Another Season Ends

The PEI Race Weekend’s 10km race yesterday brought my summer/fall racing season to a close. I’m returning to my long-neglected blog as I feel like I have some profound things to write after ending this season with time to think while driving 3.5 hours home with 2 sleeping kids in the backseat.

I had a really awesome race season. I didn’t reach any of my race goals.

I’ll state that again. My summer/fall 5 and 10km race season was really awesome for me.

I didn’t reach any of my race goals.

This must be one of the best things about our sport.

My race goals were to run a sub-40 minute 10km and a sub-19 minute 5km. My PBs stands at 40:10 and 19:09. Prior to this, in my spring 2015 season, I wanted to run a 3:10 marathon (not my first attempt) and also missed that goal with a 3:15 in Nashville.

I made this season and this year count in many other ways.

Sometimes a racing season is about doing what you love and being thankful that you can do it in the way that you want to.

I raced while healthy and fit at a handful of local 5 and 10 km races in PEI and NS. A few were with my sisters now that we all live in the same city and these were the best. I’ve enjoyed a few wins this season. When I line up, I’m leaving an 18 month old and a 3 year old at home. My execution in racing hasn’t been perfect but I have no business being disappointed over seconds anytime I toe the line and give it my best.

If it were easy, everyone would be doing it. And we wouldn’t do it in the same way. We wouldn’t spend 5-6 days a week, multiple loads of laundry, many household chores and childcare juggled and frequent early mornings/late evenings pounding the pavement, track and punishment loop at Point Pleasant Park (“Lee, can we run on the road instead of on this loop?” “No.”). All for the sake of 10-12 seconds. We wouldn’t close a season excited for the next. We wouldn’t celebrate our training partners’, our friends’, accomplishments like they were our own.

I’m on down-time now. I already can’t wait to begin the Boston 2016 training cycle.

Like many of us, I transitioned to a new training life after the death of our beloved Cliff Matthews in March 2015. I’ve grown to run with and enjoy the new-ish road running division of Halifast Athletics. This season I’ve loved training with Linda, Leah, Denise, Erin, Mike + Mike, Jamie, Ian, Clint, Nick, Josh, Kevin and company.  Under coach Lee McCarron, I shaved 40 seconds off my 10km PB. This season, I solidified my new running home.

I’ve lined up at many start lines with a Cliff’s or Halifast singlet on and appreciated the camaraderie, athleticism and support at the front. I believe that our sport is rare for this and we’re so lucky for this. My best race was a head-to-head race with fast Chloe, capitalizing on this amazing blend of camaraderie and athleticism.

This season, I watched the fifth runner in five years, Juliane Lacroix, run all the way across The Gambia while raising money to keep Gambian kids alive through the Nova Scotia-Gambia Association.  Juliane kept my Love4Gambia campaign alive: a feat that I never considered would be possible five years ago when I completed my run across the country.

This season, I was asked by one of my longest-time Halifax friends to become an online half marathon coach for herself and five other girls. An opportunity to spread my love for our sport.

On my drive home from Charlottetown yesterday, as this season closes, I found myself singing a tune by the wise (?) Mick Jagger

You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometime you find
You get what you need

I got what I needed this season.