Positive Results by Sabrina

The Every Woman’s Marathon experience was exciting beyond my wild dreams. From beginning to end, it was an experience that reminds me how tightly running winds as a string throughout our lives. The lessons, triumphs and joys that we experience through running are metaphors for those that we experience throughout our lives, and vice versa. The EWM adventure was a lesson in humility, strength, accepting my blessings and leaning into a privilege I’ve never felt before.

Accepting Support

Heading off to Savanah, Ga for the race, I started to realize that this was the first time in my life that I can say I felt true privilege. The original invitation and idea to participate in this race was not my own. It was the blessing of a friend who believed in me more than I knew, that put this race on my radar in April. The actual verbiage of her offer is private. Let’s just say, she made me an offer I could not refuse and hope to be able to pay forward some day. Her belief helped me gather the courage to start training and to ask Coach Matt to create a training plan for me. Her belief and continued support reminded me of how life changing it is to have a strong inner circle. I faced this race with the physical support of three amazing friends. Leveraging the blessings of my Coaches of Color Initiative Apprenticeship, I trained and prepared for the race with the support of four amazing coaches. I never expected to have so many amazing cheerleaders in my corner. I trained with the goal of making myself proud but also being worthy of all of the support I received.

One of the best advantages I had in this race was my amazing coaching support. I am not what most consider an elite athlete and I never intended to be. This was my very first time training with a plan written specifically for me and written by Matt Fitzgerald. He took into account my time limitations and training constraints and wrote a plan that would fit into my life. Tackling some runs with the stroller, others solo and still others with friends was priceless. I had amazing support for so many of my runs and knew that every mile I was able to cross off would be an investment in race day and beyond. For better or worse, I had faith in myself knowing that if I could complete the majority of the plan Matt wrote for me, I could cross the start and finish lines of the Every Woman’s Marathon with my head held high. Preparation is the key to showing up for most things in life, right? Throughout this process, Coach Matt also helped me redefine what elite meant and reevaluate my capabilities and goals!

Coach Angelina Ramos scheduled time with me in the days before we traveled to Savannah, to help me plan out my fueling strategy but also my mental preparedness. Her timing cues were priceless. Throughout my training block, I experimented with options taught to me by Sports Nutritionists like Abby Chan and Coach Melissa, and found the options that fueled my body and kept me feeling strong while running and after. Although Coach Irina and I had practiced my fueling strategies on my last two long runs, Coach Angelina’s tying everything to minutes on the clock was the perfect ‘reflex’ for me to use on race day. I am a numbers geek and looking down at my watch as we neared the :15 and :45 minute marks was a seamless reminder to make sure I was taking in fuel or hydration regularly. Coach Angelina also encouraged me to mentally rehearse the race, considering the good and the bad that could happen. She gave me more strategies to combat the heat and humidity, knowing it had defeated me at that San Jose Half Marathon earlier in the year. Over the next few days, I considered the race scenarios that I had experienced personally as well as situations that I had heard about. While conscious, I visualized these experiences and how I would react to them. While sleeping, I had more than one nightmare about situations that might derail my plans, such as showing up without any shoes and completely sleeping through the race. (Luckily, I was traveling with friends. I knew that sleeping through it was a very slim fear, but it was a fear none the less.)

Coach B also scheduled a check in with me before we left town. We talked through many of the fears that I was addressing after my talk with Angelina. We talked about honoring my training and honoring my support system. He allowed me to speak more of my fears out loud, namely my concern about asking Coach Irina to stay by my side for such a long race when her normal marathon time is far shorter than mine. It may feel a little like cheating, when you’re discussing your friends with their Coach, but to me it was an amazing blessing that I do not take for granted. Coach B is our Coach, Mentor and also our friend. He’s transversed more miles than most people could even imagine. I’m sure that the fears that I shared with him were old hat. Nothing I had to share was new and he has more wisdom, guidance and support than I could have even imagined. The blessing of a Mentor and confidant in life is valuable beyond measure.

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