Poirier has sights set on Gambia

http://www.thechronicleherald.ca/ArtsLife/1239864.html

Poirier has sights set on Gambia Nurse plans gruelling run across West African nation to raise money for education and health programs By LAURA FRASER Staff Reporter Sat, Apr 23 - 4:54 AM Erin Poirier runs in Point Pleasant Park, Halifax. Poirier plans a 17- day run across The Gambia, a total of 430 kilometres, to raise money for the Nova Scotia Gambia Association which provides health and educational support for the African nation. (Ted Pritchard / Staff) ERIN POIRIER remembers running down a Gambian beach four years ago, her back salted from the ocean and the blistering heat of the African sun. Right now, Poirier is in the middle of her longest-ever training cycle, for the longest race she has ever run. She plans to cross Gambia in 17 days, covering more than a half-marathon each morning as the humidity starts its climb to more than 40 C. "My goal is to be ready to start running the second the sun’s in the sky," says the nurse and long-distance runner. "I’m telling myself that hot yoga is going to get me ready for the heat of the Gambia." The global recession and the size of the western African nation combined to give birth to Poirier’s idea. The Gambia River bisects the country, with a road running along either side for more than 400 kilometres. Poirier decided the distance between the Gambian border town of Basse Santa Su and the coastal city of Banjul could be manageable to run. She hopes to raise at least $20,000. "It kind of came out of the Nova Scotia Gambia Association’s desperate financial picture," said Poirier, a board member for the group. "(Over) the last two years, like lots of Canadian charities, our donations and fundraising has been down." Poirier, 30, got hooked on running in high school when her basketball coach forced the team to include it in their workouts. Then, they had to run about 10 kilometres each week. But to prepare for the Boston and Scotiabank Blue Nose marathons, and Gambia, Poirier has been running more than 85 kilometres about every six days. Poirier caught bronchitis during Week 19 of training and still logged 52 kilometres — eight more than the week she got hit by a car and nine less than the week she recovered from the crash. Poirier visits a chiropractor once a week to fix any damage she has inflicted on her body. And she has enlisted a sports nutritionist to make sure she fills herself with the right fuel. She is built like a whippet, more skinny than strong, and can burn a significant number of calories during a long run. "Eating has been an important part of this training cycle. I’ve been piling food into my body like I’m never going to eat again," she says, laughing. Poirier will arrive in Gambia during the rainy season, when the humidity will be at its peak and tropical storms are a threat. She will start running at dawn to stay cooler. She says she would begin earlier, but streetlights are a rarity along the unpaved road. The heat will likely lengthen Poirier’s running time to three hours instead of her usual two. For the rest of her day, she and her support team plan to visit some of the schools she worked with during the summer of 2007. Poirier spent that summer teaching small groups of children about how to reduce their risk of getting HIV-AIDS and malaria. Local actors hired by the Nova Scotia Gambia Association then taught the students how to best deliver the information to their peers. "Theatre is very important to Gambian culture (and) it’s an oral culture, so history is passed down through theatre and storytelling," Poirier said. When she returned from Africa, Poirier decided she wanted to continue her work in Nova Scotia. She became a board member with the association and took a job at Prince Andrew High School in Dartmouth, where she runs a youth health centre. In the spring and fall, she also coaches the cross-country and track teams. Some of Poirier’s student runners will join her Love4Gambia charity team in the Blue Nose marathon. She has raised about 75 members and $6,000, but is still recruiting. After the Blue Nose marathon, all her focus will be on Gambia, she says. Once she gets there, Poirier says her job is to focus solely on the run. Her friend Ashley Sharpe, an emergency nurse, will deal with any obstacles, especially those with scales or a forked tongue. Hippopotamuses, snakes, lizards or crocodiles could conceivably get in Poirier’s way during the more rural part of the journey, she says. It is one of the only things she doesn’t like to picture. Instead, she will think about the beach in Banjul, knowing that she will be running closer to the ocean’s balm with every step. Poirier’s blog, www.love4gambia.com, has more information about the run, her Blue Nose charity team and how to donate. ( lfraser@herald.ca)

Love4Gambia - Erin on Island Morning

Erin Poirier was on CBC Radio's Island Morning this morning
talking to Matt Rainnieabout her Love4Gambia Run.
Here's that interview....

Love4Gambia - OptiMYz Magazine

http://www.optimyz.com/health/851

Love4Gambia

Two feet, one heartbeat = Change.

By Erin Poirier

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On my third day in The Gambia I looked down at my key chain thermometer, yanked it from the hook on my gym bag, and threw it in the trash.

It read a blazing 38 degrees and I was realizing the hard way that temperature is irrelevant on the shores of West Africa – there was only hot or hotter.

“Hot” means you’re squirming in a small pool of wetness under your clothes and your coffee-colored hair feels hot to the touch. “Hotter” means your bra and underwear are saturated in sweat and your hair just won’t seem to dry after your shower.

I was there during a scorching summer in 2007 when I worked as a nurse with the NSGA’s Gender Equity and Youth Leadership through Health and Human Rights Education project. Big project name, big ambition: to keep kids alive through HIV and malaria education.

This July, I’ll once again brave the heat of The Gambia to lace up my sneakers in an attempt to run all the way across the country in support of the same cause. Over my 430km route, I’ll be raising money for the Nova Scotia-Gambia Association (NSGA).

In 2007, I went through a life-changing experience when I taught youth to be peer health educators. These kids returned to their schools to share HIV prevention messages with youth in their communities.

In a country that does not offer sexual health in school, the role these kids play in preventing HIV is vital. It’s not something we often think about in a country where health care is readily available and going to school is a right, not a privilege.

But when I returned to Halifax, I couldn’t get The Gambia out of my mind. I thought about how my teenage students, some as old as 19 years, would sit three to a two-person desk, often with their arms around each other in affection. I thought about how they valued education in a way that you can only understand if 50 per cent of your peers can’t afford school fees.

I thought about the answer I got when I once asked my class: “How do you help somebody with HIV stay healthy?”

“They need love and caring and understanding,” they said, “They need hope for the future, and a positive attitude.”

I joined the NSGA board of directors and this year, after 25 years of operation, NSGA began to run into financial problems.

We had endured two years of financial loss and were looking at a third. Like many other charities, our donor base was down and some board members felt that we may have reached the end of the organization.

I thought about my Gambian youth and couldn’t reconcile their thoughts. I wanted to do something.

Then I thought about running. I’ve had lots of success racing. The Gambia is a small country. It would be possible to run all the way across The Gambia.

So this is what I’m doing. I’ve called my campaign Love4Gambia. I’ll begin my mission on July 4, and over 17 days, I will run 430km (that’s a half marathon each day) from Basse, near the Senegalese border, to Banjul on the Atlantic coast.

Four support people will join me. My friend and fellow NSGA volunteer nurse, Ashley Sharpe, will be my medical support. My massage therapist, Katherine Tidman from Total Kneads, has volunteered to come. Two members of our NSGA staff in The Gambia will also accompany us.

Sure it’s going to be tough. The heat will present my biggest challenge because I know that no matter what length of time I spend in Africa, I’ll never acclimate to it.

So I am trying to prepare my body for the heat by going to hot yoga practice. Sometimes in the studio, I feel like I’ve become one with the melting air. Other times, I think: “Gentle Lord! It’s 37 degrees in here!” I look like I just got out of a swimming pool and this is average temperature I’ll be running in.

On these days, the preparation isn’t so productive.

Right now, my marathon training with coach Cliff Matthews is geared toward my third Boston Marathon. I’m running 85 km-plus per week, fitness that will carry well onto my plane to Africa.

Running is the easy part. Cliff dictates my training plan and I do exactly what he says. It’s hard work, but it’s something I love.

The really brutal part is doing the extra things I need to do to stay healthy in this long training cycle. I’m piling food into my body like I’ll never eat again. I’m forcing myself to strength training.

I have chiropractor Dr. Jason Gray working with me for free — his contribution to Love4Gambia. Weekly treatment keeps me healthy and he sets my strength-training program. I’m lucky for this.

The sidewalks have been in poor condition during this wicked winter we’ve endured on the East Coast. The wind freezes my cheeks and sometimes my contact lenses, blurring my vision.

The “nicest” place to run outdoors in the entire city has become the MacDonald Bridge sidewalk deck where plowing and salting are thorough. The Halifax Ocean Terminal at Marginal Road, with its bright lighting and quality snow removal service for transport trucks and trains, has also been kind to winter runners.

An average training week for me is 6 days and looks like this:

• Monday – easy 6-8km + hot yoga
• Tuesday – track workout with Cliff- often short and fast intervals, such as 10 x 800m, total 14-17km with warm-up and cool-down
• Wednesday – recovery 12km + strength training
• Thursday – track workout with Cliff- often long intervals close to marathon pace, such as 3 x 15 minutes, total 14-17km
• Friday – recovery or easy 12 km
• Saturday – long run 2-2.5 hours including quality speed segment every 2nd week.
• Sunday – rest + strength training

So yes, it’s going to be tough. I knew that when I said I’d do this. But it’s worth it.

While volunteering in The Gambia, I saw how the NSGA’s programs directly impacted the youth. When the NSGA ran into trouble, I knew I needed to do something to help these programs continue. And that’s what I’m going to do.

To support my Love4Gambia campaign and to follow my progress as I prepare for and run across The Gambia in July, visit me at www.love4gambia.com

Erin Poirier Tells BT about her upcoming Love4Gambia Run

More on Erin and her Love4Gambia Run

A Running Desire - Erin Poirier's Love4Gambia Run

http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/News/Local/2011-03-17/article-2339127/A-running-desire/1

Nova Scotia nurse Erin Poirier, who is the daughter of Edwin and Theresa Callaghan of Charlottetown, is in full training mode
for her 17-day run across Gambia in Africa to raise funds for the Nova Scotia Gambia Association.

For many people, running the Boston Marathon would be a major life accomplishment.

But for accomplished runner Erin Poirier, this year’s upcoming marathon and the Blue Nose Marathon in Nova Scotia are just part of the training schedule for her really big run that starts on July 4. That’s when this Charlottetown native, who is a nurse in Nova Scotia, will take her first stride on a 17-day run that will span the whole of the West African country of Gambia.

“I’m running towards the ocean,” Poirier says of her 430-kilometre Love4Gambia fundraising campaign for the Nova Scotia Gambia Association (NSGA), which has been providing education and health promotion initiatives to help youth and communities in Gambia for more than 25 years.

Poirier, who is the daughter of Edwin and Theresa Callaghan of Charlottetown, started running when she was a student at Colonel Gray Senior High.

“I played basketball for my three years at Colonel Gray and our coach was really serious about us starting the season in shape, so we always ran during the off season to maintain our fitness. Looking back I excelled at running more than I did at basketball. . . ,” she laughs.

Poirier continued to run through her nursing school years at UPEI and in Boston, Mass., where she first worked.

“I watched the Boston Marathon a couple of times and I thought ‘those people are crazy. I don’t know why they’re doing this,’” she laughs.

But the joke was on her when she moved back to Halifax, discovered the Blue Nose Marathon and was immediately hooked on long distance running.

“I absolutely loved it and here I am six years later, still running,” she says.

When Poirier was still a first-year nursing student, she volunteered in Zimbabwe with the World University Service of Canada.

In 2007, she discovered the Nova Scotia Gambia Association (NSGA) and volunteered to work as a nurse on a NSGA project in Gambia for six weeks.

“I love the work they do in the field. They’ve been working in the Gambia for (to this date) 26 years and I think they’ve done a lot of things right in terms of development in a developing nation . . . ,” says Poirier, who is now an NSGA board member.

This dedicated runner came up with the Love4Gambia fundraising campaign as a way to support the association and its longstanding work in Gambia.

Starting on July 4, she and a support team of two from Canada — her massage therapist and a friend who is an emergency room nurse — as well as two NSGA staff in Gambia will make their way from Basse on the eastern border of the Gambia and west to Banjul, which is a distance of 430 kilometres.

“(Gambia is) the smallest country in the continent of Africa. It’s about 100 kilometres longer than P.E.I. but whenever I’m talking about it to people I always say it’s quite similar to P.E.I. It’s long and skinny,” Poirier says.

In addition to running the Boston Marathon on April 18, she is part of a Love4Gambia fundraising team in the Blue Nose Marathon in Nova Scotia on May 22.

She trains six days a week and runs about 90 kilometres, the majority of it outside in the Maritime weather elements. This doesn’t do much to prepare her for the heat, super high humidity, disease carrying bugs and large wild animals to come.

“(Here) there are cars that hate runners, but no wild animals,” she says with a wry laugh.

It helps that Poirier has some experience running in Gambia from her time there in 2007.

“I didn’t run 25 kilometres a day. I ran more like half an hour a day,” she says.

“Where a white girl from Canada runs, other people usually follow, so I imagine I’ll have some kids running along with me and I’ve already heard from some Gambian runners about them being interested in running portions of it with me. So I will be relying in some parts on the support of others.”

Government representatives in Gambia are preparing for her arrival by spreading the word about her Love4Gambia campaign. They have also arranged for media coverage and a kick-off concert in Basse when she starts her run.

Poirier has already solidly set her sights on the end of the running line.

“I think that after 17 hot days that the sight of the Atlantic Ocean is going to be pretty amazing at the other end of it,” she says.

“And, yes, I plan on jumping in.”

Are you running the Bluenose Marathon in Halifax this year?

If so, click on the poster below and consider joining the Love4Gambia Charity Team

It was a pleasure to meet Erin at the Freeze Your Gizzard in Montague last month. Erin's shoes caught many eyes.


Erin, we wish you all the very best on your Gambian Run.
We hope you can conjure up some memories of freezing your gizzard to help cool you down when you're out there under the 37 degree Zambian sun. Have a happy, healthy & safe adventure.

We'll be following Erin and you can too....

• Erin's Love4Gambia Blog
• Erin's Love4Gambia Facebook Page
• Erin's on Twitter at @Love4GambiaErin
• Erin's Flickr Photos are Here

Please consider donating to Erin's Love4Gambia Run
and support the Nova Scotia-Gambia Association's excellent work
through CanadaHelps HERE