This next part of my SeaWheeze journey is the part that I regret and wish that I could change more than anything. I would keep all of the bumps and hiccups along the way, if only I could change this one interaction.

While I battled against the feeling that I couldn’t breathe and sheer panic, I continued power-walking along, crossing the Burrard Bridge, which was very cool, but I was in no shape to appreciate it at all. I knew that I was getting close to the 10km mark, and was absolutely frantic to get to Matt and my family, thinking that somehow they might be able to help me turn around the hot mess express that I was currently the captain of.

As I got to the other side of the bridge, I think it was Austin that I saw before anyone else, bopping up and down and waving his arms in the air. As I got a little closer, I could see the rest of the gang, and I saw Kyle break free from the pack and his little legs sprinting towards me. The boys were so excited to see me.

I hate this part of my race story. I just hate it. But the truth is that I was in such bad shape physically and mentally that I don’t think that I even smiled at my boys. I’ve seen a video of our interaction at the end of the bridge, and I do put out my hand and wave at them, and I do call out “I love you”, but I may as well be a talking corpse. There is no emotion in my face or body at all, I don’t even look happy to see them. And I hate myself for it, truly. If I could change anything about my race, it wouldn’t be the bathroom stop, the panic attack, my pace or any of it. I would have changed that one minute at the end of the Burrard Bridge. I would have just forced myself to fake it, for just one minute, even 30 seconds, to give them the big positive reaction that they had been waiting for all morning.

But sadly, I can’t change it.

As I passed the boys, I looked up at Matt and my parents. Matt was smiling and said “you’re doing a great job”, and I shook my head at him and said “I’m in trouble”. He shook his head and said “no you’re not, just keep going”. I looked at my mom and for some reason, I asked her if she had any water. I still had some water in my water bottle, but I was getting low, and I guess sub-consciously thought that that might help? She dropped her backpack right on the ground and dove headfirst into it, and came out with a carton box of water (when in Vancouver….? lol). I fumbled with unscrewing the lid of my bottle and she poured the water into it for me. While she poured the water, I was still gasping for breath and I said something to her about things not going well.

My mom came up with the best advice of the day (this story is going to get positive again SOON, promise!). She looked up at me with concern and said “you’re running too fast, Sara. You’ve got to slow down, just slow down, take it easy.”

While that seems like pretty simple, obvious advice, it really sunk in for me, and I kept her words in my mind as I said goodbye to them and carried on (at a walking pace). I had a LONG drink of water, took a big deep breath, and could feel the panic attack subsiding a little bit. Between 10km and 11km, I haphazardly ran / walked with absolutely zero rhyme or reason, just running for short stretches at a time, VERY slowly, and then slowing up even further to walk when I started to feel fatigue creeping in. It wasn’t pretty, but it was making progress, and my running app alerted me in my ears that my kilometre pace between 10 and 11km was right on 9-minutes even, which is crazy slow, but by my math, would have me finishing the race suitably under the cut-off time, which gave me some hope.

ALRIIIIIGHHHT – enough of the serious-Suzie talk, are we ready for this story to turn around here?!

If 8.5km was a turning point in my race for the negative, things turned around for the positive for me at about 11.5km, when I passed through the aid station.

As I passed through the aid station, there were tons of Lululemon people cheering for us, several of them cheered for me by name (because it was printed on my bib), and I started to feel the positive energy coming back into me. But that wasn’t what turned my race around.

The aid stations were set up so that the first half of the station was offering cups of water, and the second half was offering electrolytes as we passed through. I hadn’t been taking anything from the aid stations up until this point, because I had had my water with me. But as I progressed through the second half of that 11.5km aid station, a very pretty Asian girl with long shiny black hair looked right at me, pointed her finger and said “YOU look like a girl that could use some electrolytes!” and thrust a paper cup at me.

Without thinking too much, I took the cup and tossed it back like a Tequila shot circa 2008 (IYKYK). It didn’t taste good at all, like cold salt water with the faintest tinge of orange. But the exact second that that drink hit my body, it was like the elixir of life and I knew that I was going to be okay. It felt like a fog had lifted, like I could see and hear more clearly. I was desperate for more, and greedily lunged for two more paper cups from the next volunteers and immediately drank both of those cups too, and then even grabbed one more from the very last volunteer as I left the station.

Those electrolytes felt SO SO SO good, I can’t even begin to describe it. The most important change that I felt as soon as I had them on board was that I felt my brain come back online from it’s temporary short-circuit. As I left the 11.5km aid station, I took a huge breath, gave my head a shake, and thought to myself, “Okay. Let’s get ourseleves back on track here.”

Rather than continue the haphazard, sloppy run / walk that I had done for the last couple of kilometres, I decided on the fly that I would walk about 2/3 of each kilometre, and run the first 1/3 at a pretty decent pace to try and net out to a slow jog pace. I tried this out starting at 12km, and ran at a really good pace for the first 350 metres, and then power-walked the rest of the kilometre. It felt a little conservative, and like maybe I could have run more, but I decided to err on the side of caution, and keep rolling with that plan, because it felt pretty good.

After about 2 kilometres like this, my running app alerted me that I was holding steady at pretty much exactly 9-minute kilometres even, and I think I actually said out loud to myself “okay, this is working”.

L-O-S-E-R.

Thank the Lord that with this new strategy in hand, I was able to relax a little bit and enjoy a little bit of the rest of the race. Oh my goodness, it’s a gorgeous course. Kilometres 12 – 20 of the SeaWheeze course take you right out of the Vancouver downtown core, out around the perimeter of Stanley Park, and down to the sea wall. And I’m so happy to report that I truly enjoyed this part of the race. The views were absolutely nothing short of spectacular, I held firm to my run / walk strategy, and the kilometres just started to tick by.

There were lots of fun cheer stations around the sea wall: people out on stand up paddle boards in the bay cheering us on, I ran past a group that were dressed as mermaids sitting on a big pile of rocks and waving at us, Saje had a station set up and was misting aromatherapy out onto the course, it was all pretty cool!

I took 3-4 cups of electrolytes at every aid station, and everyone felt even better than the last one did. It is so obvious to me now that I was pretty severely dehydrated from the first 11km and was in desperate need of some salt. I really thought that water would be enough, but it turns out that it just wasn’t. I’m so so so grateful to that girl at the 11km aid station who identified this for me – without a doubt, she saved my race.

Somewhere around 14 or 15km, I started to feel the troublesome arches of my feet acting up, and I knew that I was developing a blister, but I could tell that they weren’t too bad, and I wasn’t too worried, given where I was on the course. I knew that we were nearing the end, and at this point, a couple of blisters weren’t going to stop me!

As we meandered our way around Stanley Park, my neon pink friends and I were constantly trading off passing each other. They were still having a blast, and at this point of the race, I was in a much better state of mind (and body) as well, and so at one point, I came up behind them and said something like, “Hey Pink Team, can I hang with you?!”, and they were all so great and cheered and high-fived me. I told them that I had been stalking them for the whole race, and they all laughed and one guy said, “No, WE’VE been stalking YOU for the whole race!”. They were lots of fun, I admired their super chill energy and how much fun they were having.

I didn’t stay with my pink friends for long, I was a woman on a mission and was absolutely steadfast in my plan to continue to the finish line. I was repeatedly doing the 9 minute kilometre math and trying to configure a way that would get me to the finish line under 3 hours from when I started. It wasn’t completely out there, but I figured unless I started running again at less than 8-minute kilometre pace (like I had for my first 8km), it wasn’t going to happen. I was disappointed, and also just a bit embarrassed overall by the fact that I was walking such a high percentage of the last half of the race, but I just resolutely tried to put that out of my mind and keep powering on. I must have looked r-i-d-i-c-u-l-o-u-s power walking along, I felt like I was 75 or something, but knew that what I was doing was working well for me, and so onwards we marched.

As each kilometre ticked by, I knew that I was almost there, and I was so tempted to try to run more of each kilometre, but I swear the universe put a warning out to me just before the 18km marker, when I saw a reasonably fit guy kneeling on the ground, surrounded by medical staff, VIOLENTLY vomiting over the side of the sea wall. Aside from being horrible, it was also a totally sobering reminder that it didn’t matter how close you were to the end, your race could still be over at any minute. I made a conscious choice to stick to my plan and not to push it too hard, for risk of giving it all away this close to the end.

I knew that we were really getting close as we finished the Stanley Park portion of the race and started to make our way back into the downtown core. We started to see other people walking the opposite way as us with medals around their necks, and one of the runners near me yelled out to one of them “Show us what we’re running for!”, and the guy walking down the road held up a gorgeous turqoise-y blue medal for us to see with a big smile, and yelled back, “Go get yours!”.

We crossed the 20km marker, and I decided that I was going to run the last 600 metres to the finish line. Just as I started running the final stretch, I saw Matt and the boys on the right hand side of the road. Matt had the biggest smile ever on his face and was frantically waving his one arm, his phone in his other hand, and it looked like Austin and Carter were right in the middle of a big fight with each other, which made me shake my head lol good to know that some things never change….

The big energy of the finish line was getting closer and closer, I could feel it. I knew that I had made a good decision to play it conservative with my run / walk strategy because the more that I ran, the worse that I was feeling, and I was glad that I hadn’t pushed it earlier in the race. There was nothing to save it for now, this was it.

The arches of my feet were stinging terribly at this point, I knew that I had developed bad blisters (again), but didn’t care about that and just powered on. Very shortly after I saw Matt and the boys, the corrals returned back on the sides of the street and it was a straight funnel down to the finish line. The whole adventure, the whole day, all of it ran through my mind in that final 30 seconds. I knew that I had it, knew that nothing was going to take it from me at this point, and I could feel the emotion building up in my chest. This time, it was all positive.

I didn’t plan to do anything crazy when I crossed the finish line, but for some reason I aggressively threw my hands up in the air like a fool, and the race photographers captured this picture haha… such a dork…

As I crossed the line, it was like there was no more liquid in my eyes (lol) and I kind of heaved a few times with emotion. A medical guy came running over to me and asked if I was okay, and I couldn’t really say anything except choke out one word:

“Happy”

He gave me a pat on the shoulder and said “well done, go get your medal”, and I wandered a little further down the chute until I came to the medal hander-outers (lol). An older man with an accent of some sort put my medal around my neck and I was absolutely shocked at how heavy it was. I was so tired at this point that the weight of the medal physically brought my head forward! I saw my mom and Kyle (who looked a bit exasperated by the whole thing and was wearing very funny looking noise canceling headphones over his ears), and then as I progressed further down the chute, I saw my dad, Matt and the other two boys had all come together on the other side of the barrier. I gave them all big hugs over the fence, and then kept walking down the chute to get my finishers hat (lol) and some box full of food that they were giving away for breakfast.

Before I exited the chutes, I came across my neon pink crew that I had been passing back and forth all day! They saw me before I saw them, and yelled out “HAYYYYYY” haha, and I gave them all high-fives and thanked them for carrying me along for a little bit, I had really appreciated their energy out on the course!

My legs were fried at this point, and I absolutely did not want to walk anymore, but I made my way out of the chute finally, and met up with my family outside of the fenced off area. I was so happy to get to them, and the boys were excited to see the medal! Thankfully our hotel was so close to the start / finish areas, and it was less than a 5 minute walk back to the hotel. We meandered through the crowd, in through the lobby, and then I very nearly threw up in the elevator on the way up to our room (lol). Nearly every floor’s button had been pressed, and after a few floors I said out loud to Matt “I think I’m going to be sick”, and all of the other people in the elevator were totally horrified and quickly backed themselves into the opposite corner as far away from me as possible LOL I don’t blame them!

From there on, it was full celebration mode. My arches were shredded, as I had expected, but other then that, I was really no worse for wear. I had the best shower ever, and then we went down for lunch in the restaurant off of the hotel lobby, soaked in the hot tub for a while and tried to remain horizontal as much as possible (lol). My feet were pretty sore and I was finding it hard to walk wearing any kind of shoe, so was a bit ginger getting to dinner downtown at the Cactus Club (another restaurant that I’ve been to with work many times!), but by the next morning, things were feeling a lot better already.

My official chip-time for the SeaWheeze half marathon was 3 hours, 17 minutes. My family and friends have all been very quick to jump to my defense and say that since I had waited in a line for the washroom for over 20 minutes, technically, I did achieve my goal of sub-3. I’m choosing not to look at it that way, for a number of reasons.

The most important reason, is that it was never about the number. 3:17 is crazy slow. Over an hour slower than the last half marathon that I ran. But, this race was not about speed, or PBs or anything of the sort. It was very simply about proving to myself that a little piece of the person that I was before 2017 is still in here. That I can be a person that finishes what she starts. That doesn’t give up on anything when the going gets tough. Least of all herself. I achieved that in Vancouver, so I’m happy.

The other reason (and this is the far less emotional, and more practical one), is that Matt’s dad was 100% right, I went out way too fast. The pace that I was running for the first 8km would have had me finishing well under 2:55, closer to 2:50, which would have been totally awesome, but was never going to happen. So, when I take a really hard look in the mirror, the washroom situation might have actually been the universe having my back a little bit. Forcing me to break rhythm and stop, and then when sheer stupidity took over, dropping a panic attack on my head to FORCE me to slow the fuck down.

Woo-woo? Maybe. But I don’t know, it’s just how I’m looking at it. I really feel like if the washroom stop hadn’t happened the way that it did, and I had just kept steaming along the course running under 8-minute kilometres, that there was a very real possibility that I would have crashed and burned, and not finished the race at all.

We’ll never know. And that’s the beauty of it all.

I’ll take my 3:17, and I’m proud of it. I have a benchmark for any future races that I might want to do, and I learned a LOT about myself, my new fitness level and what my new body is capable of out on the SeaWheeze course. Next race, I’ll be just a little bit smarter. But not too smart. I’ve always believed that distance racing is as much about heart as it is about brains.

I had the best Sunday in Vancouver with my family after the race, we drove up the Highway to Whistler (a drive that I did many times when I worked out here), and took the Peak 2 Peak gondola ride across Blackcomb to Whistler Mountain, and it was just unbelievable. I can’t remember the last time that I felt so alive as I did that day up on the mountains.

We flew home on Monday, and I completely was in disbelief at the change in my mental state from Thursday evening when I had left Toronto to Monday afternoon flying home. I felt so much more at peace.

There aren’t enough words for how grateful I am that I had the opportunity to run SeaWheeze this year. It feels like this landed in my lap at just the exact right moment, and I am forever so thankful.

Until the next one… 🙂

-Sara xo

I slept like hot garbage the night before the race, but no surprise there. Has anyone ever slept well the night before any race that they were running?

As I replay those first early morning moments in my mind, I really honestly don’t remember feeling nervous at all. I was certainly in high gear getting myself organized, showering, sorting myself all out and doing all the things, but for the life of me, I don’t recall being “nervous”.

My mom was totally mystified by me wanting to shower and straighten my hair before the race, but I did both things anyways (lol). I literally CHOKED down half of a bagel with jam, I had absolutely less than zero desire to eat anything at all, and I remember each bite going down like gravel, as if my body was physically rejecting every bit of it. I think I only got a little less than half of it down before I threw in the towel.

Matt, the boys and my Dad were still sleeping, and weren’t going to wake up for a little while longer, but my mom was planning to come down to the start corrals with me. I had repeatedly told her that she didn’t need to do that and that I would be fine on my own, but I have to admit, I was glad for the company in the morning, and for someone to chatter away a mile a minute to.

With my final band-aids applied to the arches of my feet, we were out the door and down to the start corrals. The street was JAMMED, and it was here I learned that just shy of 9,700 people were running this race.

And we were 1/6 people that were lucky enough to be selected. The Lulu power is strong.

It was an absolutely beautiful morning, cool and overcast, absolutely perfect conditions for running. There had been some concerns about the air quality leading up to the race because of the forest fires burning South of us in the Okanagan, but thankfully the wind had blown the right away, and air quality was a non-issue for the day of the race.

My mom took a few pictures of me, and then after a few minutes left me near the entrance to the corrals to head back up to the hotel room. Shortly after my mom left me, I got a text from my Dad saying that the boys were out on the balcony looking down at the corrals! I turned around and started jumping up and down and waving my arms like a crazy person, and saw the boys waving back from up on our balcony!! That was such a really special moment for me, I was absolutely elated to see them up there and probably jumped up and down waving for at least a full minute 🙂

As we were milling around, the pace bunny team arrived and I remember a big muscular Black guy yelling out:

“WAVE 4 HAS ENTERED THE CHAT, WAVE 4 HAS ENTERED THE CHAT”

They made me laugh a lot and I instantly eyed up the 3:00 pace bunny, because it was my goal to finish in under 3 hours. When it was finally time for Wave 4 (the last wave!) to enter the corrals, I did start to feel the nervous energy settling in. I somehow found myself close to the 2:55 pace bunny, and I latched onto her and another woman who was chatting with her. It seemed that they knew each other, and I later learned that they were both from Pennsylvania and ran in the same running club.

Although I had high hopes of staying with the 2:55 group, as they were talking about times and splits, I started to feel more and more nervous. I replay this moment as a bit of an error in my overall race plan, and in hindsight, I think it would have been wiser for me to start (and stay) with the 3:00 group throughout the race. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. I chatted a little bit with the pace bunny and the other woman, and learned that the pace bunny was actually just over 20 weeks pregnant with her first baby! I truly had no idea, her stomach looked flat and hard as a rock to me, so I was truly shocked, and also totally impressed that she was pacing a half marathon at this point, but hey, some people just put the rest of us to shame LOL

As Waves 1, 2 and 3 slowly got on their way, I started to feel more and more nervous. I’m a bit embarrassed to admit this, but I was truly concerned that if things didn’t go according to plan that I was in real jeopardy of not finishing the race under the 3:30 cutoff time. Lululemon had sent out an email a couple of days before the race that had been extremely clear, and also extremely firm that there were very strict cut-off times and checkpoints along the way, and if you reached a checkpoint on the course too late, that there would be buses waiting to take you off the course and back to the finish line. The email made my blood run cold, and I was really concerned, even though the vast majority of my races had been well under the cutoff pace.

A brief aside to explain some of this concern: when we had been up in Red Lake, I had done a 15km run with Matt’s Dad, Roy. The run had gone absolutely terribly; there is absolutely no way that I would have finished it without Roy being there encouraging me to just walk the rest of it, take breaks etc. When we finally did finish the 15, I was absolutely horrified to look at my watch and find out that the pace that we had run would have been nearly 10 minutes slower than the cutoff time.

Now – there were a lot of things that played into that 15km, like we had stopped to talk with Matt and the boys at a couple of spots along the way, the heat was extreme that day, and the Highway 125 between Cochenour and Red Lake is absolutely ruthless with hills. But still. Never in my distance race career have I ever even considered a cut-off time when I ran a race, and it was a really unsettling feeling.

Stripping away the fear, rational facts and data told me that I should be okay, but, my pacing was such that I did not have a big margin for error or disaster. One thing that nearly a decade of distance racing had taught me before I started having kids was that literally anything can happen out on a race course. And the simple reality was that I didn’t have a lot of time for anything to go wrong in this one. It played on my mind for the last several weeks of training and all the way up to the start line of the race.

After our 15km run up in Red Lake, Matt’s dad Roy had waited until we left for home, and then sent me a really long text with some advice (he knows me well enough to know to wait until I had left to send this LOL). He has a lot of experience running and with distance race, and I really value his opinion, so really appreciated what he had to say. The main message that he had given me was that he felt that I needed to go out a little bit slower than I had been. He suggested a slower start, a run / walk middle, and then I should still have some energy to finish the race really strong.

In any case, we shuffled along like cattle in the corrals, and finally, Wave 4 was cleared to go, and we started to move towards the starting line. Even after our official start, it took me a few more minutes to officially cross the line. As we got closer and closer the energy was HUGE. There were hundreds of spectators along the sidelines, a DJ was setup right at the starting line and a Shakira song was BLASTING as we crossed the line. We were off! I always love the first few steps of a race because it feels like it’s time to stop thinking and worrying and time to start actually doing something about it.

The first kilometre of the race was just a crazy blur of bright coloured Lululemon clothing, loud cheering, music, and nervous energy starting to dissipate from the runners. I had no idea what I was doing in terms of pace, I was kind of just shuffling along with the pack. I saw my mom on my left hand side somewhere before the first kilometre marker, yelling and cheering with her phone out. She was alone, and I didn’t see Matt, my Dad or the boys, so I was a bit confused about where they had ended up. Matt had given me a few options of places that they were going to try and get to to see me, and the first one was about 3km in, so I figured they must have gone straight there.

There was really nothing exciting to report from the first 1 – 3 kilometres of the race. I settled into my groove around 1km, and was passing lots of people early in the race. I vaguely remember crossing the Granville Bridge somewhere between 1-3km and feeling giddy with excitement as we ran by the Vancouver FIFA stadium. There were so many people still all around me so there wasn’t really a lot of thought to pace or anything except the excitement of starting the race.

Just before the first aid station at 3km, there was a Lululemon cheer station, and they had set up about 25 Peloton bikes and had people taking a full on live Peloton class right there on the side of the road! I had a good laugh at that, and the people on the bikes were holding up funny signs, I remember one saying “I WISH I WAS YOU RIGHT NOW” that made me laugh.

I was feeling great by the first aid station. Zero issues with my body, my breathing, anything at all. I didn’t need water or anything else from the aid station because I was carrying my own water and still had lots left, so I ran right through and kept on going. My running app was talking to me in my ears and told me that my first 3km I was under 8 minute kilometre pace, so I knew that I was way ahead of where I needed / even where I wanted to be. Unfortunately I never did see Matt and the boys, and I learned later that they weren’t able to get to their spot at 3km, and ended up jumping further ahead on the course, but I was looking around like crazy for them as we passed through the 3km – 5km sections.

Kilometre 4 of the SeaWheeze course is entirely uphill. I knew this hill, I had studied the elevation map of the entire course, and I knew this one was going to be nasty. When the grade started to change, I remember thinking “here we go”….

But as it turns out, I crushed that kilometre 4 hill. I ran the entire way up, passed about 200 people all walking, and just felt like the little engine that could chugging up the hill.

“I think I can, I think I can, I think I can, I think I can” (lol)

By the time I got to the top, I was so elated to turn the corner and find that we had a HUGE stretch of downhill on the other side! I cruised down and felt like a 5 year old running to the swing set. I was on top of the world, and full of confidence at that point. I was so happy about how that hill had gone.

What ended up being a pretty major issue for me did come up around 4km, and that was simply that I needed to use the washroom. I’ve never had to go to the washroom during any race that I’ve ever done (including 8+ hours on the IronMan 70.3 course), so it just wasn’t something that I ever thought about at all. I guess having three babies changed my bladder somewhat (lol) and I quickly realized that I wasn’t going to be able to tough this one out, I was going to have to stop.

Somewhere between 5km and 6km, there was a single porta-potty set up, and I saw an opportunity to stop. The problem was that there was already a line of 8-10 people waiting for it. I was still absolutely crushing my target pace, but after waiting nearly 4 minutes for one person to come out of the porta-potty, I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to wait for 10 people to use the washroom, without blowing my whole race up. In a complete panic, I ended up running away from that stop and back onto the course after about 5-6 minutes of waiting, without actually getting to go.

I was incredibly stressed at this point, because I knew that I really needed to go, and also knew that I didn’t have 40 minutes to wait in line. I did my best to just put it out of my mind, but with every step, the situation was getting more urgent, and I started to understand why Olympic marathoners just pee and poop themselves right on the course LOL

At some point while I was waiting in line for that porta-potty, the 2:55 pace bunny group that I had started the race with ran by me on the side of the road. That was so disappointing for me, because I had had such a strong first 5km, and knew that I was WAY ahead of my target pace. And the worst part of all, was that I was still feeling great, aside from desperately needing to pee! I did my best to keep the 2:55 pace bunny within my sight for a while, and I did for about 2km, and then gradually they started to slip away. I was disappointing, but reminded myself that my goal all along had been under 3:00, and that was still very much in the realm of possibility. But it all depended on the washroom situation.

Between 5.5km and 8km, I was basically just trying not to pee my pants the entire time. I was still running at a good pace (thank you five years of pelvic floor physiotherapy for this – if this didn’t prove how effective it was, nothing will), but was nearly shaking while doing so. I vaguely remember seeing a crew of runners wearing different combinations of neon pink outfits that had actually dipped into a Tim Hortons and gotten breakfast sandwiches, and were strolling along the course eating them LOL I liked this group’s energy, they seemed SUPER chill, and like they were genuinely just out for a good time, which reminded me not to take any of this so seriously, and that this was supposed to be fun! Or you know, as much fun as something can be when you’re about a nano second from peeing your pants and you have to keep running anyways 🙂

Where things took a turn in my race was just passed the 8km mark. I was absolutely desperate to use the washroom, and when I came up to the next bank of porta-potties, even though there were about 10 people in line (again), I just had to stop. I knew that I couldn’t wait anymore, and that I also couldn’t waste anymore time waiting without actually getting to go, and I would just have to suck it up and wait in line.

There was another girl in front of me who was anxiously eying her watch and said something like “are we seriously going to not finish on time because of a bathroom stop???” I totally confidently told her “we’re going to be fine, we’ve got this, we’ve got lots of time”, which was absolute and complete horse shit coming from me, because I was completely freaking out about the same exact thing. At some point while I was standing in line, I sent a quick text to Matt telling him what was going on. I knew that he was watching my splits online, and I knew that he would be worried because it would look like I fell off a cliff after 5km. The line moved faster thankfully, but still not fast enough. Unfortunately, a few minutes after I had gotten into line, the 3:00 pace bunny ran by us.

I can’t totally describe the feeling of seeing her run by, but it was just devastating; my heart absolutely sank like a stone. I was so frustrated with myself, with my stupid, useless bladder and just with the whole situation. I felt like I had worked so hard to put myself ahead of the game up until this point, and then in an instant (or 20 of them, actually), it was just all over. I ended up waiting in line for that porta-potty for over 20 minutes. I finally, FINALLY got in, peed the fastest pee of my literal life, and then came out of the porta-potty like a bat out of hell.

Enter Stage Left: Irrational Sara.

When I came out of that bathroom, I’m telling you, all intelligent life-form left my body, and I truly thought to myself “okay Sara, you’re going to SPRINT after that pace bunny until you hunt her down and pass her”. And that is what my dumb ass attempted to do. I set off at an all-out sprint down the road like some kind of psycho, my breathing absolutely ragged, my legs and body totally confused and I just put my head down and ran like I was on fire.

As I know that I don’t need to tell you: that was fucking stupid.

I made it a TOTALLY impressive 800 metres or so, and then abruptly had to stop and walk (duh). And when I pulled up to a walk, an all-too familiar feeling started in my ribcage, and started to creep up my torso.

I was starting into a panic attack.

As I mentioned in Part 1 of this story, unfortunately I’ve been struggling with panic attacks on and off this year. I’ve had enough of them now that I can pretty quickly identify what’s happening, but that doesn’t make them any less scary. This particular one was almost entirely centred on my ribs, and my ability to breathe. I started to feel like my sports bra and my shirt was WAY too tight, and was constricting me from breathing, and I started to claw and pull at my clothes like some kind of rabid animal in a desperate attempt to pull them away from my ribs and help me breathe. I was fully walking at this point, and truly felt like my day was over. My breathing was really jagged and shallow and I was audibly making weird sounds of distress (embarrassing).

Matt had sent me a text back that my entire family was waiting for me at the 10km point of the race, which was only about a half kilometre from where I was. My brain had completely left the building, and I was not making rational decisions at this point; so I figured my best bet was to run, walk or crawl to my family and see if they could help me in any way.