“I am seeing in me now the things you swore you saw yourself”

Those of you who know me well, know that I love music. Music accompanies me on every day of my life and helps me express my emotions. I ran a 5K PB yesterday at Run 4 Reach, and one line from a Dashboard Confidential song comes to my mind when I think of the past week and the huge support that I received from my friends: “I am seeing in me now the things you swore you saw yourself”. They said it all along that I had it in me to overcome my struggles, and my friends were right, I now see it!

We all doubt our capacities to tackle life’s challenges sometimes. When my turn comes, once every 3-4 months, I usually turn to my friends for support. When my doubts are related to my running, I turn to my Running Mania friends. These guys have a way of making you realize how far you’ve come and how much potential you have. When I shut up the voice of my inner critic and listen to what the rest of the world thinks of me, I find my balance and strive to push past my limits.

After hours of back and forth posting about by self-doubts on Thursday, I went out and ran a sub-40min 5K. This was only the third time in my life that I achieved this, the first time in training, and I was very proud of myself. All of a sudden, I started wondering if it would be possible for me to PB at Run for Reach. I told JF: "I want a PB". My former PB was set at the Rattle me Bones 5K, in October 2006. That day, I had run a 0:38:23 PB. The other time I had run a sub-40min 5K was in August 2005 in Quebec City, and I had run about 0:38:38.

My friend Nancy and I have been planning to run together for many, many months now and never got around to it. Yesterday was the day. Nancy told me we'd run at my pace, and that she would stick with me until the end. Knowing that Nancy is faster than I am, I included her in my plan for a PB without telling her!

All Friday and Saturday, I blocked the negative thoughts from my mind and only let room for the positive stuff. PBs were allowed, PWs weren’t. On Sunday morning, I didn’t feel up to the challenge and a tiny little voice in me started telling me that a sub-40min would be good enough. I did everything I could to ignore this little voice and think harder of a possible PB.

After the Halfers and 10Kers were off, I had about 90 minutes to spend before waiting for JF at the finish line and then it would be time for me to go. I decided to go back home, to keep warm, eat breakfast, repeat my positive mantras and just remain positive and excited about the race. When I went back to the race course, it was raining and it was cold. I waited for JF to cross the finish line and PB, which he did by over 4 minutes!!! It was unbelievable how great he looked when he finished. He was so happy!

We started our own race and the first kilometre mark came fast: under 6 minutes! I really tried to slow us down a little, but I just couldn’t pace myself. We ended up running the first 10 minutes, and then 5 minutes here, 3 minutes there, depending on how I felt. We took walk breaks when I needed them, and Nancy followed me without complaining about my lack of pacing skills! ;-)

The 4^th kilometre was the toughest one and I had to dig deep to make myself run just a little longer than what I thought I could do. I repeated “I can, I can, I can” non-stop at the rhythm of my footsteps until we reached the 4K mark. Sometime after 4K, Nancy told me that no matter what happened, I was PBing today! This made me so excited that I started running way too fast, hoping to smash that PB! And I did, by over 1 minute. We finished 5.11K in 37:08.

The best things about yesterday were:

1) Nancy sticking with me and pushing me to run outside of my comfort zone (thank you so much!)
2) JF yelling PB, PB, PB as we approached the finish line
3) Maniacs lining the course and cheering for us - I felt like a hero!
4) A great meet n' greet at the Striders - thanks so much for inviting us!

When you have great friends who empower you to believe in yourself, PBs happen.

Thank you my dear friends!

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The picture was taken by a very talented photographer, who's also a Running Mania member. You can visit his company's website at www.zoomphoto.ca . Thanks Joe for the wonderful pictures!