On Pace to Medal · by Larry Moko

At 39, Hirsh golden oldie on Mohawk cross-country team

Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?

Take David Hirsh, for example. He turns 40 this month but has taken steps as a first-year student at Mohawk College to make a career change. At the Fennell campus, he’s prepping for acceptance into a four-year diagnostic imaging program.

Along with his studies, the Hamilton resident also runs for the college cross-country team. That makes him the oldest runner — and one of the most talented — coach Wayne Collins has ever worked with.
Running, however, was not always such a big part of Hirsh’s life. Before coming to Mohawk, he performed professionally in a rock band called All Fall Down for a decade. And he also smoked a pack of cigarettes a day for 17 years.

“I slowly got into running when the band thing got a little old,” Hirsh said. “When I turned 30, I quit smoking and tried to make my life a bit healthier. I started running and enjoyed it to the point where I was putting on races (a race director) as a career option.”

Hirsh estimates he has entered 200 races in the past nine years, every distance from three kilometres to the marathon. He finished sixth (out of 801) at the recent Oakville Half Marathon and placed 59th (out of approximately 5,000) at the 2007 Around the Bay Road Race.

Hirsh runs 365 days a year.

“When David showed up at our first practice,” running enthusiast Collins recalled, “I took one look at him and said, ‘I know you from somewhere.’ He said he had been managing a race series in the Hamilton area. I had seen him around but never really met him.”
Collins says Hirsh is friendly and outgoing.
“Everybody thinks he’s cool. He’s a colourful guy.”

Helped by Hirsh’s eighth-place finish in 29 minutes and six seconds, the men’s team came second at the Fanshawe Invitational meet in London. Mohawk and Redeemer will co-host the OCAA cross-country championships Oct. 25 at the Dundas Valley Conservation Area. And according to Collins, Mohawk has a good shot at the medals.

“At first I was nervous that I wouldn’t be as good as anybody else,” Hirsh said. “I was actually pleased that the coach was a real runner and not just a high-school type that coaches multiple sports and doesn’t know much about it.”

Hirsh says he enjoys the collegiate camaraderie and feels “privileged” to be able to experience it so late in life.

Hirsh, incidentally, was first introduced to running by his father Jack, at the age of 13. And it was Dr. Jack Hirsh — founding director of the Henderson Research Centre and a world leader in the diagnosis and treatment of blood clots — who suggested the field of diagnostic imaging or radiology.

Hirsh doesn’t hide the fact that he much prefers road racing to cross-country. Last weekend in Peterborough, he dropped out of the Fleming Invitational after twisting his ankle twice.

“The (cross-country) courses are much more dangerous and technical. Inevitably, it narrows down to a single track on a trail. It’s hard to pass anyone on a trail.”

The Canadian championships this year will take place Nov. 8 in St. Lawrence PQ.

October 10, 2008
Courtesy of
THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR