Irie Gourde enjoyed an incredible first, and seemingly last, season on the Brandeis University track and field team in his senior season and was preparing for his post-college career.

RETURNING TO BRANDEIS

“Then my coaches recommended I enter the fifth-year program, but I was doubting whether I could get in,” he stated. “People encouraged me to pursue it and make the most of it. My mother was my biggest supporter and that was important because I would have to rely on her to do another year. She endorsed this possibility wholeheartedly.”

He looked at a lot of available programs on campus, landing on Sustainable International Development. “It was the one specifically geared to what I wanted to do. I was pining over every word of the cover letter and application,” Gourde recalled. “It was the longest two weeks I can remember. I took so long.”

Gourde also applied for a two-year stint with the Peace Corps and they offered him a position earlier than he expected. “I knew I wanted to take a day or two to think about it, and in that time, I received my grad school acceptance!” he exclaimed. “It was very exciting. I would get the chance to further test my potential in track, while being perfectly aligned with my career goals.”

Returning to the team as a graduate student put Gourde in a completely different role from his unique rookie season. “We lost all of the seniors who were friends of mine and gained some freshmen who were excited to be part of the program,” he recalled. “Now I had a support story for those doubting themselves, that they could trust the process. I knew that your best is always pushing a little further than you thought, that you can find the strength to counter the fear and refine your answer to it rather than repressing it.”

Although it was only his second year in track, Gourde was the oldest student-athlete on the team. “By default, I was put into a teaching role on the team even though everyone else had run more track than me,” he commented. “I wondered, ‘Am I fit to have this role? I am new too.’”

Gourde had been on the Brandeis campus for four years, even if he had only competed in track for one year, so he knew he could talk about study habits and the academic side of being a student-athlete. “I was determined to make it so my teammates would not be wrong to see me as a leader,” he explained. “I was determined to make my decision to return to school and track worth it. I wanted to make it worth it for those who encouraged me and to find my real limit. The urgency from year one carried over to year two, but it was more refined with some history behind it.”

He also could tell younger teammates what the UAA championships were like. “We know these schools, we have seen them get better next to us,” Gourde said. “That was my favorite meet environment and I could share that. I was slowly becoming a track runner instead of just a person running track.”

THE PRE-RACE RITUAL

Gourde was well-known for his preparation just before each race. “Irie was a very disciplined runner mentally. He had this entire regimen before every race,” recalled Nick Wactor, who was instrumental in getting Gourde to walk-on as a senior. “He had his pump-up music like a lot of runners do, but some of them were silly songs. His eyes, usually friendly, got really intense just before the race. He is a totally different guy when he is on the block. You see his energy crackling through his limbs in stillness on the block.”

His routine started by overcoming a very difficult aspect for him to handle, based on his harrowing experience in Burkina Faso: the starting gun. “When I ran track my last two years in high school, the starting gun distracted me and messed with my mental state,” he admitted. “It took me a while to get used to that sensation and overcome it while running at Brandeis. I realized I didn’t need to shy away from it, but rather use it to my advantage. I was emotionally neutral in that I was still afraid, but wasn’t suffering from it.”

Gourde believes the biggest refinement he made between his two seasons was the pre-race meditation. “I would do the normal workout as early on as possible without exerting too much energy, just getting the joints and muscles loosened up, getting the actual ‘machine’ ready,” he expressed.

“Forty-five minutes to an hour before a race, I used music to create a space. It was like a cinema, watching a scene without music, which is a totally different experience. Hip Hop beats with a jazzy sax put together was always my number one. It builds up to a more consistent rhythm,” he explained. “I would be dancing without an audience in mind. There was no comparison to others, it was just me and myself. The rhythm got me in tune, feeling every corner in my fingers and toes that wouldn’t be influenced by outside forces. You don’t plan ahead. Be the force that will meet it. Music was a big part of creating a sense of that. Other times, I would break up the music with silence and listen and take in what was going on around me.”

“If you saw Irie at a meet, you know there’s a calm coolness about him. He was known by so many others because of his pre-race routine, especially the dancing,” recalled then Brandeis assistant coach Steve Flanagan. “While I don’t think he’ll be on Dancing With the Stars anytime soon, I think his pre-race dances showcased his ability to focus, drown out the noise around him, and hone in on his plan for the race.”

Another thing that stood out about Gourde was the way he ran with his fingers straight in the air. “Friends in my bachelor’s program saw photos of me running on the Brandeis website and said, ‘No one runs with their hands like that,’” he laughed. “It felt so normal. It was like Blade Runner because my hands are like blades. It all goes back to soccer. I felt like I was cutting through the air, through gusts of wind when my fingers were straight.” For him, it was simply how he had always run, training by running barefoot in the grass with his fingers straight. “It had a practical effect,” he added. “When my stride was right, my fingers were in a very specific spot in my peripheral vision. My fingertips reached a certain point that let me know I was running strong.”

Since Gourde always believed his senior year would be his last, he had a sense of urgency. “The urgency carried over since both years were my last year,” he reiterated. “The change was familiarity with my own internal process. I was able to turn fear into a functional state and was able to find that mental state more easily. I went through all those self-conscious, doubting moments my first year and established a framework of how to handle that and adapt.”

“At those times, his focus was completely on the race and nothing else,” remembered Wactor, who said that race time was the only time Gourde was in that mode. “Ninety-nine percent of the time, he was just Irie. He is happy-go-lucky and a very interesting person with some great stories.”

“While physically it took a year and a half for Irie to move from fringe-NCAA level to NCAA title contender, mentally it was always there,” Flanagan added. “I’m confident his attitude trickled down to his teammates and that will leave a lasting legacy on the program.”

UAA AND NCAA INDOOR CHAMPIONSHIPS

Gourde set his sights at breaking through with a victory at the UAA indoor championships at Case Western Reserve University after totaling four runner-up finishes at the indoor and outdoor championships the previous year. “When Irie came back for his fifth year, one of his biggest goals was a UAA title, despite having qualified for NCAAs as a senior and potentially being able to focus more on national-level goals,” Flanagan relayed.

“Being a senior walk-on was freeing. Doing my best was all there was,” Gourde articulated. “In the second year, there was a reputation and an expectation with a new pressure to do well that wasn’t there before.”

His first race of the indoor championship, the 400 meters, came with high expectations, especially after cruising to the top time in the preliminaries. “It was the first time I had a tangible moment of hesitation and I didn’t fight it fervently. I was feeling anxious from the five-race weekend the year before and the memory of it snuck into my mind.”

He led 350 of the 400 meters, only to lose at the tape to Malcolm Montilus of NYU. “I had pressure and assurances that I would win that race and my instincts kind of relaxed in the final moments,” Gourde revealed. “That was enough to disrupt the race. It was one of my most disappointing moments. I had no regrets at UAAs the first year because I ran the best I could. This 400 was not the best I could run and I knew everything from then on had to be my best, all expectations aside.”

“That was silver medal number five and it was a pretty crushing moment,” Flanagan described. “The 200 meters was maybe half an hour later. Watching Irie pick himself up, along with the help of teammates like Churchill Perry (who had won the UAA long jump title earlier in the day), was one of my favorite moments as a coach.”

“Every subtle conversation came to the feeling in one millisecond that made my legs and arms act differently for a moment and it had consequences. Ultimately, I think it was good that race happened,” Gourde explained. “When I was approaching the 200, my mindset was so simplified that I ran the best I could. This 200 was followed by one of my personal favorite races of the career, the 4×4 with Churchill Perry, Henry McDonald, and Patrick Quinlan. I was anchor and we managed to close a huge deficit and take third place while in the ‘slow’ heat. I have no doubt that my disappointment and refocusing from the 400 played a huge role in both the 200 and this final grueling 400 leg in the relay.”

Gourde had finally broken through. “Irie compartmentalized so well and locked in to “200 mode” he came away with his first UAA title,” Flanagan remarked.

“There was a weird space between relief and affirmation that came with winning that race,” Gourde further stated. “Some people thrive on competition, but that is not my personality. It confirmed that my best can be enough, can be first place. There was an emotional release with that.”

Gourde was named the UAA Most Outstanding Performer in Running Events after the indoor meet. “I was still grasping with that for a while,” he admitted. “To get that award made me see all the details of my challenges and success culminating. I focused on one weekend, one race at a time. I never looked at the entirety of the season all at once. It was very humbling. My best races were always done with my team on the field encouraging me.”

Irie was great at communicating with Steve (Flanagan) and he really knew his body,” stated Brandeis head track and field coach Sinead Delahunty Evans. “It was great to watch his improvement over two years and to see a student-athlete’s hard work pay off.”

He missed that team support when he went to the NCAA Division III Indoor Track and Field Championships. “NCAA indoors was so different because of the context of the meet. Very few competitors go and you are without the framework of the team,” he remarked. “UAAs has the greatest celebration of team because you have so much energy behind you. Nationals is the opposite in that regard.”

Once again, he opened with a hesitant 400 meters. “The level of competition around you is intimidating. I mostly washed out those emotions before a race, but it is more intense at nationals and there is a structural rigidness in the routine before a race,” recounted Gourde, who stood second after the first cut-in after the opening lap in his preliminary race. “My mind wasn’t quite tuned to make the hard run on the backside. I had trouble tapping into my head.”

Just as he did at the UAA championship, Gourde was able to refocus for the upcoming 200-meter race. “That disappointing finish (in the 400) took away thinking for the 200. It was time to just make it simpler again,” he recalled. “I was going to just run a single lap as quickly as possible. I wanted to turn past frustrations into a current lesson. Even failure can be beneficial, by making that negative experience worth it now by doing your best from that point on.” He finished eighth in the 200 to earn his first All-America honor.

UAA AND NCAA OUTDOOR CHAMPIONSHIPS

Gourde came to the his final UAA outdoor championship at Carnegie Mellon University ready to continue his success from winning the indoor 200-meter run. “The 400 prelim (outdoors) was a new moment of confidence for me. I had zero sense of what was on the clock, using previous lessons for what it felt like to retain form regardless of how tired I was,” he recollected. “My mental focus was particularly good. I felt in tune. To see the 47.77 without the sensation of struggling made me realize my best was somewhere past that.” He would go on to capture his first UAA 400-meter title the following day.

Then Gourde was trying to make it a UAA indoor and outdoor sweep in the 200 meters. “I had a very deliberate shift of gears for the 200. I did not reflect on winning the 400 title until later,” he explained. “I was in tune to the rhythm of the meet. I stayed in the zone. I didn’t really celebrate the 400 when it happened because my day was not done.” He ran a time of 22.32 seconds to edge Eddie Wintergalen of Washington University by .03 seconds for the title. The wins in the 200 and 400 earned Gourde the UAA Most Outstanding Running Event Performer, giving him a sweep of the award for the indoor and outdoor Association championships.

He continued on a roll, breaking Brandeis records again in the 200 and 400 events at the 2018 New England (NEICAAA) Championships at Dartmouth College. His time of 47.59 seconds in the preliminaries broke the mark of 47.77 seconds he shared with James Thomas, who ran the same time in 1978. He broke the record again in the final with a time of 47.46 seconds. There were two other events prior to NCAAs that stuck in his mind.

“Steve also indulged my personal request to attempt a 100-meter dash at some point. After I had qualified for nationals, I managed to run a 10.98 (seconds). Sub-11 was a pocket goal of mine,” he said. “Then there was an ambitious side project to try a new 4×100 roster. Churchill Perry, Regan Charie, Lorenzo Maddox, and I managed to break the school record at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (41.76 seconds at MIT’s Final Qualifier). The hand-off training was intense!”

Now it was time for Gourde’s final appearance of his career at the 2018 NCAA Division III Outdoor Track and Field Championships. “It was very nerve-wracking at first as I did not have a good history at nationals. I was a little intimidated by that and this really was my last collegiate meet,” he divulged. “There was a new set of fears and nerves to work through, but I had gotten better at handling that.”

His weekend did not start out on a high note as he false started in the 200 meters preliminary. “I didn’t launch out of the blocks early, but tilted and one of my feet shifted out of the blocks,” he described. “I wasn’t too fazed by it because part of me knew I could not afford to be fazed by it. There was a sliver of guilt, embarrassment, and regret, but there was no time or space to indulge those feelings. I just had to focus and carry on with whatever came next.

My race didn’t feel like a fast race,” Gourde remembered. “It’s harder to regain control in the 200. I finished, expecting to be out of the final and tried to come to terms with that as quickly as possible. I really wanted to prove I could compete in the 400 at nationals.”

Gourde secured the last qualifying time (22.15 seconds) by just .01. “Steve told me I qualified and it was beyond relief and changed the context for the weekend,” he expressed. “This was a chance to truly punctuate the season. Having such expectations wasn’t going to be useful. I just had to run my best races and have confidence in what my best can be.”

He watched one preliminary heat in the 400 and saw some strong times. “There was a moment of doubt, but it burned away quickly and didn’t stick like it used to. I decided that since I was invited, I am good enough to be in this race, and now it’s just time to see what happens,” Gourde recalled. “Then I zoned out again and got ready. The race felt a lot like the UAA prelims, running hard but controlled. When I hesitated briefly (at UAA and NCAA indoors in 2017), the counter thoughts and doubt won out. This time, I was focused on ‘this is your last fight, keep your fingers and eyes where they need to be.’”

There was no close call in this preliminary as Gourde posted the second-fastest time. “I didn’t even lean into the finish, I just went through it,” he recalled. “I felt it was a good race and I saw a 46 flash up on the board. I thought it was someone else’s name or a different race. The board was convoluted with so many moving displays, but I focused my eyes and saw that 46.9 next to my name. That was a huge moment for me to see that. It reaffirmed that expectations can hold you back more than carry you forward. Trust the process of doing your best. I would have been happy if that was my last race.” It marked the first time he ran in under 47 seconds and bettered his own Brandeis record.

He prepared to compete in the finals the following day, starting with the 400. “Thinking I could win a national championship was not something that worked for me. I ignored those distractions when I decompressed,” he expressed. “I came there to run as fast as I possibly could and that would have to be enough. My best option was to run my best, whatever place that put me in.”

He broke his own program record one more time in the 400 final with a time of 46.88 seconds to place third. In the span of just one year, Gourde lowered that record that stood for more than 40 years by 0.89 seconds. “I ran the race kind of like the prelims, but faster and more ambitiously. Coming out of the second turn, I was overtaking a few people, and there was a target fixation moment, but that didn’t come to pass,” he described. “A.J. (Digby) from Mount Union was going aggressively in the first lane (and eventually won). The race was hard. It felt like the one I ran at UAA outdoors the year before. I was truly exhausted at the end of it and I had no regrets for that race. All my doubts were erased. I knew that I did the best I could have done that day.”

He was on the outside (lane 10) for his career-ending race in the 200. “I had never seen a 10-lane track. I had no one to look at,” he laughed. “The race was like an epilogue. Whatever I had left would go there. It was time to do that time trial I had been putting off since preseason!”

Gourde fell behind early, but charged around the turn and into the straightaway to finish fifth in 21.54 seconds. “I ran as fast I could. I started getting tired, but realized it was the 200 and I knew I could push harder,” he recalled. “It was not my best race (he holds the program record of 21.41 seconds), but it was probably the best I could do at that time. It was a happy conclusion to the meet and the season.”

His third-place finish in the 200 was the best by a Brandeis male since 1999 when Geoff Getz placed second in the 800 meters. He joined 1991 graduate Greg Steelman (discus and shot put) as the only Brandeis men to earn two individual All-America honors in the same championship, and he left his mark as the first to do so in track.

“I took the noise and complications of nationals and turned it into something simple with my usual physical and mental routine,” Gourde said. “I made it more familiar.”

“Irie was a great teammate on and off the track. He led by example, worked hard, and trusted the training,” Evans said. “He is such an interesting and lovely person.”