There comes a point in nearly every race where you are faced with a choice: hold the pace or suffer a little more. For me, that moment in Saturday’s race up Mt. Washington came in mile six. The first big gust hit me about halfway through that mile. It made my tight-fitting singlet flap like a flag in the wind. The only thing visible: the 20 feet of road in front of my own feet. I was completely alone, in the fog with my own effort and my own thoughts.

When I first ran this race in 2016, the mountain handed me a brutal a$$-kicking. It was humbling to say the least. I finished 86th among the women that day. But as brutal as it was, I was determined to get better at this thing that had beaten me up. I wanted to conquer the mountain--to not let it beat me. I returned the next year and did a little better, finishing 47th women. The following year was a breakthrough for me as I finally tapped into the necessary training thanks to my coach and seasoned Mt. Washington Road Race veteran, Kim Nedeau. I took 14 min off my previous time and finished 20th. In 2019 I struggled with cramping around mile 4, my calves and adductors seized up. I’d started too fast and got my hydration all wrong that day.

The thing about Mt. Washington is that you will never conquer it, in fact the only way to have a good race there is to respect the mountain: give it some love and it might just love you back. Maybe.

Training

My build for this year’s race was “perfect” according to my coach. We started in February, progressing the incline workouts. Each month I’d run a time trial mile at 12% and each month I’d knock off 10-20 seconds. In the end, my final time trial was 93 seconds faster than my first-time trial. In addition to all the incline training, I added more volume with my ElliptiGO, averaging 4 hours of riding (or the equivalent of about 30 miles of running) to each week, with a few super weeks thrown in (I hit 100-mile week in late May). I also lifted heavier than I ever have thanks to the strength plan my husband put together, single-leg deadlifts and squats were the name of the gains game.

Goals

My training indicated that a PR (my previous PR was 1:31:49) was well within reach. I thought on a good day I’d be able to average between 11:30 and 11:45 min per mile, that’s where all my incline workouts had been and I felt comfortable and confident at that pace. My stretch goal: crack the top ten. My miracle, post-it note goal: win the Crossan Cup. The Crossan Cup is awarded to the first male and female finishers from New Hampshire. That might sound outlandish to some because frankly, I’d have to be in way better shape to contend with some of the amazing New Hampshire female runners who have won the Cup in the past, but it is a goal of mine. The thing about these miracle goals is that they give you something to aim at and I’m perfectly comfortable plugging away at a goal that might never happen, it's the pursuit that’s fun. It may not happen next year or the year after that or ever, but so have so many of the other “post-it note” goals I’ve ever written.

You never know, so why not give yourself the benefit of a doubt. Sure it can be disappointing, but it can also make the pursuit more interesting.

Mental Prep

When I think about the race, quite honestly I am most proud of my mental preparation. Sure I put in a lot of physical work, but the real heavy lifting was in my mind. Ten days before the race I received an email letting me know that I was in the elite field. My initial thought: surely there is some mistake. I looked at the other names on the list and thought that there must be a mistake. I slipped into this feeling of not belonging, the self-doubt of not being enough.

I wanted the opportunity, but I also was scared of it. What if I went out too fast? What if I didn’t run a race deserving of that designation? My mind was a swirl of doubt, until I started to reframe my thinking.

I’d received a card that week and on that card was a Japanese proverb that said: The day you decide to do it is your lucky day. I thought about this idea of choosing to be lucky. How so many times in my athletic experience I’ve done well because of luck yes, but all the decisions leading up to those pivotal moments of luck: those were my choices. How was I going to get lucky, give myself a shot at my miracle goal if I made the choice not to be in the mix?

I thought of Brené Brown’s take on choosing to be in the arena and decided that I’d accept the invitation to the elite field, I would decide to do it and it might just be my lucky day.

Nutrition and Hydration: a different approach

About three weeks out from the race I downloaded the WILD.AI app a new period and performance tracking app for women designed with Dr. Stacy Sims. I was a little concerned that the race would be falling right at the beginning of the luteal phase, notorious for impacting hydration and the ability to perform in hot and humid weather.

I used the app to guide my pre-race hydration and nutrition and I think it made a huge difference. I have a pretty tried and true pre-race meal: one egg on whole-grain toast with peanut butter and espresso. According to the apps recommendations (which were specific to my height, weight, duration and intensity of activity and the phase of my cycle) I upped the protein by adding an extra egg white, added more carbs with an additional half piece of toast and drank 16 oz. of Nuun Endurance formula all about 2 hours before the race start. I think I nailed it. I felt great the entire race, no cramping like I had in 2019, and very little need for fluid along the course.

Start to Mile 4

When we lined up I felt ready and I really did believe that I belonged. Standing in the women’s only field was thrilling. There’s something special about an all-women’s race and it was so special to be a part of that--it will likely never happen again.

My goal was to be the last woman in the elite pack for mile 1. I wanted to take the start super easy, I’ve gone out too hard in past years and it always hurts me. I’ve also learned through training that my body responds to a “ramp-up” approach: I get the most out of myself physiologically when I start slow and squeeze down the pace or in the case of incline running ramp-up the effort. I executed my first mile well, chatting with a couple of other runners while I ran and keeping it super chill. At that point, I took off my watch and tucked it into my belt. I didn’t need it, I didn’t want to see it. My best race up Mt. Washington was watchless, I ran completely by feel and got the most out of myself doing that.

During a race, I don’t draw a lot of motivation from paces. There have been a few occasions where I’ve glanced down and what I’ve seen has spurred me on to run faster, but I can count those occasions with two fingers. For the most part, glancing at my watch typically leads to a defeated and disappointed feeling. I wish I had remembered this truth at mile seven.

I started to pull away into mile two, passed another runner as we approached mile three, and settled into what felt like a strong rhythm. The miles seemed to be going by quickly. I passed the halfway point in 40 minutes flat, feeling good. When I passed the 4000ft elevation marker, the wind picked up and the cloud cover thickened.

Mile 5 & Mantras

The dirt section is always tough and it felt tough this year too. More so than in 2018 when there was a tailwind, which made the 13%+ grade feel less daunting. I could see runners up ahead, but they disappeared quickly into the thickening fog. I was maybe two minutes back. Could I close the gap? I fought hard up the dirt section, picking a spot in the distance through the fog and running to it. Mentally I was in it, focused and sharp.

The whole week leading up to the race I’d been mentally preparing, and in the process finding meaning and inspiration in nature. It sounds so cheesy, but I think there’s something significant in the ancient and modern archetypes we’ve formulated around things we encounter in the natural world. Our stories and traditions give these things meaning, like the oak tree as a symbol of strength, the rainbow as a symbol of hope, the deer a symbol of mindfulness or the butterfly one of renewal and change.

These visual metaphors can be quite helpful when you’re racing, it gives you something outside of yourself to focus on. And so while racing up Mt. Washington I latched on to two of these symbols in particular: the deer and the oak. I’ve long thought of the deer as my inner critic, the voice of doubt. You can’t control when a deer appears in your path--I see them often while running and riding and I stop, observe them observing me and then watch them bound into the woods. I think our doubt is the same: it appears, stays for an indeterminate period of time and then leaves, sometimes catching us by surprise. The image of the deer reminds me to be an observer of my doubt, to not get too caught up in it, to not chase it, but to let it go. That’s what I did on Saturday when things got hard and a negative thought popped in: it’s just a deer, I’d think.

Last week a friend of mine educated me on the Oak Gall-- a phenomenon that happens on the leaf of an oak tree. Apparently small Oak Gall Wasps deposit their eggs into the veins of an oak leaf and the leaf grows around the wasps egg as a result. The wasps borrow resources from the oak, but do not damage it. The oak is strong enough to handle the discomfort, it adapts and keeps on being an oak. I liked this idea of being strong enough to handle discomfort, suffering even. I think often we feel like we might not hold up under the weight of unexpected difficulty, life changes, things that come in and borrow our resources and make demands of us. But we are all far stronger and more resilient than we think.

Mile 6-7

Things got hard as I turned out of the dirt section, there was about a half a mile protected from the westerly wind before I turned completely into the headwind. The gusts were intense. I’ve been on the mountain when it has been like this before, it pummels you, whips your hair and every inch of loose clothing like a rag doll. It’s hard for everyone, I told myself.

The clouds thickened, limited my vision to the 30 feet of road in front of me. I had some recollection of this section of the road, but it had been two years since I’d last run it. The turns felt unfamiliar in the fog. I told myself: You are the oak, Sarah.

The weather is a factor on this mountain--it always is and it is one you cannot control. Your only choice is to bear it and not fight it. The only way to do well is to believe that the mountain, the wind, the clouds, the universe is conspiring for you, not against you.

The Mile 6 marker came and went; they had been confusing that day. It seemed like every marker was off by a ¼ of a mile or more. So at mile seven, you really had an entire mile to go not just .6.

As I approached the mile 7 marker I started thinking about my watch. I wanted to know how close to my goal I was, how much the wind was causing me to slow. I thought, mistakenly, that if I saw the time it might motivate me to run faster, to push harder. If I just knew where I was. The problem with this reasoning is that it is based on the faulty premise that I can do math while I’m running, which if you’ve been around my running journey long enough you know that this is not true. At all.

I unzipped my pouch to grab my watch and fumble around trying to grab it, I kept grabbing my gel packet and not the watch. As I fumbled I thought: this is going to cost you. These are seconds and effort you could be putting towards running. The watch isn’t going to help you anyway.

I wish I had listened to that voice. That was my gut talking and my gut is always right. Instead I listened to my doubt: But I need to know where I’m at, it will help me.

I finally got my watch out, zipped up my pouch and strapped the watch to my wrist. I’d just passed the mile 7 marker in 1:23, but my watch showed I was at 6.82 (or something like that). Whatever the watch was telling me wasn’t helping.

And so here’s the major lesson: I extract the best effort from myself when I am in the effort. When I put my watch back on I took myself out of the effort and likely cost myself a few seconds in the process. Seconds, that after seeing my finish time, I wish I had back.

With the watch back on I regained focus, got back into my body, back into my mind and back into the effort. There was still work to do. Get there.

Mile 7 to the Finish

Going into the race I had two mantras:

Lucky enough to suffer.

Strong enough to bear the suffering.

Just after the Mile 7 marker, I came up against a choice: keep the pace and finish or dig a little deeper and choose to suffer a little more for the goal I wanted. The fog was disorienting. I couldn’t see the buildings at the summit, I couldn’t see the final approach. I couldn’t see anything. At one point, I felt dizzy, disoriented. I focused back on the road in front of me. Suffer well. Suffer well. Suffer well.

I decided to try to gett more out of myself. I decided to see how much I could suffer and so I pushed a little harder. [This conversation between Mario Fraioli and Lauren Hurley touches on this exact kind of choice. I listened to it last week and it inspired me.]

In the final straightaway before the turn up The Wall (the final few meters of the race which are 22%). I could hear The Cog and the finish and started to make out the fuzzy figures of spectators. Up, up through the parking lots, up the wall. Someone screamed my name and told me to dig deep (Thank you, Jen!). And I did, gasping, clawing, running, moving as fast as I could up The Wall and finally across the finish line.

The clock in my finish picture reads 1:30:58, but my official time was 1:31:01 (damn, f*cking watch, I’d like to have those three seconds). It was a 48 second PR and was good enough for 13th place. A lot of people have said it wasn’t a PR kind of day, that the times were slow this year because of the conditions. That makes me feel good, but also, when does the mountain ever dish up perfect weather? Never. So I’ll take my PR, but I’m hungry for a bigger one.

I like myself better when I race without a watch.

After having the goal of cracking the top 20 for the past six years, I finally did it. And to me that feels pretty amazing. The woman who ran it six years ago and finished 86th would be so crazy proud of the opportunity for an elite start and 13th place. I am crazy proud.

86th

47th

24th

20th

13th

?

I’m already looking forward to next year.

-Sarah

PS If you were on my email list you would have gotten my BEAR story. Because there was a bear story to tell that factored into this whole thing. Not on the list?. Get on it HERE.

2021 Mt. Washington Auto Road Race Recap: lucky enough to suffer