Angus Rawling and me in 2017, in the (now renovated) Oland Centre, ready to tackle 800m repeats.
Let’s not hide it: running in the winter is hard, and running hard in the winter is harder. We do most of our workouts in the dark, we acquire track hack every second weekend, and we slip and slide at top speed around The Bethany, The Settlement and Leo’s Loop (new). In moments of exasperation, we sometimes do like St. FX alum Stuart MacPherson and scream at the grey sky above us: “I just want to live somewhere where the air doesn’t hurt my face!”
We spend most of the winter months hastily walking from building to building, crunching our face muscles like Luc Gallant
That being said, it’s in January and February that we reaffirm our love for running. We tell ourselves: if I can run 400m repeats in this Atlantic refrigerator, I can run 400m repeats anywhere. That’s the purpose of our indoor season: to prove to ourselves that we are not fair-weather runners - that we are not “soft people” (Chisholm, like 1985?). Then, when the snow melts and our track’s orange tint peaks out once again, we are fit and ready to make like the flowers and bloom.
Sure, we are stuck in the dead of winter, but let’s use this newsletter to remind us that brighter and warmer days are coming. This edition is all about the bloom. It’s about Jane Hergett finding her talent as a metric miler. It’s about St. FX rookies and recruits posting fast times across the country and quickly developing into varsity talents. It’s about a scrawny kid from PEI who became the most dominant runner of the entire AUS (no, not me - keep reading).
Let’s remember that hustling now, amid the snow beards and icicle eyelids, will help us bloom when the time is right. Good news, our X-Women and X-Men already showed that they are putting in good work, with strong results in the year’s first meet. Check it out.
Athletics Nova Scotia Open
Note: This newsletter continues to focus on the St. FX distance team, so most of the content is directed towards the track and field team’s distance runners.
On January 18, the X-Women and X-Men opened their season at the Canada Games Centre against AUS and open competition. Despite it being early season, many of our athletes achieved personal bests. Full results can be found here, as well as the St. FX Athletics recap for the X-Women and for the X-Men.
“Overall it was a strong meet for us, being the first one with the whole team competing,” said coach Eric Gillis. “We did a good job getting into the right mindset to 'compete' before we left. Now, going into the UNB Saint John meet, we have to balance that desire to compete with running a smart race.”
Here, we rank the 5 highlights of the meet:
1- Jane Hergett wins 1,500m, gives St. FX record a scare
Hergett (bib 171) is paced by teammate Chloe Walker (bib 187) in the 1,500m.
The third year Hergett from Port Williams, Nova Scotia, beat her nearest competitor by 15 seconds and stopped the clock at 4:32:69, falling short of Kelly Rushton (MacDonald)’s record of 4:32.6, set in 2010. It was Hergett’s lifetime 1,500m debut.
2- Catherine Kennedy dominates middle-distance
St. FX dual sport athlete Catherine Kennedy (track and field and soccer) pulled off a double victory over the weekend in the 600m and 300m. Her times of 1:38:14 in the 600m and 42:07 in the 300m were both personal bests.
3- Rookie Benoit fares well in deep 1,500m field
Jacob Benoit, a self-proclaimed cross-country enthusiast, showed good middle-distance speed and posted a 1,500m personal best of 4:01:21, en route to a seventh-place finish. His clocking is one of the fastest ever recorded by a St. FX rookie. Benoit is coming off a bronze medal performance at the 2019 AUS cross-country championship, and plans to race the 3,000m in Saint John in two weeks.
4- Recruit Benoit shows chops in 3,000m
Not to be outdone by her older brother, St. FX recruit Eileen Benoit won her age category in the 3,000m, thanks to a 12-second personal best time of 10:48:94. The grade 12 runner from Windsor, Nova Scotia, will join the St. FX cross-country team in the fall of 2020.
Benoit at the 2019 Natal Day 6 miler in Darthmouth, NS
5- St. FX alum runs fast 5,000m
Neuffer’s bib (224) matches his best marathon time. He narrowly beat former Dalhousie Tiger Matt McNeil (bib 127) in the 5,000m last weekend
2017 graduate Alex Neuffer, now living in Halifax, won the meet’s longest race in a personal best time of 14:47:42. Neuffer was the silver medalist at the 2017 AUS cross-country championship, and the bronze medalist in 2018. More recently, the 24-year-old debuted in the marathon with a time of 2:24:18 (PB) at the 2019 Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon.
What’s next?
The X-Women and X-Men’s upcoming races can be found here
A new miler is born
Hergett’s 4:32.69 opens doors for her in the 1,500m
Jane Hergett now deals with an unusual problem: she excels at too many events.
The third year middle-distance specialist represented St. FX in the 600m and 1,000m at last year’s U SPORTS championship. Last weekend, she raced the 1,500m for just the second time in her life, and posted a time of 4:32.69, which currently ranks her fifth in the country.
“When I started,” said Hergett “I was like ‘wow this is going to be a lot of laps’. And then three laps in I realized how quickly it was going by.”
Hergett enlisted two teammates, Chloe Walker and Lauren Liem, as pacers - both runners had just PB’d in the 600m a half-hour earlier. With little 1,500m experience, Hergett had to use her recent workouts to calibrate her race pace.
“We did a good workout the other day that helped me figure out how fast I should be running,” said Hergett. “We went to Leo’s loop (a 1KM long course near the home of St. FX Athletic Director Leo MacPherson) and Eric told us we would be doing a 800 metre time trial, as fast as we could.”
In the cold and on uneven terrain, Hergett covered 800m in 2:16.
“I kind of surprised myself and was happy with the effort. Then Eric said ‘ok, now do a 400m all out. I ran a 62.”
Hergett then set a goal of 4:30 for her upcoming race - almost three seconds faster than the St. FX record. She and coach Gillis planned for even splits of 36 seconds per lap.
“4:30 pace aligned with the times she had run in the 1,000m and 600m last year,” said Gillis, “and she had a great cross-country season. The strength from that made me feel she could hold 36-second laps. She had it in her head that was the pace she wanted to try.”
Walker and Liem led Hergett through 400 metres and, as each lap passed, she realized the St. FX record was within reach. In her last lap, it came down to seconds.
“I thought about the record right before crossing the finish line as I could see the clock change from 4:29,4:30.. etc and I thought “oh no it’s gonna be close!”
While she fell just short of the record, a time of 4:32.69 makes her a shoe-in for an AUS gold medal in the 1,500m. But before that happens, the Port Williams runner must decide whether she will even race the metric mile at the conference championship. She now has experience in the 600m, 1,000m, 1,500m, 4x400m, and 4x800m.
“I want to run a 600m next and see how that goes,” says Hergett. By AUS, we will see what makes most sense for me to do. My favourite race is still the 1,000m, so I will likely prioritize that.”
Gillis agrees. ‘‘The next challenge will be to run that same time in a race with more bodies, elbows, and yo-yo pacing.’’
Hergett will be in action again on January 31 at the new Ellis MacMackin Track in Saint John, NB.
Future training partners?
Two incoming St. FX recruits raced the 1,000 metres last weekend, 500 kilometres away from each other, and their times were not even 0.1 second apart.
Jack Wierzbicki of Brooklin, Ontario, has slim bragging rights over his future teammate, Yared Tareke of Ottawa. Wierzbicki’s 2:42:62 at the Fred Foote Open in Toronto edged Tareke’s 2:42:71 at the University of Ottawa Winter National.
Jack, Yared, looks like you have each found your training partners for next year.
Yared Tareke leads the pack in summer action
Wierzbicki in the 2019 cross-country season
This week, on “Remember Them?” - Connor McGuire
Prince Edward Island journalists rarely covered distance running when I was in high school, but every time they did, they wrote of a skinny kid from Summerside who had risen to surprising dominance in the Atlantic University Sport conference. He often graced the front page of Summerside’s Journal Pioneer, his arms splayed on each side of his St. FX singlet, screaming in triumph. By the time Connor McGuire left St. FX in 2013, he had won seven AUS individual titles across track and cross-country, including two consecutive cross-country victories in 2011 and 2012.
In his time with the X-Men, McGuire showed how much gains could be made at St. FX under coach Bernie Chisholm, and he inspired a generation of recruits to follow in his footsteps. In fact, if it wasn’t for Connor McGuire, I would not have decided to study at St. FX, and this newsletter would instead be written by Gabe Quenneville and be all about lifeguarding and cats. So next time you see Connor, you can thank him. You can also ask him more about his life as a plastic surgery resident in downtown Halifax, his motivation to work on a tight schedule, and how he still fits running into his week.
AC: What’s a day in the life of Connor McGuire?
CM: I’m completing my residency in plastic surgery, which takes up the majority of my time. The days vary but I’m generally up pretty early then straight to the hospital for rounds or whatever I’m scheduled for that day. During the day I could be in clinics seeing patients, on call in the emergency department, or working in minor procedures or the main operating rooms. I love the variety of what I get to do each day. We have teaching and surgical skills labs pretty regularly so that often eats up a few afternoons a week. After work I have more studying or research to do but I try to squeeze in a few workouts a week either through running, squash, or the gym.
AC: What influenced your decision to specialize in plastic surgery?
CM: Plastic surgery is one of the most broad surgical specialties and I find the variety of what we get to do fascinating. You work all over the body and with all sorts of different tissues from nerves to bone. Our patients are usually healthier and more often than not our outcomes are very good. Being able to fix an underlying problem like say a facial fracture while also making sure the aesthetics are incorporated into the decision making is really enjoyable.
AC: How is the program like you thought it would be? How is it not like you thought it would be?
CM: So far, it’s pretty much what I expected. Lots of long days and very busy. As a first year I basically always feel overwhelmed with how much knowledge I have to gain over the next five years. As a medical student you only get a glimpse of what residency is like and then when you start you’re kind of thrown in the deep end. There’s lots of support around you but your responsibility is much higher and you make decisions that impact peoples’ lives on a daily basis.
AC: What inspired you to become not “just” a doctor, but a surgeon?
CM: I’ve always been very passionate about healthcare and helping society as much as I can. As a surgeon you have the unique ability to not only interact with your patients but also fix their physical problems. I like being able to see a problem directly in front of me and have a few options of how to fix something.
AC: People know you as a workhorse. You worked your way to AUS golds in university, and now work intensely at your career. How do you stay motivated in the long term?
CM: Choose to do something you are passionate about, make short- and long-term goals, and don’t ever get complacent.
AC: Do you still do much running? If so, do you have any races lined up?
CM: I’m still able to run on average two to three times a week but my schedule is so variable with call that each week is different. I’m not able to put in consistent high-volume weeks so no races on the horizon but hopefully someday I’ll get back at it.
McGuire (centre) in 2012 AUS action
AC: What is your best memory of St. FX?
CM: I have too many to count! I miss the St. FX days. Running was always such a big part of my St. FX experience but what I truly miss are the people. We’re all across the country now with busy jobs and things to do but we try to stay in touch. When we do get together it’s just like old times.
AC: How has St. FX prepared you for what was to come?
CM: St. FX was where I found my confidence to pursue and achieve some goals that I never thought possible and is a large reason for who I am today. My competitive instinct that was honed at X has helped me with everything from research to getting into a competitive speciality. I made some lifelong friends who I hope to live near someday. Going to St. FX was the best decision I ever made.