Charlie Scarrow’s cold war

By Heather Killen

Spectator

NovaNewsNow.com

To save money, Charlie Scarrow designed his own Russian ramp to work with cow mats.

Scarrow was visiting Russia in 2000, when he first spied a special ramp that used a slight incline to push runners past their own best times.

“I’m always looking for a natural edge that will push athletes to perform beyond their comfort zone,” he said. “Some trainers use steroids, but that’s not an option for me.”

As soon as he saw it, Scarrow decided that one day he would have a similar runway to train his athletes. The Russians wouldn’t let him photograph it, so each day he carefully studied the runway and at night jotted notes in a little book that he kept hidden.

Scarrow’s pilfered notes eventually became a blueprint that a local carpenter and about 20 volunteers used to reproduce the Russian ramp in Bridgetown.

“It’s been seven years in the making,” said Scarrow. “When I saw it in Russia in 2000, I told myself that one day I’m gonna have that runway.”

The special rubberized surface and engineered tresses made the Russian ramp especially dear to recreate. A few years ago, Scarrow found an affordable barnyard solution for the track’s special running surface.

COW MATS PERFECT

“Cow mats, or horse mats,” he said. “They offer the right amount of resistance; are Canadian-made from recycled tires, so they’re good for the environment; they’re durable, portable and they’re relatively cheap.”

Typically these mats cushion hooves from cement floors, but Scarrow has found them to be ideal surfaces to reduce the impact injuries his athletes sustained when training over hard surfaces.

Scarrow said that a ramp like the one volunteers have built for about $5,000, would normally cost upwards of $200,000.

“World class costs money,” he said. “So we had to get creative.”

In fact, a state-of-the-art world-class training center is slowly emerging in the empty warehouse space at the back of the Bridgetown Development Centre on Bay Rd.

Athletes from across Nova Scotia already travel to this training facility, where he gradually brings them to top form.

INNOVATIVE

Scarrow is dedicated to finding innovative ways to overcome the lack of proper facilities in Nova Scotia, and prepare his athletes to meet competitors who’ve benefited from the best that money can buy.

The new Russian ramp joins the unique bowl-shaped centrifugal track that he imported from Italy a few years ago. This inverted track helps runners use gravity to develop strength and resistance.

He also employs a variety of training methods and computer assisted games to prepare his athletes to coolly run down the toughest competition.

Scarrow’s athletes compete in track and field against elite runners from the best U.S. universities. Several of his athletes have won scholarships to top universities such as Yale, Harvard, and Tulane.

A few have gone as far as the Olympics. Jenna Martin, who until recently trained in Bridgetown with Scarrow, is headed for the Olympic trials in July.

Terry Saunders, an elementary school teacher and coach, said the new training centre is a welcome and much-needed facility for the town.

“For years this was just empty space,” he said. “It was just an empty warehouse where the distillery was.”

Saunders’ high school teams have already benefited from training in the facility, and now his younger students are participating in a free after-school program, two afternoons a week.

What stood for as a reminder of things past, is being transformed into a viable facility that caters to elite athletes and elementary school children.

Steve Raftery community development coordinator, said the facility already benefits a number of groups, and that it’s a great asset for the community.

AMAZING

“What Charlie’s been able to do in that space is amazing,” he said. “It’s such an advantage for the soccer and hockey teams to train there, they’re doing really well.”

Raftery added that perhaps one of the greatest successes is the after-school program that draws at least 40 elementary school students each week.

Scarrow’s next big dream is to eventually expand the facility further to benefit the entire community. He wants to create a multi-group, multi-use fitness centre that is able to serve all residents of the county.

He has been applying for a number of grants and is hoping to access funds for minor renovation work at the warehouse and provide new equipment for the facility.

Rather than building a new sports facility from scratch, a general-purpose fitness center could piggy-back on the existing training center, according to Scarrow.

“This was once a dingy old place, but it’s starting to come alive,” he said. “We’ve already done this at a fraction of what it would normally cost.”

He added there’s no way a training centre of this caliber would have been possible for Bridgetown without the community’s support.

“I’m no builder, I can’t pound a nail or put in a screw,” he said. “I have these ideas, but no way of making them happen.”

He added that for the past 20 years, he’s been happy to tell people that he’s from Bridgetown. But he’s never been prouder to say this than he is today.

“This kind of thing used to happen all the time, maybe 100 years ago, but communities don’t just come together to build things anymore.

“We’re cutting edge. And this happened because a community said ‘let’s do this for our children.’ It goes to show that big things can happen in small towns.”