This spring, as COVID sanitized another race season, the Halifax Road Hammers who I train with, set up a series of Time Trials. This weekend was one of them. It was scheduled to be a 10km time trial however with my injury lay off after the November Hammer Time Trial, I was ready for 5km and not 10km. So 5km it would be.
In the week leading up to the 5km, I took a good look at where I was athletically. I returned to workouts in January, 2021 and I have weeks of full workouts starting in February. I also ran a 3km Time Trial on March 7, which was a chance to lift the hood and see where I am. I felt like I was in a good spot. I hadn’t had enough training weeks to reclaim my full road speed but I was in a good spot with what I had.
So in prep for this 5km time trial, my focus was all on mental prep. I chatted with one of my favorite pump-up friends, Gerald Parris, a long-time Cliff’s Antique teammate/friend and my high school track coaching partner. I told him that I wasn’t in peak shape due to my injury lay off. So I gotta rely more on my mind and years of race experience than my fitness. I told him that I re-read Mamba Mentality, Kobe Bryant this week in prep and that I had lots of happy track memories ensue. This was my mental prep, as solid as fitness prep.
Mamba Mentality:
I have a special relationship with Kobe Bryant and Mamba Mentality. I have been coaching high school track and field for a long time, since 2009. Since 2016 with Gerald. In 2018, our Provincial Championships were in Sydney, NS. We had a big team going. Gerald and I drove a minivan of 16 year old boys on this road trip. We all stayed at the hotel together x 2 nights. It was a lot of teenage boy. It poured wild sideways rain for one full day of the two day meet. While the team was huddled under a dugout shelter, waiting out a delay after the rain knocked the electronic timing offline, our bored boys started assigning everyone on the team pro athlete personas. They thought long and hard when they got to me….. And then assigned me “Retired Kobe Bryant”.
Who wouldn’t love that?
origin of Mamba
When I need an extra mental edge, I pull up those track memories and I re-read the easy read of Mamba Mentality: How I Play by Kobe Bryant. It was what I used this week. What’s a basketball book got to do with road racing? A ton.
I’m not calling myself Kobe but I do see a lot of his Mamba Mentality in the athlete place that I have arrived at organically on my own as a Master Athlete.
In Mamba Mentality, Kobe talks about learning from Muhammed Ali that you have to work hard in the dark to shine in the light. That’s what Mamba Mentality means to me as a runner. It’s all of those 5am alarms where I don’t question or wonder if I am going to wake up and run. I wake up and run because I’m supposed to and because I know that that one hour easy run is what enables the whole training week to happen. Mamba Mentality is that last interval that burns so bad, when quitting would be easier, but you do it anyway because the workout was 8 intervals, not 7. It’s the time on my strength mat, with my resistance bands, doing the un-sexy and tedious isometric work that enables my powerful stride to maintain its symmetry. It’s the self-massage with a lacrosse ball while my husband relaxes on the sofa. It’s the core work. It’s the endless circle of squats, lunges and Romanian deadlifts.
In the week leading up to this 5km, I remind myself that I already have Mamba Mentality and it’s there for me to harness on the weekend.
I flipped through Kobe’s pages to find some competition fierce to pocket for time trial day. He talks about preparing to face some of his most fierce competitors and writes things like:
- “Go ahead and be physical but trust me, you’re going to back down before I do.”
- “It’s competition to see who wants it more and I’m not going to lose that type of battle.”
I step into this. I also am not going to back down first. I’m not going to lose the battle over who wants it more. In a time trial, my “competition” is both the previous versions of myself and the Evil Brain that screams at you from within to just. stop. running. It’s still competition.
Kobe Bryant also writes: “you had to love every last push, shove and elbow. Understand and embrace that mentality. Once you do, you are ready to win.”
This rings true to me. No one is pushing, shoving or elbowing me in a road race (maybe on the track but not on the road!). But what Kobe speaks about here is the same as embracing that deep, relentless, grinding race pain of the 5km event. You gotta love that you are fit enough, skilled enough and tough enough to go to that place and then lean into it a little deeper and with less fear than last time. It’s the same understanding and embracing of that mentality that Kobe is talking about and so says the Black Mamba, “once you do, you are ready to win.”
At our final Wednesday Hammer workout, I tell Kaili and Meghan the same thing. I’m not in peak fitness. So I will use my mind instead. They like this.
I go into the Time Trial ready to win.
I get into chatting with my teammates mid-week. I am a self-professed race diva. The weather for Saturday is looking unfavorable: wind and rain. My plan is to race tucked in behind Alan, Aaron and Allister. Luckily, Alan pulls his own diva card and moves the crew to Sunday’s more favourable fast conditions. Winning is for Sunday.
Most of the Road Hammers go for it on Saturday, including Will B, an early am partner of mine. He goes for it big with a blistering 16:44, a PB. I tell him to give me the play by play, to pump me up. The last thing he says to me on Saturday is: “Don’t be afraid to break [from the guys] early. You can hold on.”
I feed this external belief in my race skills to my Mamba Mentality, too.
Sunday morning comes and the conditions are as spring-ideal as they come in Halifax. The delay was a good choice.
I dress my race-self with 4 pieces of important race clothing. The race-rep helps me get into that race zone. I have those sought after and delicious pre-race nerves even though it’s a “made up race” per my little boy
layer 1, Love Training More Gear 
layer 2, Citadel Gear 
layer 3, Hammer Gear
Warm up with Alan and Aaron is chill and fun. The start line and turnaround points are debated and confirmed. Allister arrives. I have the pop that I want in my warm up drills. Erin + A-Team are ready.
Go.
It took a half a day for enough memories to trickle back in to write this recap.
1st KM: I have way too many thoughts in my head. This is partially a COVID-thing. Without a true start line and a sizable race field, rolling with 3 buddies in our Hammer territory simply feels like a workout. And thus, there are too many thoughts. I’m not narrating my race to myself which is something the (amateur) writer in me tries hard not to do. Instead, I have a stream of potential mantras firing through my consciousness, like my mental filing cabinet of mantras has erupted and I’m forced to read each one as it floats through my race brain. I’m trying to order myself to focus.
2nd KM: The first kilometer split beeps and that beep is what I need. The beep jolts me and I am able to finally narrow in on just one thought. I chose not to look at my watch, I don’t have to. The guys are checking splits and I feel right. That’s all the feedback I need.
The one single thought that I am using is “Do what you love.” The pack is Alan, Aaron, Allister, Erin. We are running tight together, 2 x 2. Allister and Alan in front. Tucked in a pack of fast guys, that’s one of my favorite places to be. It’s doing what I love. I recall thinking, “I am lucky to live this moment.”
I know that I won’t look at my 2nd split when it beeps. I’m aware of simply running the way you are supposed to in the 2nd kilometer, set to the comforting repetition of “do what you love.” I have feedback from the guys next to me. I trust them and know they are on pace and therefore so am I.
3rd KM: I feel like I should here in the 3rd kilometer and I press slightly. There’s gas available. I’m running out front now, a few steps ahead of the evenly paced 10km guys. Ever so faintly, in the back of my race brain, I feel Will’s words, “don’t be afraid to break.” I am doing it. I am running the lap I am in, waiting for the Garmin beep to tell me I am onto the next lap. I’m in it the way I should be.
Besides my equal final km, this is my fastest km @ 3:39.
4th KM: We are about to enter the Dockyard as the 4th kilometer begins. My arms are starting to burn with lactic acid. This is ok, it means I am racing the way I want. My repetition flips to “don’t give up. Don’t give up.” The Dockyard climbs every so perceptibly until the road actually turns into a hill. I have to turn somewhere here to rip through my last kilometer. Suddenly, the guys are a few steps ahead of me. I don’t even know when or where that I happened.
I look at my watch for the first time and average pace for this 4th km reads at 3:50/km. “Hell No” I say. I peel off and turn around.
5th KM: Closer. This is the brutal searing pain of all last race kilometers. I know that I harness my mental prep here. “Go to that place and lean in harder, with less fear.”
I do it.
“Mamba” is the word in my head. I look at my watch for distance, where is this going to end?? I’m at 700m. 300 to go.
I keep leaning in harder until that life-giving beep, beep, beep.
I stumble off the sidewalk and grab a tree, just off to the north of the Casino. I hang on the tree until the stars clear and I can see again. I don’t know yet where I landed.
I am deeply satisfied when I see 18:38 on the watch.
I figure it took me 2 seconds to hit stop. So it’s probably an 18:36.
This is a satisfying number on the clock. When I finally broke the 19 minute 5km barrier two years ago, it was with an 18:38.
This is 60+ seconds off my PB but it’s actually still my third fastest 5km performance.
The guys cruise powerfully by my tree and I am I yell at them. I collect myself and starting making my way quickly back to Marginal Road so that I can see them finishing their 10kms.
I am so impressed with them. Alan and Aaron said there were running 36:59 and they did exactly that. Allister had an amazing 10km debut with a 37:30. Wowza.
I am finishing this time trial experience with some more Mamba. I’m looking forward. This was a great stepping stone. I have more winning to do.
“It was never enough. I always wanted to be better, wanted more. I can’t really explain it other than I loved the game but had a very short memory.” Kobe Bryant, Mamba Mentality
Epilogue: I immensely enjoy this Strava comment by newly-10km-PB’ed Mary who we were lucky to have a flyby with:
