
The other thing that I really like is the group of people with whom I work. They are all very hardworking, caring, working towards a common goal. It’s nice to be part of something like that.
The worst part is probably some of the trauma that we see. Unfortunately we see lots of people with severe, life-altering (and sometimes fatal) injuries. That’s never easy.
8) Do you have any advice to give to current X-Women and X-Men on the topics of running and/or the health sciences?
Don’t be afraid to try new things in your training. The only way to find out what works for you is to try different things. Otherwise, work hard in whatever career path you choose, be respectful of others, and take pride in your work.
And finally, remember to buy tickets!
Follow this link for a chance to win a dream vacation for two!
This year, each St. FX endurance athlete has the goal of selling two tickets.
Help them with this goal: if you purchase a ticket and submit the name of your favourite current St. FX runner in the designated ticket box, it will count for that runner as a ticket sold! If you buy the ticket electronically, email the name of your favourite runner to nishrunner@gmail.com.
Of course, when you purchase a ticket, tour money will go directly to the St. FX cross-country teams - it's our # 1 fundraiser!