This is a story about choosing joy over comparison, against the backdrop of a 5km race.
Sunday, July 7, 2019, was a stop on the Run Nova Scotia Series and Performance Series: Pictou’s Run for the Lobster. I was vacationing and cottaging with my mother and 2 kids in Pictou so planned to add this race to our cottage weekend. I ducked out to race. My children continued to attempt to reach their per-hour-quota of cannonballs in the cottage pool, under the watchful eye of Nana. They may not have even noticed my absence.
I opened my summer 5km season at the Blue Nose in June with a 19:45. I was happy with my race execution there, though I didn’t feel like the time was reflective of my ability. It was the start, the benchmark. I spent last summer chasing an elusive sub-19 and clocked the following times: 19:09, 19:42, 19:07 (on a course that I had as 5.06km and an average pace of 3:47/km, oh so close), 19:14.
So bringing on the Lobster and race #2 of summer 2019.
I have raced 5km all kinds of ways. I have done all laser focus and serious and race planned fiercely with splits and positive thoughts. I have done 5km with zero plans and fly by the seat of my shorty shorts. This one would be done peacefully with this: I am the best mother I can be, on summer vacation all summer long with my young children. I will run exactly as fast as this happy life of mine allows. I am enough. I have what it takes to meet my goals. I believe in myself. I am capable.
This is how I went into the race. I know this because I wrote these words to myself the night before. I didn’t have a time goal, rather the clock-related-goal was to simply run as fast as possible.
Race conditions were summer season ideal. After a heat wave of temperatures in the 30s, it had rained with thunder and lightning over night and the race time temp was 17, feels like 20. The sun was bright in a cloudless sky.
I met Donald after jogging my requisite 17-minute-Hashem warm up with Road Hammer pal Ian. Donald is a Love Training More runner who I coach. We agreed to work together, though as coach, I knew he was fitter than me. We’ve raced a number of races together and he always drops me. This is ok. I tell him as we do drills that I’m not going to watch my watch: maybe it’s limiting. During the Blue Nose, I clocked a 3:36 split and a 3:43 split. The 3:36 scared me. I didn’t need to be scared. I don’t want to be scared and limit myself today. Donald likes this.
We head to line up. There’s an amusing moment as the race director tries to shuffle two pretty young kids off the start line as this is a Performance Series Race and gun time matters for us. A feisty little girl will not leave. She’s maybe 10? I’ve just squeezed between my Road Hammer pals Ian and Graeme so that I’m on the line. She parks in front of me. I’m happy with this. I’m not going to mow down someone’s child and I admire her feisty attitude.
I don’t have much of a story to tell about the race and this is positive. I was all in.
1st km: split 3:48.50. Telling self: “fast and relaxed. Relax into it.” I don’t look at my watch, I run on effort. I don’t need the split when it rings and I don’t look.
2nd km: split 3:49.50. Telling self: “stay in it, stay on it” on repeat.
3rd km: split 3:44.56. I do see this split. Excitement. Happiness. “I am awesome!” I tell myself. I have a good one going and I’m pumped.
photo credit Cheryl P
4th km: split 3:57.56. Dammit! It’s not necessarily that I am no longer awesome. More so that the course is no longer awesome. “Don’t give up” on repeat.
“Don’t give up, don’t give up, don’t give up, don’t give up, don’t give up.”
A tall guy who I think is Craig Durling is ahead and I’m steadily closing the gap between us. I wish to not give up and to make it to him. It will help.
At some point here, not really sure where, Donald pulls up next to me and then passes me. I was so into simply giving myself cues that I had actually forgotten that he was there. That’s a win for me. I don’t always get to that mental place and I did.
Photo Cred Bob MacEachern 
Photo Credit Bob MacEachern
5th km: split 4:16. Ouch. There’s a lot of stuff going on in this km. The paved trail turns into crusher dust x 400m. There’s an out and back to a cone. Then there’s an uphill finish on loose gravel that’s indeterminable metres long.
In hindsight, my focus is shot as I’m paying attention to all of these things. Though I miss seeing Craig Durling, who is not Craig, at the turnaround. In hindsight, I did give up a little in this kilometer. The Turn Around Cone and I don’t have a happy history together. I’m not great at it, sometimes bleeding up to 8 seconds in a kilometer with a cone. That was how I approached the cone, resigned that I wasn’t going to get around it well or quickly.
I cross the line at 19:42.
Donald clocks 19:24, putting nearly 20 seconds on me and/or not loosing 20 seconds in the last kilometer.
It’s interesting how you can so easily turn inward and get blinded by comparison. Perhaps this is both the human mind’s default and also the lazy option. Perhaps we do it without noticing. It’s more mental effort to find a more positive thought that will serve you better. I have a lazy/default thought that 19:42 is not my potential. I don’t like this time.
I don’t stay here though. I know that this was my best effort on this day and I loved this race. I loved that moment in the third kilometer where I felt awesome and invincible and like I was killing it. Those are the moments we live for. I have to more forward, to hug Donald and we have to walk back down that snotty finish hill and cheer Love Training More’s PB machine Doreen home. We walk down the hill.
As we walk down the hill along the finish chute, a woman smiles at me and exclaims:
“You’re so fast!”
I smile too and I thank her for saying that and I feel a click in my mental hamster wheel. The comparison thoughts are gone. I am so fast. This thought serves me better. I feel light and happiness.
Then as the Coach, I watch Doreen grab her 3rd PB in as many races. Glorious. She is fierce.
Combing through Strava, I see a theme among my running friends. Most people were consistent over the first 3km. The 4th kilometer is pretty consistently +10 seconds for people. The 5th kilometer is pretty consistently +20-30 seconds. So similar to me. I sit pleased with my performance.
Driving home from Pictou, with my happy, played-out children in the backseat, I ponder the summer. As a runner, I can be better. But how much harder do I have to train to be better? As a parent who doesn’t work in the summer, I’m living the best life there is. I’ve promised myself that the month of July is all about summering with my children. I almost always run consistently 5 days per week but for July, there are no mileage goals. Am I losing some race fierceness with this? I don’t know. But I know that I choose a relaxed summer with my children every single time. Maybe am I resigning myself to less race fierceness? Or am I maximizing this season of life by finding joy in my racing no matter what.
This Pictou race included a lovely little bonus: cheers from one my favorite work friends, Cheryl. My kids and I had been at Cheryl’s cottage on Friday. She texted me on Saturday to say that she would be on the race course cheering as she had family members racing.
Cheryl and I know each other in a work world, not in my fast running world. So text her back and say that I will love to see her on the course but am apologizing in advance in case I am deep in my 5km pain box and don’t acknowledge her presence when I run by her. I tell her to know that I will value and love her cheers so much!
Later on Sunday afternoon, Cheryl sends me this wonderful text reading:
“We saw you as second female! You’re such a happy runner. Your face shows how much you love it. It was a joy to watch. You may have been hurting but you hide it well, friend. Congrats.”
I put the fierce vs comparison vs joy thoughts away. If that’s how people perceive my running and racing, I know that I am doing it right.
Up next in my summer season: PEI Race Under the Star 5km in August.
Finally, sending a special thanks for my mother. It was her who made my appearance at my last 2 start lines possible.
