Chase the Wind and Touch the Sky. Big Sur Marathon 2018 Recap

This is my race recap of the 2018 Big Sur International Marathon. It’s long because the journey was of epic proportions, just like the course.

Pre-race

I had an overall solid training cycle from December to April but it wasn’t without setbacks. The road wasn’t all the way smooth but it was my road and I owned it. I’ve travelled a long way in the 6 years since becoming a mother-runner. Some of the road weren’t paved. #motherrunner

Vacation with my husband ahead of the race was so good to me. We arrived in California on Tuesday, ahead of a Sunday race day. Enjoying ourselves as a couple and as people beyond parents were our top priorities. I didn’t focus on or obsess about the race. We simply relaxed, adventured, ate good food and enjoyed.

I did open up a copy of Canadian Running on the plane ride to San Francisco.

“Learning about running?” my husband asked.

“Yes.” I am excited about this rare chance to read a magazine in peace, cover to cover.

“Isn’t it a little late for that?” Cheeky husband.

I had a solid race plan from my Halifax Road Hammer Coach Lee. The plan was not attached to any specific time- it was how to get the best out of my body on that day. This would be my 10^th marathon. It would be special because of that alone and it would be on an amazing course.

The race plan included the warning, “Don’t get in over your head” on the 2.2 mile mountain of Hurricane Point. This is a smart warning from a coach who knows his athletes well. I sometimes over-confidently get in over my head. I get out there in a race and I start to run with the Big Boys because I truly believe I can. And then (often but not always) then they bury me. Case in point, starting the Moose Run with Matt Parker and Colin Miller. I do not actually belong with them. But in that moment, I let myself get in over my head. Case 2.0 in point- many long runs with Dave Martin. I know that I’m “training up” with Dave. Despite Dave consistently telling me to set the pace myself, I gas myself over and over in long runs with him. On the Big Sur road, I will be alone and I will not get in over my head.

Race Expo
I have this delightful moment at the race expo when I discover that my entry made it into the race magazine. This is a little something extra to boost the special-factor for #10. The little towns of Monterey and Carmel are hyped for the race and so am I.

My alarm is set for the ungodly hour of 2:45am on race morning because I need to leave the hotel at 3:30am to catch the bus to the start line at 3:45am. I pull my race clothes on with my anthem of “isn’t it wonderful to have the health to live these moments?”

I met new runner friend Victor from Mexico in the elevator the night before. His wife will drive us both to bus pick-up 2km away. It’s a loose arrangement at best and I lose a little sleep over it. It works out and I have a buddy for the bus ride and the wait in Athlete’s Village where we are deposited at 5am for the 6:45am race. A Canadian and a Mexican, happy together.

We watch dawn break over the mountains in Big Sur. Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion” plays over the loudspeaker and in the moment, it feels fitting. As I write these memories days later, this song foreshadows the emotional journey that lay ahead.

When it’s time to go, I stand on the start line proudly, 3 rows back from the line and parallel to the other women who have placed themselves up front. I am ready to see beautiful things and to get the best out of my body on this day, on this course.

The first 5 miles are significantly down hill, through Big Sur’s redwood forest where Greg and I have spent the last 3 days. I start as carefully and cautiously as I can. I let many people blow by me for the first 3km, including many women. I think about how I wouldn’t let all these women run by me in a shorter distance race but I need to let it happen today. A marathon is all about being patient and smart and I am very carefully being smart and patient.

At 3km, Jay from Freemont, California pulls up next to me and he makes a great new friend for many miles through the race. He is a beast. He was doing the Boston to Big Sur challenge: 2 marathons 13 day apart. AND he had run a marathon the day before. Like 24 hours ago. “It might not have been very smart,” he laughs. We ran CIM in the same 2016 running- he was 2:58:xx to my 3:03:00. He was both kind and entertaining.

I always set my Garmin on 5km auto-lap for a marathon so I am looking at average pace over 5km anytime I glance down at the watch. I don’t hear my 5km split beep because Jay and I are laughing but I’m pretty sure it’s in Coach Lee’s range of 4:18-4:22/km. Everything is so easy here. The forest is beautiful. The sky is brightening over the lush green mountains. I am being cautious.

At 7km, the course starts rolling. Around 8 or 9km we leave the protective redwood forest. There are mountains to our right. Meadows, ranches and ocean to our left. And wind everywhere. Just as the wind picks up, Jay and I come up on a tall guy and a girl tucked behind him. Jay orders me to tuck in there too. So I do. And we run like this for the next 2km or so. I’m not watching my Garmin, I know by feel that I am within range.

The feel of my pace range is short-lived. The course is so up and down that it’s hard to settle and feel any sense of effort with any kind of accuracy. I carry on. On a downhill, I tell Tall Guy that he is a great course addition in this wind and we laugh. I tell him that I would repay the favour but that it probably wouldn’t be very helpful.   I have a happy moment thinking of my Halifax Road Hammer guys at home and the longstanding overused joke that I should break the wind for all them guys.

We carry on like this, tucked behind Tall Guy for another 2km or so but I am growing worried about the how the effort feels at this early point. A peek at my watch shows that the numbers are right, around 4:23/km average, but the effort isn’t right. I want to ease up.  It’s terribly windy along the ocean and this pace group of 4 is helping with the wind. I let them go anyway. “Don’t get in over your head.” For a couple of kilometers, I watch the now-trio up a head and I battle the incredible wind by myself and I tell myself that it was the right call.

The hills grow taller but they also grow in beauty. Mountain road rises up from the sea. The sea touches the sky. I am alone. It’s windy. I am getting lonely in the wind. Am I going to run the rest of this race alone? I feel good though. I am running with the effort that I want to. I think of my mother. How she is patient and calm no matter what life is throwing at her and I try to run like that: patient and calm.

Around 13km, the course begins a steep 800m climb. I climb. I am ok. Halfway up the hill, I happily hear the chatting and footsteps of a group. Three guys come upon me:

“Here to scoop you up!” they say. I am elated. They are all tall. “Tuck in!” they say cheerfully.

These 3 guys are friends. One guy says he is going to pull back. I sympathize. But I am going to stay here.   I ask them where they are from and they say Idaho and I am delighted, “You’re my potato brothers, I am from PEI!” They laugh to and we run along merrily.

We run into great beauty: a mountain road hanging high over the ocean. The road turns into a switchback at the base of Hurricane Point. At a bend, we turn back on the ocean, which expands widely in front of us and we run towards it. We are up high, 76m above sea level. The ocean is my panorama.

“Wow” I breath.

“First time?” says Idaho One. “It’s the real deal.”

He tells us how long until we start climbing the mountain. It’s coming soon.

Much like Cape Smokey in the Cabot Trail Relay, we turn a switchback corner and the climb is upon. The road is a horseshoe, to look up and ahead, we would see the road rising up, up, up and the faster runners ascending it. I look at the ocean and the mountain and the incredibleness of where I am instead.

“I will rise,” I think to myself and I think of my training partner Tash who has also risen over running obstacles.

We run the upper part of the horseshoe, beginning a long mountain climb. I can hear the beat of the drums as we approach Japanese Taiko Drummers. This is one of my favorite moments. The steady beat of the drums enters my body. I look at the drummers’ broad, smiling faces and I smile so hard that my smile might float my body.

Now shit is getting real, we are running up the mountain. I love it. It’s very Cabot Trail Smokey Mountain like with the drums and with the way it is lined with marathon relay runners who have finished their leg and are cheering. I am a running rockstar, running up a mountain. At some point along here, I let the Idaho boys go. Their man-legs are stronger than mine on the mountain and I hear Lee’s coaching words in my head: “don’t get in over your head.” But also, more importantly, I decide that I want to experience this wondrous experience alone.

This marathon, #10, was my redemption race. The one that I made it back to after fighting pelvic floor injury for the better part of 2 years. I made it here, onto this mountain and I want to live this moment for myself, by myself.

Because it’s a switchback road, it’s hard to discern where the top is. You crest a section, “is this the top?” Nope, the road is still rising ahead. I run the mountain like a boss.   The up is unrelenting but I’m doing it.

I finally crest what I know is the top and I can see the iconic Bixby Canyon Bridge below, me, across the canyon.

I had envisioned this moment in many Big Sur dreams.

The moment is transcendent.

That transcendent moment flickers out swiftly as the road dives down hill fast and I am hit by hurricane winds. I’m only at 20km, according to the sign staring me in the face. Dear Mountainous WTF. A guy flies by me, his feet slapping the pavement, “I think I am running too fast!” he yells wildly. I agree.

I know that the half marathon-timing mat is below me, on the actual Bixby Canyon Bridge so that means I have 1.1km or so to run straight down this mountain. I gulp back my first burst of fear.

I tune in to effort. I know what effort marathon pace should feel like on the downhill. Lee said not to worry about a number on my watch, feel the effort instead. I find my pace and I run here. I haven’t looked at my watch since I let Jay and Tall Wind-Blocker go. I’m about to close out the first half of the race and I’m happy with how I have run it.

Bixby Canyon Bridge is before me. I think of Shauna and I smile. The bridge is flat. It’s the first flat terrain is what feels like 15km. In my first strides across the flat bridge, marathon pain crashes through me as surely as the waves are crashing the shore way, way 55 meters below.

I cross the timing mat and look at my watch and it says 1:36:xx and I feel panic. “I can not run for another 1:36. It’s not possible”

One of the most famous landmarks of this course is the grand piano on the bridge, played by a young pianist. Runners, mostly relay and 21-mile race runners, are crowding him, taking selfies. It’s supposed to be a lovely and magical race moment. “The hauntingly beautiful music” says the race description.
Instead of lovely and magical, I feel like he is playing funeral music for my race.

The last thing that my training partner Dave said to me the day before was “kill it” and I am well aware here that the next 22km are going to try to kill me.

Before I can stop myself, my panic-brain thinks about the four Boston Marathons I have run and Boston’s halfway timing mat after Wellesley College. I know that this is dangerous thinking but my mental control spirals away and jumps off the bridge.

I think about how fresh and wonderful and in control I feel when I reach Boston’s half point. I compare to how I feel now. Now I feel toast. I have just climbed an unrelenting 2.2 miles which is 3.5km up a flippin’ mountain. And half of the race is still stretching out before me. Everyone around me has been talking about how awful the Carmel Highlands are going to be from 35-40km.

In this moment, on this bridge, with this body, in front of the funeral-song playing pianist, I truly don’t know how I will reach the finish line.

The race camera is in my face. I smile but it’s fake.  At 21.1km, I feel like I should be at 36km. But that leaves 15km in there unaccounted for and the Marathon Bank would be requiring them. That’s the only way to get your medal.

So I run. I keep running. I look around me and the beauty is astonishing so I just keep looking at it. Rocky Canyon Creek Bridge is next and I am happy to live this moment, running across it.

But between 22km and 30km, I keep looking at the distance on my watch. It’s like the distance is standing still. I am seeing beautiful things but the distance is standing still. I feel like crying.

I gain some of my mental control back. It didn’t actually jump off Bixby Bridge, it was just standing perilously close to the cliff like too many dumb tourists do.

I feel so low but I pull myself back. I tell myself that this is all a choice. I can choose to hate this, to be overwhelmed by the pain of the long road ahead and the growing louder complaints coming from my body. Or I can choose to feel grateful for this kilometer and to feel grateful for this chance to be on this spectacular course.

I choose gratitude. But I have to choose it every single kilometer. I start to live a whole life in a half marathon.

My watch says 24km. I sincerely don’t know how I will possibly make it to the finish; I can’t even count how many kilometers are left. The number is too big.

I see an eagle. It’s beautiful. It’s a special omen between Tash and I and our beloved late coach Cliff Matthews. I cycle back to gratitude and I smile for the race camera.

My pelvic floor injury has taken a beating over the up and down of the mountains and it hurts.  I look at the sea below. I love the way that deep blue gives way to a shade of teal or turquoise where the sea meets the shore. It’s a shade that we never get on the East Coast. I marvel at this and I watch waves crash below and I can accept and run with the pelvic floor pain for a while longer.

We enter a section of forest where there is a brilliantly yellow soft wildflower blanket on both sides of the road. I want desperately to lie down on this soft floral bed and take a nap. I don’t want to run anymore.

I hear my mother’s gentle voice say, “That’s not a very good idea, honey.” And I keep running.

I think about the logistics of how a person would drop out of a race. How would you get back to the finish line area? But I know that I won’t drop out. I think about how I coach my Love Training More athletes to get the best out of their body on the day, on the course, and I know that I am doing that but it feels so very bad and the huge hills keep coming. I continue to see the vistas and feel gratitude for this chance to see them.

At 26km, there is woman standing on the side of the road with bagpipes. She’s preparing to play them. I think of my just-turned-6-year-old daughter who does Highland Dance and loves it so much. Just as I stride in front of her, she starts to play. I burst into tears. They are happy tears. I sob because I love my children so deeply and the love pours out in tears. Sweet Mother of Bagpiping Jesus, it’s hard to run when you are sobbing but I can’t quite figure out how to stop it. The title of this blog post comes from the bagpipe-infused song that my daughter’s winter session class danced their last dance to. It’s from Pixar’s film “Brave.”

“When the cold wind’s a-calling.

And the sky is clear and bright.

Misty mountains sing and beckon,

Lead me out into the light. 

I will ride, I will fly.

Chase the Wind and Touch the Sky.”

The emotion fades. I’m grateful for that punch of love, it was different than the despair over how far the finish line is. I will continue to run, to chase the wind and touch the sky on these mountain roads.

I fight back despair again as I look at my watch 3 times and it says 29.x km each time. I bring myself back. Be grateful for this kilometer. I haven’t looked at the pace in forever, there’s no point. I have no way to change the pace at which I am running. This is all there is.

I rifle through my mental folders. How has this happened? Was it because I haven’t been able to include hill training in my training since being diagnosed with a pelvic floor injury? Was my body not prepared? Was it my 9-day injury layoff? I didn’t go out too hard. I didn’t blow up or give up. It was just so tremendously hard. I land on the decision that I could no more race Big Sur at 4:18-4:22/km race pace than I could stand on the Cabot Trail in Cape Breton and run 42.2km at marathon race pace over those mountains and rolling roads.

Kilometers 30 to 35 disappear ever so slowly and I remember almost nothing of them except wanting so badly to see my husband at the finish line and knowing that the fastest way to get there was to run to it. I remember the mile 20 marker, depicting a man crashing into a wall. I think about the California International Marathon brick wall that you run through and how my suffering training partner Damian stated, “it wasn’t funny!” This mile flag isn’t funny either.

Along with the geographically high hills and deep valleys, these last 22km held high highs and deep lows for my emotions. The deep emotional downs are more than I have ever experienced in a race. The truth is, I have always sailed through my marathons. In this race, I got low but I always brought myself back. I told myself that a marathon is special no matter how you run it as long as you choose to make it special.

My memory kicks back in around 35km when the 3:20 Pace Team caught up to me. I was puzzled to see them. Without looking at my watch, I thought for sure that I was now was running beyond a 3:40 marathon time and that I wouldn’t even get a BQ. Not that my BQ would matter, I had retired from marathoning at about 25km.

This is a nice surprise. I can also see early miles friend Jay coming back to me. I cross the last of the timing mats somewhere around here and I think of my sisters (real and BFF) at home.

I don’t try to go with the 3:20 group but I keep contact. I have this sensation that my muscles are trying to peel themselves off my hipbones at the top of my quads. I run a few strides with Jay. He’s cooked from his marathon double header. He tells me to finish strong. I nod but I already know that just finishing is all the strong I have.

It starts to rain. The road is slippery. Or is it my shoes? The camber of the road is wild through the Carmel Highlands. It’s so slanted, I have never seen road like it. A spot of white pain in my shin starts to try to leave my leg. It’s heading for the nap in the flowers that I didn’t get to take.

The kilometers now make sense to me. 38km. 39km. I know that I will make it.   They are handing out strawberries at Mile 24 and I this I can’t make sense of.   How you would eat a strawberry at mile 24? It’s so much energy. There’s one last hill at 25 miles called “D-Minor Hill at D-Major Time.” The up isn’t so bad. The down after is excruciating.

I see my husband and I wave to him and I cross the line in 3:21:10 with emotions I can’t quite label. I have never fought so hard for 22km. I have never felt like I didn’t know if I would make it. I feel triumphant but a little bit traumatized at how hard it was. I collect my medal.

This was certainly the hardest I have every worked for a medal and it will be prized for that. All week, everyone in California said that the correction for this challenging marathon was +20 minutes and I balked and said, “Nope, not for me.” I said I was giving myself a 10-minute window. But on Bixby Bridge, at the half way marker, in front of the piano, I knew that everyone in California was right.

This was a lot to process. I received some wonderful messages that helped, especially from Shauna, Tash, David T, Jody C, Jer, Doreen. Thank you all. Lee was good and kind after, he’s a great coach, saying he’s proud of me for fighting the entire second half and not giving up.

At the end of a race, I sometimes circle around these questions: am I good enough? Am I fast enough? I’ve had some success at the marathon distance. What do I expect from myself? What’s my own measuring stick? I know with certainly that it’s me who decides. My opinion is the only one that counts. And yes, I am enough. I am good enough. I am fast enough. I am proud of this 3:21:10 race. I also have two small children at home and it’s my job to teach them that when you try your best, that is enough. I am walking (slowly and gingerly) away from Big Sur knowing that I am enough and with a huge collection of beautiful moments lived along with some tough, tough moments through which I persevered.

 

PS: How do I write these recap blogs? I piece them together over several days. I make little notes on my phone as the memories flood back and then I write them together and write around them. I look at my Strava data and the course descriptions. Don’t worry, I don’t narrate the race to myself as I run it.