THESE last few weeks allow a break in the athletics calendar.
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The 2021 Australian championships have been completed after 2020's COVID-19 cancellation.
Summer track and field has given way to winter cross-country and the premier sporting fixture in world sports, the Olympics, will be held in less than two months.
It is time to take stock of one athlete from the Nowra Athletics Club who has had some of the best results in that club's history.
She competes in the 30 to 39 years age category in races on the track up to 1500 metres.
She also turns her efforts to even longer distance and cross-country.
What is of note is that she only started running six years ago for fun and exercise.
Back then most runners were in front of her - today there are few who can beat her.
"I was on my deck when the summer road runners from Nowra Athletics Club went past," said the tall, friendly athlete - which is a term she never would have used to describe herself.
"It wasn't long before I joined them."
Smart had very little running experience at school which is unusual for a master's athlete.
They tend to continue a youthful ability or come back after a break.
After having two children in her late 20s, she was looking for an activity that all her family could do.
Running with the Nowra Athletics club was a good fit.
She joined in 2015 and in late 2017, she decided to get serious with her emerging ability and the associated fitness and enjoyment.
She joined MNG, the training squad under the direction of coach Mel Mustapic.
With MNG's large, cohesive squad of upper primary and secondary students and a sprinkle of mature age (masters) runners, Smart was in her element.
In her age group of 30-39 years, she broke three records in her first year of serious summer track.
With technique and fitness starting to manifest in her runs, the second season of 2018-19 saw no less than 19 times when she broke established records.
The name Erin Smart was now beside every track distance from 60 metres to 1000 metres.
"At 35, I didn't know I could go in a running race or what spikes or a synthetic track were," she said.
The recently completed 2021 NSW Athletics track and field competition has been Smart's championship season.
Owning every distance from 60-1000 metres in Nowra Athletics Club's records at their grass track headquarters in the 30 - 39 age category, sights were set on lowering her times in all eight individual distances.
To have this range and quality is exceptional and rare in any club.
Ten records were set, all breaking her previous benchmarks.
The 400m and 600m were broken on several occasions and on one memorable ninety-minute period of competition the Smart machine set new marks in the 100m, 150m and 400m.
In the last 12 months of Athletics NSW masters competition, she has won the state 100m, 200m, 400m and 800m events and is the current winter cross-country short course (4km) and long course (10km) gold medallist in her age category.
Since records have been kept, no athlete has held so many titles across such a range in any age category.
She is a couple of seconds off being the fastest woman ever over 400m and 600m in NAC records.
A couple of seconds is still half a dozen strides but this determined athlete is setting goals against times run by those 20 years younger.
She and coach Mustapic will refocus during the current winter for her 2021-22 season with the 400m probably proving to be her best current distance.
If she can stay injury-free, her progress will see her in open competition.
Smart has run under the current country athletics championship record at a different meet in the 400m and is only a few steps off the state masters age record.
All this towards the end of her age category when traditionally, runners hit the times early as they enter an age range.
Smart is respectful ...but she is not traditional.
In March 2021, at the state masters championships, she anchored the team to a 4x200m state and Australian record time and again ran the final leg in a 4x800m state record time.
She was a triple gold medallist at her first national championships in 2019.
COVID-19 has resulted in the cancellation of the last two Australian Masters Championships.
With the cancellation of national and international championships, Smart has not had top-class age competition.
Times, however, can be compiled for comparative assessment.
In the current world masters rankings for the 35-39 years female age group, she is ranked first in the 400m, second in the 60m and top 10 in the 100m, 200m and 800m.
"I am grateful for the role running plays in my life," Smart said.
"It has taken my health and fitness to a completely new level.
"Running has taught me to keep showing up, keep chipping away - get around the next bend."
Some athlete, some season.
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