No words for Blue Ridge

I don’t have the words to explain how awesome the Blue Ridge Half Marathon weekend was again this year.

With so many different people I know — former co-workers, friends from high school, #RunChat friends, several other bloggers and an unusual amount of Iowans (hi Josh, Angie and Theresa!) — taking part in it, the race itself has felt like just a small part of the weekend for a couple of years in a row.

The race, though, is what we all talk about before, during and after. It’s crazy. It’s nuts. It’s brutal. It’s painful. It’s rewarding. It now has Peakwood in addition to Mill Mountain.

Take everything you could imagine about a race, both good and bad (and everything else in between), and that’s what the Blue Ridge Half Marathon has become. I could only imagine what doing the full marathon would do to me.

On the way up Mill Mountain, in just the first three miles, I told my friend Josh (not the one from Iowa) that if I had any small desire left to do the full marathon, it was already gone.

Now I’m not so sure.

The Blue Ridge Half (and full) Marathon toys with my emotions. It has for 4 out of the past 5 years. Actually, even the one year I couldn’t run after an injury it messed with my mind because I missed it so much.

If you happened to come here looking for some kind of race recap, I apologize for my lack of finding the right words to explain it.

It’s just one of those race weekends that you have to experience yourself to fully understand why I have this reaction.

No plan is the working plan, for now

As I look ahead to running the Blue Ridge Marathon next year, I’m already thinking about what I want to do for training. Plan or no plan or the in between.

Generally speaking, I do best when my exact mileage isn’t on paper or an Excel file. When I have a mileage range for each run or week, I don’t have any major problems. When I do have exact plans, I do OK for 2 weeks, then I get overwhelmed when I look at it and then change all my plans.

That, however, doesn’t mean I’m not open-minded about trying it again.

That, then, leads me to what I want to do the rest of 2013. This week is a perfect example of how not planning things has worked out to my advantage. While each day I’ve been anticipating possibly being thrown off for a long time with my second son, I got in 4 good runs, 3 short bike rides, and a solid amount of push-ups and sit-ups for my monthly goal.

If I can do that in a week filled with a lot of life’s stresses, then surely I can build a solid base through the rest of the year, run a decent Richmond Half Marathon and Surf ‘n’ Santa 10 Miler, and be ready for winter training for Blue Ridge.

Whether that’s on paper or an app or my own file or nothing at all is something I’ll do a lot of thinking about in the next few months. …

Thinking ahead

With moving this summer and a new baby on the way, I feel like I’m on fast forward with life. Yet things with running and what I want to do as year 10 begins on Jan. 1, things are becoming clear.

I’m closing out this year with two races (Richmond Half and the Surf ‘n’ Santa 10 Miler) that should help set the tone for a more dedicated winter training cycle. I love the colder weather, but I struggled this past winter after catching the flu.

By not training for a fall marathon, I won’t end the year run down; instead I’ll begin headed toward a new peak. Figuratively and literally.

I’m once again signed up for the Foot Levelers Blue Ridge Marathon in Roanoke, Va. This year I’ve learned that I want to experience new challenges. While I want to get faster, I setting PRs aren’t at the top of my priority list. As I look ahead to how I want to celebrate 10 years of running, conquering this marathon simply tops my list.

I haven’t run it yet because 1) I’ve been unprepared; 2) One year I was coming off injury; and 3) I’ve been scared.

I’ve been so focused on Shamrock every year that a marathon a month later never felt right. Next year, though, I feel more confident that I can approach Shamrock as a training race and turn my focus to Blue Ridge.

August goals update

1,000 total push-ups: Currently at 649
More biking miles than running miles: Currently 41.3 biking, 40.1 running
Increase long run to 10 miles: 8.2; going for 10 this weekend

No. 1,025

Writer’s block has hit me hard-core, but only here. Funny, though, that I’m not struggling at work or when I start a post on the #RunChat site.

I am signed up for a spring marathon. Perhaps I should write about that one day. You can figure it out if you like blog tags.

I met Patton of Optimal Run this week. Great guy, great company. Can’t wait to get to know him better and share more of our thoughts.

Instead of writing in my spare evening time, I’m thinking a lot about baby names. It’s funny how one day something sounds just right, then the next it doesn’t. The process of picking names and also keeping it secret is one of the greatest things in life I’ve experienced.

I have a fundraiser for my half marathon in November. I need to write about that, too, but in the meantime click here to go check it out.

Quick update on my August goals: 10 running miles so far, 6.5 biking; 145 total push-ups in 6 days; 6 miles was my long run on Friday. Everything is right where it needs to be, except I missed a ride this morning due to thunderstorms.

Epic? I’m going there

Thanks to my friend Mike for capturing this as I was warming up.

The Foot Levelers Blue Ridge Marathon weekend can be summed up in one word: epic.

I hope you know that “epic” has never been used to describe any event from me. I did use it in a post a couple of weeks ago when I hinted at what I was going to do at the Monument Avenue 10k, but I didn’t bust it out. I even looked up the definition to make sure something there fit well. “Impressively great” works for me.

I use it with caution, but I’m using it nonetheless because it just was. I’m not even going to disclose everything here either — it’s just one of those things for the memory bank and great stories to tell others in person.

In addition to my first post on Sunday, here are some other weekend highlights and thoughts.

The elevation change:
My actual race performance was disappointing. I was exactly a minute slower than last year. In 2012, I put too much effort going up Mill Mountain; this year was too conservative. Despite a couple of fast miles coming down Mill Mountain (7:20 for mile 5, 7:40 for mile 6), I couldn’t make up the time I lost going up the mountain (mile 2 was a little more than 10 miles, mile 3 was in 12:10). I did manage to have a negative split, just not negative enough to feel fully satisfied. Running 13.1 miles in the week leading up to the race didn’t help, but I have no regrets. I know I can get closer to 1:50 in this race … eventually.
WDBJ7 interviewed me about #RunChat.
In addition to hanging out with great people I mentioned in my last post, I hung out with these awesome people:
My former co-worker Josh, who I ran with quite a bit in Roanoke in 2011-12. He loves my ProCompression socks.

Paul (@Lavi1313 on Twitter) and I after he completed the marathon. I also got to meet his awesome mother at the pasta dinner.

Second time running into @krissymurphy at this race, and 3rd race overall.
That makes for two years in a row of some awesome socializing at this race, plus I had the opportunity to make this a working weekend helping both Foot Levelers and the Blue Ridge Marathon with some social media posts.
I feel like WDBJ7′s photo of me with Bart Yasso and Amy really sums up my weekend. All smiles. A celebration of running. Doing it all for Boston. Uniting as a community.
WDBJ7 photo (click on photo for full gallery)

As for what’s next, I really don’t know. All my plans and thoughts have been thrown out the window.

For now, I’m just enjoying running to run. …

3 things Thursday

1. The other day I wrote about “going with the flow” in Saturday’s Lynchburg Half Marathon. I should know better than that. That’s usually when I have a miserable experience.

I’ve rethought that process and will now have two goals. My “A” goal is a sub-1:50. It’s an aggressive, but attainable goal on this course, and a goal that will keep me from getting into an all-out race pace effort.

Goal “B” will be to just go with the flow if I’m not feeling it. The weather is supposed to be tremendously nicer Saturday morning, so we’ll see.

2. For anyone who doesn’t follow #RunChat, we have a great opportunity for you to win an entry to the 2013 Blue Ridge Marathon. Check it out.

3. Despite falling and not being able to do planks effectively, and having to take a small break from push-ups, my core streak is still in tact. It’s just kind not much to talk about right now, but it’s a start.

Running …

… because I can … because it's fun … because it's healthy … just BECAUSE.

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