Blue Ridge Marathon Weekend

Hey Kids,

At long last, here is my race report for the Blue Ridge Marathon weekend:

Jeannine ended up having to work a half day the Friday before the race, so we got on the road from Philly at around noon when she got off work. Torrential downpour while we were on I-66 notwithstanding, it was a fairly uneventful drive, and we ended up getting into Roanoke at around 7:00pm. After having to circle the City Market area of Roanoke a few times, we finally found a parking spot, and I was able to get out and pick up my race packet. I ended up picking up my packet around 30 minutes before they closed, and they still had plenty of shirts in my size (take notes, Philly Half Marathon!). I picked up some gels and clear plastic bags (due to heightened security, we were encouraged to have clear plastic bags to carry things into the race area). We went to the store and picked some supplies, namely english muffins, peanut butter, and a twelve-pack of Heineken (in Virginia, we can buy beer at the grocery store!). We checked in at the Cambria Suites, where Jeannine's parents, Janet and Dave, were also staying. They were able to come to Roanoke the day before and sightsee before Dave was to run the Blue Ridge Half Marathon on Saturday morning. We went to their room to say hi and bring an offering of Heineken. There, we were also joined by our friends Jeff and Betsy, who just had their first son, Charlie, on March 31st. Jeff and I were neighbors when we were kids, and we have literally known each other since we were two years old. We got to catch up with them, meet Charlie, and let them meet Jeannine's parents. Jeff will be a groomsman in my wedding this December (I was a groomsman in his wedding in 2011) , so Jeannine's parents appreciated being able to meet him before the wedding. We actually stayed with Jeff and Betsy for last year's race weekend, when they lived in Christiansburg. Betsy takes partial credit for my victory last year, citing the slightly charred pizza she fed me the night before the race. They took off at around 9:00, Jeannine and I went to our room, and I prepped for race morning.

I ended up getting to bed at around 10:00 and got a surprisingly good night's sleep for a pre-race night. I woke up at 5:00am, had some coffee and water and two english muffins with peanut butter, and then tried to stay relaxed. The hotel provided shuttle service to and from the race, despite there being two weddings at the hotel that day. They really went out of their way to accommodate the runners, and we all really appreciated it. Jeannine and I met Dave in the lobby at a little after 6:00am, and we waited for the next shuttle to take us to the start area. Since last year, Elmwood Park had undergone a major restoration, so the city of Roanoke was eager to showcase it. Thus, the start/finish area had been moved there. Once there, we basically just hung out near the start line, which was still being set up, talked to other runners, and tried to stay warm.

"And just think, in a few hours there will be a beer truck on this very spot!"

The race was set to start at 7:35, so at around 7:00, I started jogging lightly to wake my legs and digestive system up. There was a long line for the port-o-john, and there was an entire row of port-o-johns on the other side of Elmwood Park that were locked. I asked one of the officials why they were locked, and they told me that someone was going up there to unlock them at that moment. I hurried up there, and was able to, for the first time ever in my running career, use a pristine, unused, port-o-john! I felt like the universe was rewarding me for something. Voting? Something. Anyway, after christening the port-o-john, I jogged around a little more, and I headed toward the City Market area, where the start/finish area of the race was located last year. I sought out another restroom, because it's not race morning unless you use the restroom at least three times. It was in the City Market building that I discovered that they had opened the doors to the rest room area! Only a couple of other runners discovered this, but this, this heated, fully functional, undiscovered restroom- this was magical. Pristine port-o-john followed by secret, heated restroom, this morning was going my way so far. I jogged back to the start line area, did a few strides, and it was almost time to start. There was also a double marathon event which began at 2:30am. That's right, by the time I woke up at 5:00am, these crazy, crazy, people had already been running for two and a half hours. Among them were fellow Philly-based runners Emir and Amy, as well as Peter Morgan, who was my contest winner. They were set to finish the first half of the double marathon around ten minutes before the 7:35 start time. At 7:35, the horn went off, and we were off and running. I tried to just stay relaxed and run what I felt was a comfortable pace. Since the start line was moved to Elmwood Park, it was also moved closer to the beginning of the inclines. I remember last year going through the first mile in around 5:45 and not having run any uphill yet. This year, the one mile mark was well up the first hill, and I went through in around 6:15. This might be a long day. At this point, only one half marathoner and one 10K runner were ahead of me, and probably by around 10 seconds. They stayed about that distance ahead of me until the course split, at which point I head up Roanoke Mountain and they headed up Mill Mountain. I wasn't sure how big my lead was, so I figured I would wait until there was a switchback before I would check how much distance I had. This was around the five mile mark, and I was able to look pretty far down the mountain, and I didn't see anyone else. At this point, I basically decided that I needed to just maintain a steady effort for the rest of the race, and that would probably be enough to win. BRM offers a "King/Queen of the Mountain" award to the first man and woman to reach the top of Roanoke mountain. When I reach the peak of Roanoke Mountain, the longest and steepest of the three major ascents, a little girl yelled, "King of the mountain!" and a bagpiper started blasting a solo. I don't know if there exists a better possible way to have punctuated that end of the ascent. It was just magical. Once I crested Roanoke Mountain, I had to deal with the first of the major DEscents. A difference between this year and last year was since last year, the course became USATF certified, which meant that unlike last year, when I could run on the grass on the side of the road, I had to actually stay on the pavement going down the mountains. This meant that rather than being able to make up time that I lost going slow on the uphills by opening up my stride on the grass, I had to run conservatively on the downhills as well to save my thighs for the later miles. This would hurt my time (and legs of course), but I figured everyone else had to deal with it too, so I can't complain. A lot of the course was very sparsely populated, with occasional pockets of very vocal, supportive fans and aid stations. There was a lot of just me chasing a camera truck chasing a police motorcycle (and me trying not to be blinded by the reflection of my very white thighs in camera truck's tailgate).

My eyes were burning more than my legs at this point.

 The ascent up Mill Mountain was shorter and a much gentler grade than Roanoke Mountain. Once I crested Mill Mountain and passed the big star, there was a gravel section in which the camera truck took its relentless gaze off of me for a few minutes until I made it back to a road section. It was during this brief interval without the camera on me that was able to [REDACTED] without anyone seeing. After descending Mill Mountain, the course goes back into Roanoke for its final "sucks to be you" to the runners: Peakwood Drive. Last year, I took some friendly jabs at the spectators along Peakwood because they kept saying that I was close to the top, and it was just lies. I was on record with WDBJ 7 and the Roanoke Times jokingly insisting there was a "Peakwood Conspiracy." I later found out a lot of other runners were saying the same thing. This year, the spectators along Peakwood had such a good sense of humor about it! One lady yelled from her porch, "Hey Jeff! No conspiracy this year! We measured!" I laughed and then of course yelled back, "I don't believe you!" Also, since my bib number just said "Powers," it meant that at least some of the people who called me Jeff actually knew who I was, which was really nice. At the beginning of the Peakwood ascent, there were some giant speakers blasting Charlie Daniels, and the entire way up and down, everyone was just great. My sincere thanks to all of the folks along Peakwood. It's at this point in the race where runners start to need every bit of positive energy they can get. I crested Peakwood and began my final major descent. I knew that after this descent, if my thighs were still intact, I would have no problem finishing strong. I actually passed Dave on the descent, tapped him on the shoulder, and told him I would see him at the beer truck. After the descent, I didn't really feel any worse off. One major difference between this year's race and last year's race was last year, I had someone to chase, and this year I was all alone. It was around mile 21 last year that Diriba's lead over me (which had consistently been two minutes for like 13 miles) started to dwindle, so I basically chased him for three miles, caught him, and then tried to run away from him for the remaining two miles. It was painful, but there was also no loss of motivation. This year, it was mentally more difficult to push in the later miles. There were also more hills in the later miles this year. After successfully descending Peakwood, I never doubted that I would finish successfully, so my thinking was more along the lines of, "I'll be able to run these last few miles, but it's going to suck." I wasn't sure how big of a lead I had until the 23 mile marker, where a guy told me that the closest person to me was 18 minutes back. This meant that if I just kept moving for the rest of the race, I would successfully defend my title. There were a few hills after this that would be considered giant on any other course, but in the Blue Ridge Marathon, did not even warrant a mention. As I went into the final left turn onto Bullitt Avenue, the course marshall said, "You can see the finish line after you make the turn." And there it was, at the end of the final, merciful, downhill straightaway. Running down the final stretch, I had it in the back of my mind that this is the first time that Mammaw (my dad's mom), Sis (my aunt, but we all call her Sis for reasons I don't know), her son Dalton, and Dee (my oldest sister, Deanna), who had made the trip up from Abingdon that morning, had ever seen me run. I cruised across the finish line in 2:52:25, shook Ronny and Pete's hands, and gave a few interviews before being greeted by Jeannine, and then the rest of the family.

One of the first things I remember saying to the group was, "I am so glad to not be running anymore." As I mentioned in my last post, this was also the first time that members of my and Jeannine's families have met, so they were still early in the process of starting to get to know each other. I would go on to find out that Dave ran a 2:45 for the half and seemed very pleased. I would also find out that due to oddly terrible traffic on I-81, my family got there just a couple of minutes before I finished. This softened the blow of my time being so much slower than last year (when I ran a 2:39:48), since they wouldn't have seen me finish had I finished much sooner.

 Mammaw!

Janet, Mammaw, and Dave. Mammaw is wearing Dave's finisher's medal. Possibly the most adorable thing that has ever happened in the history of things happening. 

The awards ceremony was scheduled for 2:00pm, so we had about three hours to kill. The group walked to the City Market building and ended up having lunch at the All Sports Cafe. I had a giant cheeseburger and a local beer. My good friend, Michael, also a friend since childhood and a future groomsman at my wedding, was due to drive up that morning as well, and also had some trouble with traffic (the term "van on fire" was used more than once), so he ended up getting there as we were finishing lunch. He lives in Knoxville, TN, and we don't get to hang out very often, so this was especially nice. Also, Jeannine's parents got to meet yet another groomsman. After lunch, we headed back to Elmwood Park to hang out and hit up the beer truck before the awards ceremony. Jeannine and I each had Parkway Brewing Company's Majestic Mullet, a delicious Kolsch-style beer. Michael had their porter, also delicious. At the awards ceremony, I found out that the 2nd and 3rd overall finishers were women, which would end up being the headline in the Roanoke Times. I also found out that for the first time in the race's history, on both the men's and women's side, the King and Queen of the Mountain award winner would end up being the winner of the whole race. I received my awards (a nice Tag Heuer watch, a print from artist Eric Fitzpatrick of Roanoke's City Market building, a BRM hat, a trophy shaped like a railroad spike, and of course my "King of the Mountain" synthetic running shirt. I also got to meet Zoe Romano, who is the first (and thus far only) person to ever run the entire Tour de France course. She was the keynote speaker at the pasta dinner the night before the race, but I unfortunately didn't get to attend the talk since we got into town so late. I also got to meet Emir and Amy in person for the first time, even though we all live in the Philly area and have been interacting online for months now. They were exhilarated to have finished the double marathon and seemed more human and normal that they should have to have finished running "America's Toughest Road Marathon" twice in a row and having been awake since like 1:00am. My group, now nine strong (Me, Jeannine, Janet, Dave, Mammaw, Dee, Sis, Dalton, and Michael), headed back to the hotel. Once there, the Abingdon crew had to get back on the road. I gave them more godawful sweaty hugs to send them on their way back down I-81, and the rest of us went upstairs to our rooms. Janet and Dave went to their room (I think Dave went to sleep pretty soon after this. We made tentative dinner plans- never happened). Jeannine, Michael, and I headed to our room and killed the remaining Heinekens (I, of course, had my first one in the shower. Post-marathon shower beer is an unparalleled experience). Then we made a trip to the grocery store and bought a sampler 12-pack from New Belgium Brewing and ordered (incredible) pizza from Goodfellaz. The remainder of the evening consisted of Jeannine and I sipping New Belgium and shooting the shit with Michael (always fun- he and I literally have jokes that go back more than 20 years) with Spotify's Willie Nelson station in the background. He also introduced us to Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, so thank you, Michael. 

After race day, I took four days completely off from running. Since then, I've been running exclusively on trails while my legs have recovered. I got up to 13 miles today at around 6:00/mile pace, and it felt pretty comfortable, so I consider myself recovered. As such, tomorrow I will consider myself officially "in training" for the Philadelphia Marathon on November 16th. I will run a few trail races over the Summer, and then my Fall racing season will be in full swing. 

Anyway, my friends, over the past nine months or so, I wrote this blog as an Official Blue Ridge Marathon Blogger. After this entry, I'm not quite sure if I will continue it. Feel free to chime in one way or another. I would like to say that this has been a lot of fun- the running, the writing, the meeting people, all of the joy and pain that come with preparing for and competing in a marathon, and a really tough one at that. I learned a lot of other people's personal stories along the way, and I was glad that I could contribute this small slice of my own. I would like to thank everyone who supported me along the way. Most of all, I would like to thank Jeannine, who puts up with my nonsense seven goddamned days a week. The sun was shining and the cameras were out on race morning, but she was there to encourage me when the wind chills were below zero, there was a foot of snow on the ground, and I was finishing my runs an hour before the sun came up. So I hope you all enjoyed this too. See you on the roads!

Have fun,

Jeff