One of my favorite races was last weekend on PEI: Freeze your Gizzard Half-Marathon in Montague. It was my fourth time running. This year, the weather was windy but mild so no gizzards were frozen.
A special thing happened to me at this race. A thing which may never happen again. I broke the female course record of 1:29:59 with a 1:28:15 performance.
Originally, I didn’t think that I would write an official race report as I actually have very little to write. I had this magical race day where I didn’t think about much else other than executing my coach’s thorough race plan and climbing into the pain box the last 5-6km.
I was lucky to run with PEI guy Cory Birch from 12km on which was awesome for both of us. I was chatting a bit with him and that was worth the few seconds it might have cost me. Though I had promised myself that I would have a chatter-free race, I can’t run next to someone new and rely on their help without some chatting! My sister held the spot of second place woman during the race. He told a funny story about racing his brother in a duathlon and carrying his bike the last 3 km to beat him. Luckily I didn’t have to carry anything on Sunday.
Back in the fall, when I agreed to coach my group of half marathon “Forever 21.1” women, my runner Gina told mutual friend David K that I was going to be her coach. She sent me a text saying, “I told David that you were going to be my coach and he said….” That was the end of the text preview on my iPhone’s screen. I try not to be on my phone when I’m with my kids and I put it away until the kids were in bed while wondering what David might have said.
When I opened the text later and it read:
“oh my god, she’s gonna show you how to crawl into the pain box.”
What followed from Gina was:
“I don’t know what this pain box is, but I do not like the sound of it, hahaha.”
So I laughed and shook my head. There were many things he could have said re my coaching and this was what he chose!
For this half marathon, I had thought carefully about my trip into the pain box. My coach Lee McCarron’s instructions were to get in and get familiar with the hurt before Boston Marathon, my goal race. So I did. The pain box was good to me. I was worried that I might fall over the last 2km- I was dizzy and low on fuel but was able to keep pushing. I was also able to successfully pushed back the “central governor” who was trying to sound alarm bells that this is “dangerous and too risky.” It was actually my most successful shutting-up of the central governor ever. I had new shoes on from my beloved Salam Hashem and he assured me that a special feature sole/forefoot feature on these 20th anniversary Asics DS Trainers would enhance gripping and help push the ground back on push off, giving me extra power, “These will be very good,” he said, “you will run fast and you will win.” For awhile, I was mentally imagining myself crushing the central governor into the ground using the rubber of the forefoot on each pushoff.
I had to idea what the clock was going to show when I got to the finish line as I hadn’t looked at my watch clearly since 10km. I had a brief thought of training buddy Jamie who is still riding me about missing my sub-39 10km by 10 seconds. Then I was so excited when I saw it said 1:28 and not 1:29.
While I certainly put the work in to make this day happen, I feel fortunate to have had this day. I feel fortunate to truly enjoy our sport. I feel fortunate to run with a coach that stresses enjoyment before results (though Lee’s training produces results).
In the month of February, I had 3 separate non-running people in my life gush about “how do you have the energy to do all this training and take care of your children and work full time, blah, blah, blah….”
Then we had this rather silly discussion among my roadrunners group about how many beers was acceptable at the Red Sox game the day before Boston Marathon. I briefly thought about the equation between beer and wasting all the sacrifices I have made this training cycle to be as fit as possible. Then I stopped and thought more. “Sacrifices.” Those aren’t even my words. They are words that I assume belong to the people who look at my life and make assumptions about my energy and assumptions about what I might be sacrificing to parent, work and train.
I do all four of these things: parenting, marriage, running and working full time. Each of them individually makes me better at the other three. I haven’t sacrificed anything. Rather, I’ve made room in my life for the things that I love to do. That’s a life well-lived.
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