Fredericton Marathon on Mother’s Day

This past weekend was the Fredericton Marathon as well as my second Mother’s Day as a mom.  I’ve been training for this half marathon since I was pregnant with my now 12 month old daughter.

I haven’t posted on here in almost a year. I’ve been doing a fair amount of writing for a project for my daughter but I haven’t found my way to this blog. Given that this site contain the details of my training during pregnancy, it feels natural that these words go here.

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Luck and good fortune were the most resounding themes of my Mother’s Day race weekend. I’m blessed to be my beautiful daughter’s mother. I’m lucky to have had the opportunity to travel to this race. Three of my favourite mamas and I piled into my hatchback on Saturday morning for a girls’ race weekend road trip. We left 11 kids behind with 4 wonderful husbands/dads. I’m lucky to have a partner who supports me 100% and is a terrific dad. I’m lucky to have these 3 girls in my life.

They say that your social life changes when you have a baby.  For me, this was true. I’m so fortunate that becoming a mother brought Shauna, Tonya and Sarah into my life in a closer way. We spent our maternity leaves together (well, Shauna’s youngest boys are 2 and she works part-time so it was like she was on maternity leave). How lucky that we spent time together with the kids and also ran together, encouraged other and supported each other.

I’m lucky to have running: to have an outlet that helps me balance myself so that I can be the best mom and wife possible. As race weekend loomed, I felt lucky to train with coach Cliff who maximizes the modest talent that I have for running.

Our communities are lucky to have events like Fredericton race weekend. To have an outlet that brings out the best of humanity for five+ hours on a Sunday morning. As a fellow racer said to Tonya during the race, while chatting about what a great day it was to race: “we are so lucky to be alive.” In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, we runners feel this profoundly. We are lucky to be alive to do what we love, surrounded by those we love.

I was lucky to toe the line of this race in the best shape of my life, ready to make a run at breaking the 1:30 half-marathon barrier: an ambitious goal set during pregnancy.

So here we are in Fredericton. Tonya and I are running the half marathon. Sarah’s doing the full. Shauna is racing the 10km.

We go out for wine and pasta on Saturday night. At the restaurant, we talk about our races, our strategies, how we are feeling. It’s our final mental preparation.

“Can you please run hard enough,” the girls ask me.

“I want to see you delirious at the finish line for once,” says Tonya.

I don’t know if I race hard enough. They say “no.” I set a PB of 19:09 at the Lung Run 5km in April and they said that I looked too good at the finish line. But Cliff told me to run 19:10 so I that’s what I did.

This time, Cliff told me to run 4:12-4:15/km which would bring me in sub-90 minutes. It’s an out-and-back course. He said to get to 10km and then to “go” (run hard until finish with less focus on splits). He said that if anything, he thought I would get to 16km and realized that I could have pushed harder.

My girls don’t want me to do this, get to 16km and realize I had too much left. I made a paceband for 4:12/km pace and we decide that I shouldn’t wear it lest I use it to restrain myself. I should just go for it.

Race morning is fun. We pin Tonya’s yellow daisies in our hair. We walk to the start line together. We warm up. Sarah starts first and we wish her well with our joke from a RW’s article about US running stars Kara Goucher and Shalane Flanagan. We tell Sarah what Kara and Shalane told each other at the Olympic Marathon: “Sarah, go and eff sh*t up!”

Tonya and I line up about 30 seconds before the gun. Then we are off. The start is calm and controlled and I hit my first km exactly where I want to be: 4:12. I know that fast Halifax runners Leah and Emily are up ahead along with another young girl and an older woman. I’m in 5^thplace.

I run easily and knock off the early kms at 4:12-4:14 with minimal effort and not much use of my Garmin. I’m exactly 21:00 at 5km and have overtaken both the young girl and the older woman to run in 3^rd place. I know that I won’t see the girls in 1^st and 2^nd. I enjoy the trail. I’m looking for 10km. I’m feeling slightly anxious about running recklessly after 10km.

I’m having a terrible time at the water stations. At the 3km station, I called for water but all of the volunteers on my side had Gatorade and the last volunteer didn’t give me the cup of Gatorade when I reached for it. No drink for Erin. At the 6km station, I’m already hungry and open my first gel. I eat most of it then reach for water and the volunteer drops it. I grab for another cup and this volunteer pushes it into my hand and it spills. I finally successfully grab a cup of water and there’s almost no water in it. Just one mouthful. I sort-off wash my gel down and keep trucking.

I hit 10km @ 42:10. This is good. But it’s not the turnaround like I think so I keep running controlled. For the last 5km, I’ve been passing marathoners who had a 10-minute head start.  The pack of marathoners is getting thicker as the trail gets narrower. Then the lead marathoners start running on my left back to the start. The space on trail gets halved. I see Sarah and I’m so excited! I feel ready for the turnaround and to start running hard back to the finish. I finally get a decent cup of water at the turnaround.

I continue to knock off splits between 4:12-4:15/km but it’s feeling hard to do this because the course is so busy. People are running 2 and 3 abreast, leaving me very little room to get around them with oncoming runner traffic to my left. I’m feeling mad and I don’t want to waste precious energy being mad. I see Tonya, yay! I realize that I forgot to look for the older woman in 4^th. For the last few kilometres, she and a young guy had been pulling up to me then backing off.

At kilometre 13, the older woman and young guy pull in front of me. I feel fine with this and tuck in behind them and just run. I’m running fast. I feel scared. I’ve never run fast like this before. The logical voice in my racer’s brain is beginning to become hypoxic and hypoglycaemic but is still logical enough to tell me not to be scared, to just run. So I do.

I’m hungry. I’m waiting for a water stop, where is it? I see a group of people up ahead and feel relief.  I can have my second gel now (I need water to wash it down). I rip it open with my teeth and greedily eat half of it. Yum. I get to the water stop and it’s not a water stop. It’s just a group of people. I get to the next kilometre marker and am confused when it reads 14 and not 15. I try to relax and stick with the old lady. The course is at least finally less congested and it’s just the 3 of us.

I think of Sarah. Sarah says she’s going to split through half at 1:40 so I have to catch her on the course before I finish in sub-1:30. I start to repeat, “Sarah” over and over again. This is good. Unlike the kilometre markers, “Sarah” is not confusing.

I reach the 15km marker but no water stop. I’m still tucked in behind the woman and her boy. I’m happy there’s only 5km to go, that’s one interval in a workout. But 15 + 5 doesn’t = 21.1. Sh*t. I can’t think of my daughter yet, it’s too early.  I’m starting to lose it every so slightly but I’m not thinking clearly enough to realize it.  My Garmin tells me that my split is 4:20.

There’s finally water at 16km and I finally get a decent cup of Gatorade in my hands and in my mouth. But the old lady pulls away from me here. I try to rally my faculties. What do I need to do? I need to run. Hard. Five to go.

There’s another water stop in less than 1 km and I almost barf. I think that this is ok, barfing means you’ve run hard enough. But I would prefer to save barfing for  the finish, thank you. I believe my goal is still fine so I run. But I haven’t had enough water or fuel and I’m wandering.

I wander to 18.5km and I don’t really know what I’m doing. I’m looking at the numbers on my watch but I can’t figure out what they mean and I decide it’s not important. But now, with 10 minutes to go, I allow myself to think of my daughter and run for her. I replace “Sarah” with her name and I run hard. It feels hard.

There are African drummers at kilometre 20 and I tell myself that they are just for me. I ran across an African country, I can sure as hell run this last kilometre hard for my baby. I run. I know I will see Shauna soon. There she is where you turn off the trail onto the finishing stretch.

She’s yelling at me to finish fast so I obey. I see the clock at 1:29:15 and I’m surprised that it’s so late. I have no concept of how far the finish line is from where I see it. I run as hard as I can. I cross the line at 1:29:54.

I did it with 5 seconds to spare. I had no idea that I was cutting it so close. Shauna attacks me with a hug. I feel happy. I feel scared that I almost blew it and didn’t even know.

I don’t dwell on this too long; we have Tonya and Sarah to cheer home.

As happens in a long race, I ran into a few variables were out of my control: the water stations and resultant lack of fuel and hydration as well as the congestion on the course.

We all went out there and did the best we could on this day.

The post-pregnancy fitness boom is real (more about that later. maybe).

The fitness boost from training with and supporting your girlfriends is real.

Happy Mother’s Day.

Race results here