Dedicated readers will know by now that last weekend I had a heck of a race Down Under.
For everyone else, a quick recap. Last Sunday, I capped off my 2015 season at the Australian 50km Championships in Melbourne. After a year that was chock full of highlights for me, this race wedged itself right up near the top.
A big goal of mine over the last five years has been to break the Canadian 50km record, set in 1981. On Sunday that goal was achieved, in fantastic fashion.
Racing on an amazing course and with perfect weather, I walked a time of 3:43:45 breaking the 34-year-old record by more than four minutes.
The 7 a.m. start promised shade and cool conditions along the 2km, tree-lined loop for the first half of the race.
I rolled through the first 2km feeling great and decided to detach from the group I was walking with to venture off on my own for the remaining 48km.
From then on it felt like I was in a bubble. My facial expressions barely wavered as I remained relaxed through 10km, just under pace for the record. Turning my focus inwards on how I was feeling, rather than how I was doing, allowed me to conserve energy in the middle of the race, as it felt as though I turned my conscious mind off.
Around 30km, my focus snapped and I started to get excited, now two minutes under record pace, but with still a long way to go!
I’d been in this position before and blown up. I had to calm my nerves and turn that focus back inwards.
A few kilometres later, with under an hour to go, I knew I had the record and I let my mind run wild as I moved through the final 12km with three minutes to play with.
I kept expecting to blow up, to start slowing down (I had yet to do a 50km without that happening), but lap after lap my watch read 8:55 and with 4km to go, I realized I could try and push home without worrying if I blew or not.
Instead, I accelerated, and closed my final kilometre in 4:18, my fastest of the race.
Crossing the finish line, I let out a roar of emotion. I think this was me snapping out of my cosmic level of focus. The Ideal Performance State is something I had read about athletes achieving but had never experienced for myself.
To me, this was embodied by a perceptual slowing down of my mind and a pin-hole like focus, where nothing else existed in my world except the turn at the far end of the course.
Now, I just need to discover how to bottle that up and use it in every race!
The biggest impact of my performance is that I will no longer be going into the Olympics as an underdog.
With this time, I finish the year ranked fifth in the world.
In Rio I’ll be a contender, a “medal hopeful,” and this, combined with the fact that I know there is more in the tank, has me more excited than ever.
For readers interested in an in-depth look at Evan’s first month in Australia, check out his blog: dunfeewalks.weebly.com.
