Workin’ the Win for Barry: 2018 Freeze Your Gizzard Half Marathon

Sunday Feb. 25 was my 6th time racing PEI’s Freeze Your Gizzard Half Marathon– one of my consistent favorite races. This race was mostly centred around fun and silly: important ingredients to enjoying our sport of distance running over the long haul.

I went into this race with a wild deal and/or bet with “Hate Training Less” Barry (he has been calling my Love Training More coaching company that for months: ‘it’s the same thing!’), fueled by some holiday wine and runner partying.  Let me explain further.  Barry hates winter training.  Last winter, he did his long runs inside a parking garage.                       Sorry, I had to stop typing to laugh at that again.  You read correctly. Inside a parking garage.

So we are at our Love Training More holiday party in late November and I’m talking about my love for Freeze Your Gizzard Half Marathon and I must run it every year, etc.  Barry says he is intrigued.  Maybe winter running can’t be that bad if I am willingly participating in a race called Freeze Your Gizzard and have lived to tell about it year after year.  

Does it have finishers’ medals? He asks.

No, only winner medals.

I have won this race 3 or 4 times.  I hold the course record.

And thus a deal and bet is wine-fuellingly formed.  He will run Freeze Your Gizzard Half Marathon.   In the winter.   If I promise to win the race and give him my winning medal.  

And so begins 3 months of social media chirping.  And fun.  

It also hatches a wonderful plan for Barry.  He turns 60 years old in 2018 and he decides that he will run a half marathon a month for all 12 months of this epic birthday year.  The Gizzard medal becomes increasingly important to epic birthday year running mission.  

I will let the social posts summarize the last 3 months:

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So How am I going to pull this win off?

Preparation:

The first step to pulling this off is preparation.  The training is all there, I am mid-marathon training cycle for Big Sur Marathon (April 29).  I’ve been working hard. That’s a given.  But I will need more than that.

I use this old athlete’s adage: “You’re only as good as your opinion of yourself.”

I make sure that my opinion of myself is good!  I like to run confident. My Road Hammer teammate posted this Canadian Running article by another training teammate Graydon Snider called “Chess and Running, What Counts as Elite,”  in which he talks about how we could rank runners using chess’s system.  

Looking at this, I could rank myself using my 3:03:00 marathon PB as National Class and top 1%.  I don’t really care so much about how I rank.  I just want to run as fast as possible and get the best out of myself in the races that I care about.  This is a race that I care about.  So I add that to my race gear to bring to Freeze Your Gizzard.  

The second step in preparation is wanting it badly.  I want that medal badly for Barry.  I can’t have him with an incomplete 12 month set of medals. On Race Week Monday, after my 32km monster run and 95.5km week, I feel like I float up Purcell’s Cove Road hill and I know that I am in good shape and I feel ready.

I want to preserve my record badly. I own 2 records.  They are precious.  Records are made to be broken and that’s exciting and I will celebrate the women who take them down.  But I sure do want to hold onto them for one more year.

I think about the race enough. I think about the pain box and I feel willing to get all the way into it.  I read this brilliant Instagram post by elite runner Steph Rothstein: “the race always hurts. Expect it to hurt.  You don’t train so it doesn’t hurt.  You train so you can tolerate it.”  I tell Linda on the drive there that I am ready and willing to hurt for this medal.  

Race Day:

Race day brings colder than ideal temperatures.  It’s -7 at the start line.  It’s sunny and there’s not much wind but the windchill is forecast to be -12.  

I begin my race day plan to bring home this medal by standing confidently right on the start line.  

Gun. Go.

Eight Halifax Road Hammers are here for the hills, the suffer and the fun.  I tuck in behind Colin and Patrick to begin.  They take the start pretty relaxed so I’m happy here with them as it is sort off matching the pace that Coach Lee gave me.  Colin is chatting so I must chat too and I willingly break this race rule because it keeps me relaxed. Rules are general.  Racing success is individual.  I smile at my aunt Gemma. I am relaxed and happy and I want this.  

The first 7km of the race disappear easily with Colin and Patrick and I together. I do question if I should be with them but I’m confident and my image of myself is strong and I’m relaxed so I stay.  There’s a girl close behind us but we are putting distance on her.

We meet the first monster hill at about 7km and Colin and Patrick run away from me and this is ok.  

Now it’s on, it’s all on me.  I’m happy with how I run the hills.  I crest them with strength and power.   At the turnaround pylon at about 8.5km, I have a good lead on the next girl.

I come through the half at about 44:30. Actually it was mid 44 something. I no longer know, I am losing control of my faculties here. Ordeal with the water, I come to an almost standstill as I want 2 cups.  It’s ok, I take flight again down the hill and use gravity to recover.

Now I start to think about the course record.  It’s Erin vs the Course Record.  Coach Lee told me to stay engaged and I stay engaged.  I am pushing the record back with each stride.  Also, I gotta keep putting distance between myself and next girl. I am engaged.

So engaged that I don’t have much of a story for the rest of the race.  

At waterstop, which we were told was at the 5km mark, I look at my Garmin. I expect it to read 12km.  Of course that makes no sense.  It says 15.5km.  Elation.  But how did that happen?

Erin the runner asks the brain, “how am I am 15.5km? That’s pain box entrance?”  

The brain’s answer is: silence.

I don’t know what’s going on.  So I just keep running.  

I recall trying to think about what I should do.  I come up with this: be fearless.  Coach Erin tells her runners to do this in the last 5km of a race.  

“Brain!? Is 15.5km + 5km = 21.1km?”  

Silence.  

After the fact, this is how I know I’m getting the best out of myself- all problem solving ability evaporates. I might not actually even have a pain box. I have a confusion box.

So I run fearless.  It’s a little scary but I do it anyway. I am supposed to be engaged.  I am. I charge over the flat sections and into the uphills as hard as I can.  There’s an alarm going off saying, “too risky, it’s too fast! You’ll die on the uphill.”  I ignore it.  If I die, I die. Nothing bad happens.  I know I can get over the first kilometer long hill.  The last hill to the finish is 800m.  I rationalize that I will make it up that hill, even if I crawl.  After the fact, I suppose that is what fearless racing is.  You ignore the alarm bells.

I am still strong and powerful on the ups.  

Looking at Strava, my fastest kilometers of the day were 15 (3:57/km) and 20 (3:59/km), charging into the uphills.  

My course record was 1:28:00, set on an unseasonably warm 14 degree day in 2017.  

I look at my watch too many times over the last 2 km, trying to make sense of the numbers.  They don’t make any sense.

I cross the line at 1:28:07.  A few seconds off last year but a way better effort on a significantly colder day.  It’s a decent negative split.

Lots of emotions in working for this win.  Pride.  Happiness.  “Boom!”

I’m excited with my Hammer teammates and then I run back out on the course to scoop up Doreen and Barry- one of my favorite race day things to do if the athletes who I coach are on the course too. I can’t wait to tell them that I won Barry’s medal for him.

Then I add another new favorite thing to do on race day: handing off my winner’s medal to a deserving Barry recipient.

In a lovely surprise, he had a special medal made for me. Trade-sies.  

That’s a great day!  Fun, silly, pride, happiness. Here is a great race article written by Andrew Wagstaff of Maritime Runner.  Full half marathon race results can be found here.