Since my first Blue Ridge Half Marathon in 2010, I’ve struggled to find the right words to describe my experiences.
I’ve called it epic. I’ve said that it fills up my soul. It’s made me wiser. All of those things held true over the past couple of days. But new this year … I experienced a feeling of getting sick that I’ve never had before.
Over the past six months, I’ve remained fairly quiet on my social media accounts about running and a couple of recurring issues. Back in October, I dealt with Achilles tendonitis that made it nearly impossible to walk for a few days. It went away, I eased back into running in November, and then it came back.
After consulting with my doctor and chatting with others who have had the same issues, I changed up my primary running shoes and got back into things in December.
Running was tough this winter. Biking inside is not a good replacement for runs. But I kept plugging along when I could, increasing my long runs oh-so slowly. On my last long run two weeks ago, I had a sudden stabbing pain in my calf. On a scale of 1-10, it was a 9.5.
After getting treatment and doing a lot of self-care, I was able to get that issue resolved enough to at least get to the start line of the Blue Ridge Half Marathon.
I knew going into this that I wasn’t going to come anywhere close to my improved time from last year, and I was probably going to have my worst time on this course. I didn’t care. This experience was going to happen no matter what, as I detailed in my last post.
My plan today was to go out slow and see what happened. If I had issues, I had several spots that were an easy “out” until I got to mile 6 or so.
Fortunately, there was no need for an out. My sister and I stopped at the mile markers, reviving what we did in 2022 to help distract me from my lack of training and to keep a smile going as long as we could.
One of the fun things about doing this is that we agree to just let the other run their race at any given time. Right around mile 9, I couldn’t power walk those hills like I usually do. It sucked, but I knew I could at least finish.
It was at that time that I knew the personal worst was going to happen. But instead of beating myself up, I just didn’t care. It was actually quite motivating.
It led to me spending about 45 minutes continuing a plot that I thought about around 1 a.m. when I couldn’t sleep last night: coming up with a year-long plan to make sure this never happens again and to get my time back to 2:20-something. I was so close last year that I know I can do it.
After hitting the top of Peakwood, I could still run downhill at a reasonably slow pace. But those rolling hills in the final couple of miles? Uh, no. I had to stop for a minute one time to refocus and move forward one slow step at a time.
It sucked, but being in this position was my fault. I knew it could happen, so I wasn’t mad. I was motivated.
Crossing the finish line was fun. I saw friends and family in the final tenth of a mile that hit me differently than before..
This race has always carried many emotions for me. This year had a different vibe for some reason, and I had many moments in those miles and in that final stretch that I felt like stopping to cry. Not a bad cry. Just a weird life cry.
The memories of being in Roanoke as a kid, as a teen, and now for the 12th time in this race had me in a mental state that I haven’t experienced before.
When I got my medal and chatted with family that was there, I felt sick. This build-up of emotions, having fun on the course, struggling on the course, running a little too tense, being quite warm, and developing these ideas to improve myself next year were so bottled up inside me that I literally couldn’t do anything that I literally couldn’t do anything for a half hour or so.
I also knew that if I threw up, I would probably need some medical attention to get hydrated.
So like the race, I took my immediate post-race recovery very slow. I managed to get regrouped enough to get to my sister’s vehicle, have the AC on high, and get back over to our cousin’s house to clean up.
It was one of the roughest 90 minutes after a race that I’ve ever experienced. I never got sick, fortunately. I think I funneled that feeling into making more plans for next year.
For now though, this weekend was still truly epic (a shout-out to my 2013 post) and it filled up my soul (last year’s blog title).
A lot of that, however, had to do with the other things that make this weekend amazing.
Spending time with family and catching up with friends were the true highlights. Those things, along with additional shout-outs to some bad-ass performances, deserve their own post!
I said the other day that “There are so many memories to keep making.” I need and want to share some of those other things from this year that I usually don’t do here. And I already can’t wait for what’s to come in 2027.
Real David H. 
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