The 112th edition of the Dartmouth Natal Day Road Races were this Monday, August 6, 2018 on our Nova Scotia civic Natal Day Holiday. It’s my favourite way to spend the holiday Monday and once again, the 6 mile was part of Run Nova Scotia’s Performance Series.
Instead of a typical race recap, this is a collection of a few of the things that helped me on race day. Like many of my blog posts, this one was born out of a dialogue with a Love Training More athlete who I coach about how they could improve their mental fierceness on race day. I will add this to my “Fierce Files” volumes. This is volume 3.
7 things that help:
1.Pre-race attitude. Before the race, I had some doubts. I spent Natal Day weekend as per our family tradition in Cheticamp, NS, with my extended married family and enjoyed watching 13 cousins play with each other. When my mind wandered to the race, I felt like my “fierce-meter” was low after several July races (Highland Games, Cox & Palmer, Windsor) in the books already. But then I circled back to loving the event and just loving running in general. My children would be staying in Cape Breton with their grandparents. So I chose to just focus on doing this event because I enjoy spending the morning running the streets of Dartmouth. Three times.
2. Good makes more good. Like many, I follow handful of inspiring women runners on Instagram. A few weeks ago, Shalane Flanagan had a post with the following saying, “When you focus on the good, the good gets better.” I added this to my attitude as well. Going into Antigonish Highland Games, I raced so much better when I was focused on the things that I was doing rather than the things that I was not doing.
The last training week had overall not been good. My long run was super hot and had taken place on Monday afternoon instead of in it’s rightful spot of Saturday morning. Wednesday mile repeats buried me. Thursday and Friday felt bad. But I focused on what was good. It was a full training week. I enjoyed my training partners. There would be more to enjoy on race day.
3. Line up in the way that works for you. I don’t line up with a serious or fierce game face. That’s not me. I am light and cheery. I had some jokes. I lined up next to Maura. We made jokes. I proclaimed to all of the fast women that I was about to run the best and smartest first km they had ever seen: “Best first km, right here, Erin Poirier.” By this I meant slow and controlled. Goal 4:00/km. This is after blowing my first Windsor 5km km at 3:40. There were laughs. Maybe some “stop talking!” I don’t know? fyi I can’t. But laughs. Maura said her plan was to stick behind me. I said, “well, my plan is to stick behind you! How will we do that!?” Laughs: we will be stuck on top of each other. The gun goes and Maura and I nail the first km together with a bonus: 4:03.
4. Maura. I’m adding Maura to the list. She is a friend, my physiotherapist (Bluenose Physio) when I use physio, my Halifax Road Hammer teammate and my competitor. On my end, I’m #bettertogether with her. Maura says we keep each other in it. We ran the race together. Sometimes I led. Sometimes she pulled me. We were stride for stride for much of the race, two mother runners battling it out. If I ran faster, so did she. If she ran faster, so did I.
We said only 2 things to each other over 6 miles: “first km perfect” when my 4:03 rang in. And she said, “This feels amazing” at mile 1 and I mentally agreed, loving that this was a 10km effort where you hold something back vs the all-balls-out of a 5km.
I lost contact with her once at 5 miles but I got it back with a few quick steps because I needed to be with her. After a valiant silent team effort to catch 6th place Chloe, we finished 2 seconds apart in a duel to the finish line. Sure, we both wanted to get there first. She got there first.
There was lots written about the “Shalane Flanagan Effect” after her epic win at the 2017 New York City Marathon, becoming the first American woman in 40 years to do so. Namely by the “Shalane Effect,” we mean women lifting each other up instead of tearing each other down and helping each other be their best while helping ourselves be our own best too.
5. “No watch me.” I know this race well and I know how to race. I looked at my watch at 1km and that was it. It was ringing 1km splits but I didn’t need them. I know when to push and when to hold. On a 2 loop course, you always know where you are in terms of kilometers into the race. Sometimes when I look at my watch during a race and see a slower than expected pace, it jacks my perceived effort. That’s not h
elpful. So instead I went with how I knew I wanted my body to feel.
6. Keep calm and carry on (aka recover the bad spots): No runner gets through a performance race feeling wonderful about their running or body with rainbows and butterflies. It’s just not possible. Actually, if this doesn’t happen, you probably didn’t run to your full potential. You will hit a spot where it feels bad and your brain is going to scream at you that it’s doesn’t like this running and please either stop or back off the pace.
My first moment of pain was early, at about 2.5 miles, coming around Sullivan’s Pond. The hill up Ochterloney was great. The Pond was suck. I told myself this is normal. This is ok. I don’t need to stop running and I don’t need to back off the pace. I just need to get through it. I started repeated “get through it” or some similar mantra. I’m not even sure now what the words were. I hung on to Maura. I quizzically asked myself if I was going to feel like this for the whole race? It took about 800m to get through it. Then I felt in-racing control again. I felt the same awful around the Pond on the third lap. I was calm. I carried on. Again, I recovered
7. Finish line attitude: I crossed the line at 39:43 (full results here). That’s 4:00/km pace on my Garmin. We all ran variable distances on account of weaving around 2 milers and the slower 6 mile runners. I look at this as “I got the best out of my body on this day.”
We didn’t catch Chloe in 6th place.
In 2016, I ran this race in 38:04, good for 3rd place on the podium. But that was 2 years ago’s version of me. Today’s race, with the summer training I’ve put in, was getting the best out of myself. There are seasons for everything and this summer season has been about enjoying the amazing gift of not working and being home with my children and loving each day together. It hasn’t been a season for training hard. Like today, for example, I skipped Road Hammer workout because my kids are I were so happy adventuring and watersliding at Victoria Park Pool in Truro.
Natal Day Race posted on social media about how it was such a competitive race with 32 men and 8 women going under 40 minutes. I was proud to be one of those women.
And now the lesson that I am still working on:
That last kilometer. In any distance race, this is the hardest kilometer. When I’m breaking down my races, I have some other sections in my head and I just get to the last kilometer and it is it’s standalone beast that I will of course get through because it’s just one simply kilometer, right? I know that my last kilometer always feels like painful slow motion. This is normal. I can embrace this. I still have work to do, namely in not going negative. In this race, as per usual, it felt like pain-soaked slow motion. My pal Dave had done the 2 mile race and was on cooldown and running alongside us. I was doing it but I was telling myself that it was “so bad, I am doing so bad” because I was trying to catch Chloe (rival) and hold Maura (my girl) off and I wasn’t achieving either.
After the fact, looking through my watch and splits, I wasn’t doing bad at all, I was crushing it. My overall 6 mile pace was 4:00/km and my last km was 3:51/km. I could have better served myself by telling myself “you are fierce and this feels like it is supposed to.”
So that’s a wrap. As usual, it was an amazing race experience put on by Dave Nevitt and crew. Many, many thanks for another wonderful instalment of Natal Day competition and running and community. I was wonderful to regroup as Team Love Training More and Team Road Hammers at the finish line. Thanks to Atlantic Chip Timing for the being there and to Stan Sarty for the finish line emcee kindness as I ran through. And thanks to Tim at East Coast Photos from the great photos.
One Response
Always inspiring Erin!!