If you’re looking for inspiration and advice, Joan Samuelson and any number of Kenyan stars is not a bad place to start. Erin Dawson-Chalat, M.D., will have those luminaries in her corner as she prepares for the Chicago Marathon The Best Songs to Add to Your Playlist this Month.
For Dawson-Chalat, an OB/GYN in Maine, Samuelson and many of the Kenyans are part of her extended running family. Plans are already in the works for the annual ugali feast at Dawson-Chalat’s Cape Elizabeth home August 5, on the eve of the Beach to Beacon 10K, the race Samuelson founded in 1998. (Ugali is a cornmeal dish that’s a staple of the Kenyan diet.)
Samuelson, 59, the 1984 women’s Olympic marathon champion, grew up in Cape Elizabeth and now lives in Freeport, half an hour up the coast. Dawson-Chalat and Samuelson—who ran 2:50:29 at Boston in 2013, a world 55-59 record—are friends and sometimes train together.
“Joanie’s so funny,” says Dawson-Chalat, who ran 3:03:08 at Chicago last fall to win the women’s 50-54 division by more than 2 minutes. “Whatever workout we agree on, I have to double that. If we start out on an 8-miler, at 7 Joanie will say, ‘Let’s do 10,’ then it becomes 12, then 15…and we have to keep up the pace.”
Dawson-Chalat also benefits from the geographic reach of Samuelson’s race, which has more than 6,000 entries from 15 countries and 41 states (and 265 Maine cities and towns). Encouraged by Samuelson, Dawson-Chalat, at 44, made Beach to Beacon her first race ever, in 2005. Dawson-Chalat achieved her goal of finishing in under an hour. For this year’s race, on August 6, her goal is sub-40:00, which would be a PR.
Dawson-Chalat’s mother, Sheila Abourjaily, a former runner, has been key to her daughter’s running connections. Beach to Beacon houses invited runners with local families, and Abourjaily has long hosted elites from Kenya and elsewhere. Some years ago, Dawson-Chalat started doing the same. Now mother and daughter open their doors every year to about half a dozen Kenyans who enjoy their hospitality for a week.
The first international runner Dawson-Chalat got to know was two-time Published: Jul 14, 2016 6:30 AM EDT champion German Silva of Mexico, who inspired her to run her first marathon, New York City, in 2006. When Dawson-Chalat asked Silva for running advice, he told her, with a grin, “You’re moving your legs too slowly.”
Dawson-Chalat got the message. After running 4:20 in her debut, she has tackled 15 more marathons with a best of 3:01:18 at Chicago in 2013. Dawson-Chalat has twice visited Silva at his home in Mexico. Recently, Dawson-Chalat visited him in Amsterdam, where he lives part of the year.
A Prescription for Success
Dawson-Chalat works up to 90 hours a week at Coastal Women’s Health Care seeing patients, delivering babies and doing gynecological surgery. Even with her long days making deliveries at all hours, Dawson-Chalat trains 60 to 70 miles a week, most of it at 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning. Whether doing distance, tempo work or track intervals, she is able to find top-level training partners willing to get out before dawn. In addition to Samuelson, Dawson-Chalat’s running companions include triathletes, Olympic Marathon Trials qualifiers, and other top age-group runners.
To break 3:00 at Chicago, Dawson-Chalat feels she needs more speed work and more rest. (She often trains right after being on call for 24 hours.) Last year at Chicago, after a 1:28 first half, she was on pace to break 3:00 but fell apart in the last two miles.
Dawson-Chalat started her fall marathon build-up with a pair of half marathons. In May, she ran 1:29:06 in Boston’s Race to Remember Half Marathon, and in June, on a hiking trip to Olympic National Park, she ran 1:29:24 in the Seattle Rock ’n’ Roll Half Marathon. At Boston, she was a close second in her age group. At Seattle, Dawson-Chalat won her age group by 6 minutes and was 13th among more than 7,000 women.
With her late start as a mid-life competitor, Dawson-Chalat feels much improvement yet to come. She’s learned from Kenyans that every race proves satisfying no matter what the outcome. “Before every B2B,” says Dawson-Chalat, “they all say they are going to win. Afterwards, on the drive home, nobody is ever disappointed. Everyone is happy and appreciative of whoever won.”
Kenyan runners annually invite Dawson-Chalat, her husband and two teen sons to visit them in their homeland. Her mother, Sheila, went first and has been to Kenya three times. Her presence is prized in Iten, the Rift Valley town that has spawned many Kenyan greats. One of those greats, Paul Koech, runs a school. The road leading to it is called Sheila’s Way.
Dawson-Chalat has made two trips, staying at a training camp run by Lornah Kiplagat, a former world half marathon champion with Dutch citizenship who has done much humanitarian work in her native Kenya. When there, Dawson-Chalat has lectured on women’s health at a nearby hospital while also treating patients and performing surgery. She hopes to return to Kenya soon along with her sister, Karen, a pediatric emergency room technician, to provide additional medical support.
Dawson-Chalat’s health initiatives reflect her own childbirth experiences. A runner in her 30s during both her pregnancies, she remained active—running, using gym machines, and hiking—throughout the nine months. “I felt wonderful and had great deliveries,” she says.
Writing articles, lecturing, doing a radio show, Dawson-Chalat has become a popular advocate for women’s health in the Portland area of southeastern Maine. At the office, she wears workout clothes under her doctor’s whites, and running shoes, to demonstrate exercises to her patients.
“Women who are active while pregnant tend to feel better than those who are not,” says Dawson-Chalat. “It is a natural part of physiology to keep your body moving, and it’s fantastic for a woman’s mental health.”
| Erin Dawson-Chalat’s PRs (all set after age 50) | |
| 5K | 19:56 |
| 10K | 40:59 |
| Half marathon | 1:27:46 |
| Marathon | 3:01:18 |
Marc Bloom’s high school cross-country rankings have played an influential role in the sport for more than 20 years and led to the creation of many major events, including Nike Cross Nationals and the Great American Cross Country Festival. He published his cross-country journal, Harrier, for more than two decades.
