Former Canada National Team sprinter Dena Birade saw a lack of club sprinting in Washington as a problem and decided to take matters into her own hands.
Birade started Ready-Set-Go Sprinters in 2018 with her husband based out of Bellingham.
The club gives athletes in middle school and high school an option for year-round training in a sport that doesn’t get much exposure, Birade said.
“My son really started to get interested in track and wanted to pursue it as a sport and there was no option,” she said. “I was either going to have to drive to Seattle or we were going to start our own club and just do a program here. We decided to start the club.”
Getting Ready-Set-Go up and going was difficult. Birade said she didn’t have Instagram or much other social media to get the word out there.
Facilities and having places to train and compete were never the issue, the hardest part was finding the interest, Birade said.
“We have an out-building here that’s our gym and we knew we had parks and tracks and trails,” she said. “We really needed to find the kids and at first it was very, very small.”
To start, the program had three kids, two of which were friends of Birade’s son.
The club has been growing ever since. Year by year, more kids found out about Ready-Set-Go by word of mouth and social media.
Squalicum senior Josh Bates is one of the few that have been there from the very start.
Besides the obvious improvements Bates has seen in his running times, he said Birade’s coaching has gone far beyond making him faster.
“RSG is not just a club for developing speed and prowess on the track. I mean, we are very good at that, but our coaches have done a really good job of developing us as people,” Bates said. “I feel my personal characteristics, my work ethic, my leadership to others and just the ability to push myself harder than I ever thought I could have improved so much in that time.”
Ready-Set-Go usually starts training in September and competes in the indoor track season from December through February.
Birade said a lot of travel is typically involved.
“Washington state is a little bit isolated for track, both indoor and outdoor,” she said. “We have to travel. We went to New York, Chicago and Spokane for indoor meets, but we usually do a lot of meets across the border for indoor, too.”
After the indoor season, high schoolers compete for their schools until June. Following that, they jump right back in with Ready-Set-Go.
The focus at that point is the Junior Olympics and other national competitions.
Birade said that’s really what the goal was in starting the club — raising the level of sprinting and hurdling in Whatcom County and Washington state.
“They’re hitting levels now where they can compete at these high-level meets and make national teams,” Birade said. “The best of the best are in Texas, they’re in California, they’re in Florida. If we can compete with that we have to be training full time, and I wanted that opportunity for these guys.”
One of those athletes shining on the national stage is Squalicum junior Andre Korbmacher, the nation’s top high school 60-meter hurdler. He set his time at the New Balance National Indoors meet in March in 7.70 seconds.
Korbmacher also recently beat the nation’s No. 1 ranked 110-meter hurdler at the April 9 Arcadia Invitational in California with a 13.84-second personal record in the event. The time also tied the Washington state all-time record in the event set by Steilacoom’s Daniel Zmuda in 2013.
Other local high schoolers who train with Ready-Set-Go are Squalicum’s Tegan Daughters and Hazel Gleckman, Bellingham’s Sofia Calabretta, and Sehome’s Jake Andrews, Jayda Darroch, Mason Hill and Carter Birade.
Knowing where the club started and seeing where it’s at now is rewarding, especially for the athletes that are performing on bigger stages, but Dena Birade said she’s also just as proud of the kids who are improving in the smallest of ways.
“Our focus is always on progression, performance and execution, rather than winning,” Dena Birade said. “Winning will come if you focus on the process.”
Sprinters with Ready-Set-Go will wrap up their high school track seasons May 26-28 with the state competition and immediately start preparing for the Nike Outdoor Nationals from June 17-19 in Eugene, Oregon.
