Canadian masters record holder Sasha Gollish on doing hard things
"The next day you get up, and you slowly start to let go of the sadness and disappointment," says Gollish
Toronto’s Sasha Gollish has had a remarkable season on track, road and trail, demonstrating incredible versatility as an athlete. She’s also had to make some tough decisions about racing, and her wisdom is useful for athletes of any level.
After shattering the women’s 40+ 1,500 metre record and a season that included two national championship medals as well as gold at the 2022 NACAC Half Marathon Championships, she won the Vertical Climb event at the Canadian Mountain and Trail Running Championships in Vernon, B.C., qualifying her for team Canada.
Gollish made the long trek to the World Mountain and Trail Running champs in Chiang Mai, Thailand, only to become too ill to compete. She had to make the hard call to pull out of two events (one of them mid-race), and credits authors Brad Stulberg (The Practice of Groundedness) and Steve Magness (Do Hard Things) with giving her some of the tools she needed to make the difficult-but-best choice in the situation.
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Acceptance and self-awareness
Gollish points out that the easy option is often the wrong one, wisdom she attributes to Magness. “These are not easy decisions, and they certainly don’t leave you feeling all warm and fuzzy; the decision leaves you disappointed,” says Gollish.
“To make these types of decisions, it takes a fair amount of knowing your body and a whole lot of self-reflection (not self-criticism),” she says. “You have to really think through the evidence in front of you–I was not sleeping, not eating, coughing like crazy at times–not exactly symptoms that let you run, let alone race.”
The lightbulb moment, for Gollish, meant realizing and accepting where she was: “I was sick, and not the kind of sick you can race through. I ran [the TCS Toronto Waterfront Marathon] two weeks before travelling and that would have been fine, except I stretched myself too thin volunteering for a variety of XC meets and schools–I just couldn’t recover, and my immune system was probably totally shot.”
While Gollish had to assess and make a judgment call while under the weather, she suggests athletes try to avoid it: “Try to make important decisions when you’re healthy: make sure you make a decision when you’re rested and fuelled, not underslept, hungry and stressed.”
Disappointment and reframing are part of the process
“I mean, I definitely had some tears alone in the jungle: being sad is part of the process,” Gollish says. “And then the next day you get up and you slowly start to let go of the sadness and disappointment.” She says reframing a situation will be different every time.
“For me, I thought about just how sick I was, and considered not just the outcome of the event, but the actual physical danger of climbing up and down a steep mountain in a hot and humid foreign country.”
Gollish adds that it’s important to remember racing (and life) is not all sunshine and rainbows; there are downs that come with the ups. “It’s unfortunate to have happened at a big event, but that doesn’t take away from my other accomplishments this year,” she says. Zooming out to look at the bigger picture can be helpful in gaining perspective.
Now home and on the mend in Toronto, Gollish says she has the ACXC national championships at the end of the month, and then, “that’s a wrap on racing all Canadian senior championships.”
Despite not being able to race in Thailand, Gollish sounds like she’ll be revisiting trails next season. “The trails are so fun and a great way to train for all types of running,” she says. “They make you stronger in a different way.”
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