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Long
established as one of Ontario’s top distance
runners, Sudbury native Jamie Black would ditch
the preferred steady and consistent pace approach
in several of the more than one thousand races that
he has run in his life.
Take it out fast and hope your competitors
don’t realize that you’re not quite
that fast until it’s too late.
Purposely take it out slower on
the instructions of coach Terry McKinty, just to
see what kind of a kick you have when you’re
not particularly known for your kick.
Heck, his very first race triumph
would come at a high-school cross-country gathering
in which the 57 year-old resident of Waterloo would
spot the entire field a lead of some 800 metres
or so.
The irony, with all of the above,
is that while many a long-time runner can look back
on a career that is filled with ebbs and flows,
the valleys and peaks that stand as a testament
to good health or good fortune, Black has remained
remarkably true to form at virtually every stage
of his progression, whether it be on the trails,
on the track, or on the roads.
And much of that he credits to his
time at Lockerby Composite and a situation that
could not have been any better. “I stepped
into the best possible surroundings you could have,”
said Black, the eldest of two boys in the family.
As grade nine commenced, the incoming
freshman was wooed by childhood friend Bruce Hoppe,
one year his elder and straight off a very successful
midget campaign in his first year as a Viking. “Bruce
convinced me that you join cross-country, get out
of school a few times to run some races, and then
get an OFSAA medal in the end,” said Black
with a laugh.
Though equipped with a natural build
for running, the man who would go on to cover a
10km course in a personal best time of 30:48 had
little sense of perspective in the sport. “It’s
very easy, at that age, to be kind of clueless and
not really know what’s going on,” said
Black.
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“All of my
buddies were bigger and stronger, much better at hockey
and all of the other sports - so I never thought of myself
as being good at sports.” Once at Lockerby, however,
he didn’t have to think that. Others could see the
potential.
“I had people telling me that I
was going to win city cross-country in grade nine after
training for two weeks. I had never won anything in my
life.” He had also never entered an environment
which boasted the likes of Ray Paulins and Veronica Poryckyj
as role models, nor a coach who so influenced a generation
of young athletes.
“Terry (McKinty) had left and was
over at Lasalle, but his legacy was still there,”
said Black. “Lockerby still had very much a Terry
imprint on the program, plus I was going out to the Northland
(NAC) workouts which Terry coached. He was legendary for
taking runners that were OK and maxing out their potential.”
Jamie Black was more than just OK. In
his five years of SDSSAA competition, he would capture
the cross-country championship four times (Hoppe beat
him in grade 10), adding many a victory in the 1500m and
3000m on the track to his resume. While some might struggle
dealing with this level of success, Black enjoyed a support
system that helped to keep him grounded.
“I was always just focused on beating
those guys who were ahead of me, not really focused on
how many guys were behind me,” he said. “For
as much as Terry was a great coach in preparing the workouts
and such, he was even better at the mental preparation.
Psychologically, he was a guru - and I was so lucky to
have that.”
Before leaving Lockerby, Black would establish
a record in the senior boys 1500m race (4:01.60) that
stood for roughly twenty years before Ross Proudfoot eclipsed
it. Through four years at York University, the local product
was consistently a top 15-20 place OUA competitor, all
while befriending a solid core of future Olympians at
the well-known indoor facility just off Steeles Avenue.
And while his greatest university accomplishment
was a second team OUA all-star nod in 1994 after returning
to complete his masters at Western, Black understood that
there was a balance that was important in his life. “I
didn’t really plow the time into training at a level
where I could take a run at making the Olympics,”
he said.
“I knew what the guys at the top
were doing to get to the Olympics. They were doing a lot,
they were living running - twice-a-days, that type of
stuff.”
Rather, Black would become one of the
most recognizable faces on the Toronto distance running
scene, connecting with groups that included Marathon Dynamics
and XSNRG, all while spending some twenty years under
the tutelage of coach Don Mills. Well into his forties,
Black would not only continue to compete, but compete
well.
“I worked in Toronto and was still
doing pretty decent workouts, running cross country and
road races and doing a bit of track,” he said. “By
the time I was getting into my mid-thirties, I knew what
worked for me. I had learned that you can do quality training
over quantity, that you don’t have to go and blow
your brains out.”
“I knew a lot more about racing
smart.”
Perhaps based solely on the numbers of
races which he has entered, Jamie Black can share race
tales with the best of them: stories of races he’s
won because leaders took a wrong turn, or the mirror image,
twice losing the lead in two separate OTFA cross-country
races in the same day because he got lost.
His network of friends extends across
the continent. From the gents back home in Sudbury that
he will join for a leisurely Sunday run while visiting
his parents, to former NAC teammate and Lasalle graduate
Johnny Jain, now a leading fertility specialist in Los
Angeles.
Now a father to both an 11 and 13 year
old, Black moves comfortably from conversations of running
to friendships with the likes of two-time Olympian Graham
Hood (he stood in his wedding) and 2004 Toronto Waterfront
Marathon champion Danny Kassap (with whom he travelled
for many a race).
“The way I looked at it was that
September 1st is the beginning of the cross-country season;
then you do a little bit of indoor track and get through
the winter; then you’ve got your road races,”
said Black.
“I never really thought that much
ahead. I just kind of followed the seasons.”
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