When I got to the beach yesterday it was rainy, windy, and cold. And the weather back home?? 60 degrees and sunny…. hmmmm.

I took a picture for you from my balcony to document the less than ideal weather, but naturally I left my camera cord at home. Guess I will stick to pictures with my cell phone for the week.

Not my picture, but just to give you an idea of what it looked like when I rolled into town.

The plan was to run in the morning Tuesday through Thursday or Friday this week. I was smart and neglected to check the weather prior to packing. I had the words “Virginia Beach” in my head, so I packed all shorts and t-shirts to run in.

I woke up this morning hoping to run, but the weather was much the same as Monday- windy, cold, and cloudy. So my morning run got pushed to this afternoon so that it could warm up some. Except it didn’t. What did I do then? Googled the closest running store, drove there after my meeting wrapped up for the day, and purchased a long sleeve running top. (Note: Yes, my hotel has a fitness center with TWO treadmills. But I refuse to use them when there’s a boardwalk right outside my door)

The good news is the running store (Running Etc.) had already switched over to their summer stuff, so the only long sleeves they had were on clearance. This top was originally $70 and I got it for $30. Score! And I know it was meant to be, because on the clearance rack this was the only small and everything else (and by that I mean the other 4 long sleeve tops they had in the entire store) was large and x-large. I typically wear a medium in women’s sized clothing, but this Asics top is a “loose fit” top and it fits great on me. It was fate! Plus I love the color.

So with my new long sleeve shirt in tow I got back to my hotel and headed out for a little jaunt up and down the boardwalk.

Don’t be deceived by the sun. It’s cold, I promise.

My legs feel pretty good after Saturday’s race. The upper parts of my quads are still a bit sore and so are my hips, but I took it easy and actually ended up running around 9:54 pace. I guess it helps that I’m at sea level and it’s flat as a pancake. Even though I enjoyed the run, it seemed like I had been running longer than I really had. It was strange, because I didn’t feel tired, I just felt like I had covered more distance than I actually had. Maybe it’s the lack of hills?

Have you ever run on a boardwalk? Which one/where? Do you like running along by the ocean? Does it feel longer for you, too?

I am headed to Virginia Beach today for a week long meeting for work. Hello morning boardwalk running! In the meantime, here is my review of the Blue Ridge Half Marathon.
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The Foot Levelers Blue Ridge Marathon was held on Saturday, April 20 in Roanoke, VA. This year was the fourth year for the race. The race offered a full marathon, half marathon, and a 5-person marathon relay. All races started simultaneously at 7:35 AM. The race was timed using disposable chips. The half marathon cost $65 if registered before 12/31/12, $75 if registered by 3/10/13, and $80 if registered through 4/17. We signed up with an early bird special that took place shortly after the 2012 race, which was 50% off of the earliest registration fee of $65 (two for the price of one!!).



The design in the word “marathon” shows the course elevation for the full

The race expo was held the day before the race, on Friday, April 15, from 3-8 PM in the City Market Building in downtown Roanoke.

The race organizers utilized the open area in the center of the City Market Building, that resembles the dining area of a mall food court. Packet pickup went very smoothly. They had the bib and t-shirt pick up area set up on one of the lofts. The loft had a stairway on each side, so participants went up using one staircase and went down using the other, which kept the minimal traffic flowing. The expo is very small and low key in comparison to other larger races, as this is a smaller (but growing!) race. It was not very crowded when we were there around 4:30 PM, but I know it became more crowded later on in the evening. There were a few vendor booths (Foot Levelers, Fleet Feet Sports, etc.), a runners information booth, and a table set up for the “running legends”. As I have mentioned, Frank Shorter, Bill Rodgers, and Bart Yasso attended the expo, signed autographs, and also participated in a 5 person relay. The main sponsor of the race, Foot Levelers, was handing out shoe bags, which we used to put our stuff in.

The race has a small race packet that consists of your bib, the participant t-shirt, and a disposable chip for timing. They also had a table set up with handouts for upcoming local races, free Power Bar power gel samples, and noisemakers. As I mentioned, Foot Levelers was also handing out zip up shoe bags, which we used to carry our stuff.

Front                                               Back

 

All half and full marathon finishers receive a commemorative medal

We arrived in downtown Roanoke about 30 minutes prior to the race start. There was no traffic coming into the downtown area and we were able to park in the parking garage we had planned on without any issues. Roanoke has ample parking in it’s garages and lots, many of which are free on the weekends. There were at least five free garages and lots that are within two to three blocks from the start and finish areas.

The race also offered complimentary bag check, which was close to start and finish and was quick and easy. We were provided with bag check tags to pin on our bags, and all I had to do was drop it off prior to the race. We pinned both my tag and Barry’s tag on the bag. He was able to pick it up after the race without any issues.

There were plenty of porta potties located a block from the start line area. When we arrived there appeared to be a long line of at least 30 people (I know, not long compared to other races but this is a smaller race), but we waited less than 10 minutes.

Climbing up Mill Mountain on the Blue Ridge Parkway

View from the top of Mill Mountain

The finish line area is well organized. I did not actually go through the food line, but I saw that they were offering a variety of foods, including: bagels, bananas, pizza, shrimp, and power bars. They also offered bottled water, chocolate milk, and sodas (Coke, Diet Coke, etc.). The finish line area also offered free massages. The race also coincides with the final day of the Down by Downtown Roanoke festival, so there is live music at the finish line as part of that festival.

This race has a few special touches. For one, the race director stands at the finish line and either high fives or shakes the hand of every finisher who crosses the line.

[Source]

This year the race also offered a contest for two people to get to “run with the legends”, where the two winners would get to run with Frank Shorter, Bill Rodgers, and Bart Yasso as part of a 5 person marathon relay. Also new this year, one of the local news stations provided live coverage of the event. We recorded it and it was really neat to get to go back and watch the highlights of the race. I think they had 35 personnel covering the race, and had them stationed at numerous locations throughout the marathon and half marathon courses.

One other neat touch that this race has is the age group trophies, which are presented to the top three male & female finishers in each age group for the half and full. I think the top 3 relay teams in each division (men’s, women’s, and mixed) also receive trophies. The trophies are fashioned out of railroad spikes that are donated by Norfolk Southern. Students in the Welding/Motorsports Program at the Burton Center for Arts and Technology are the ones who form them into the trophies.

[Source]

Roanoke has a lot of ties to the railroad industry, so it’s a neat touch.

The race also had an extra challenge thrown in this year for the full marathoners called “King & Queen of the Mountain”. The first male and first female to the top of Roanoke Mountain (around mile 7.5) are crowned the 2013 King and Queen of the Moutain. They receive a free pair of shoes from Fleet Feet Sports, a King/Queen of the Moutain shirt, and “possibly a crown” (direct quote from the race website).

[Source]

The Stats

Half Marathon participants: 796
Full Marathon participants: 422
Relay teams: 49

Men’s winning marathon time: 2:39:48
Women’s winning marathon time: 3:23:44
Men’s winning half marathon time: 1:20:06
Women’s winning half marathon time: 1:29:17

Marathon elevation change: 7,440 feet
Half Marathon elevation change: 2,734 feet
*these numbers reflect the 2013 course, which included a detour due to flooding

Overall a great race. I give it a 9/10.

Do you prefer Saturday or Sunday races?
Saturday!

What kind of “extra” stuff have races had that you’ve run?

What types of special touches do you like a race to have?

We made a few changes in the brooder this week. First of all we had to add chicken wire to the top of it. We came downstairs one morning to find one of the chicks “roosting” (where they sit on a branch or ledge) on the lip of the Rubbermaid tub!

The chicks kept being naughty and kicking bedding into their water and pooping in it. So I took an unused dog bowl, put it in the brooder upside down, and put the waterer on that to elevate it. It’s working well so far and the chicks aren’t getting nearly as much bedding in it as before! I also ended up doing the same thing with their feeder, because they like to kick bedding into it.

We also added a “roosting pole” this week. Chickens like to have an area to roost on while they sleep. For the chicks in the brooder, something just a few inches off of the ground works just fine. I just put an unused piece of 2×4 wood in there and they seem to like it. One morning five of them were sleeping in a row on it. When they move into the chicken coop we will have roosting poles for them that are as high as 5 feet off of the ground. The chickens have a natural instinct to sleep on an elevated branch to protect themselves from predators.

Speaking of the coop, we did some more work on it this week. Last Sunday I spent the majority of the day cleaning out all of the extra dirt, dust, and debris that were left after we got all of the wood out of it. I also removed the random shelves that were in there to give us a clean slate to work with.

We got to work on building their nesting boxes, which is where they will lay eggs in the coop. This was our first construction project, and I think we did a pretty good job. I did the measuring and drew the lines, Barry cut out the pieces, and then we (mostly Barry) did the drilling and put the screws in. The one divider ended up a little crooked, but Barry was able to fix it. That may or may not have been the one I put the screws in for…

The front, where the hens will enter and exit

The boxes are roughly 1 ft x 1 ft, with a 4 inch piece on the front to keep any droppings from falling out. We did the backs of the panels higher, around 20 inches, so that the roof can be slanted to discourage the birds from roosting on top of the nesting boxes. We mounted the boxes inside the coop about 2 1/2 feet off of the ground. They don’t need a ramp or anything to get up there, they just jump. 

There’s a hatch door on the backside so that we can access the eggs without going inside the coop. It still needs a latch, though.

We also installed our roosting poles in the coop. They are about 4 1/2 and 5 feet off of the ground. We built the table/shelf area under it to keep a tray on. Chickens tend to make the most droppings in their roosting area, so we will keep the tray on the tabletop under the poles so that this area can be cleaned more frequently than the coop itself. It also gives us an area underneath to keep plastic tubs with their bags of feed.

Lastly, the chickens had their first outdoor adventure! Since it was warm out, we decided to let them walk around out in the backyard for a bit.

They were very curious about the grass and also thought it was fun to hop back and forth through the holes in the chain link fence.

The very first picture at the top of this post was from last night. These pictures are from earlier in the week (maybe Tuesday or Wednesday). They’ve changed so much already in that short amount of time!

 

I am getting ready to move the chicks into yet another larger brooder today, as they have outgrown the Rubbermaid tub that we were using. We stopped by a furniture store yesterday and picked up a larger cardboard box to use. A few more weeks and they’ll be done with the brooder all together! My babies are growing up 🙂 haha

The short and sweet

I had a good race today. I finished in 2:23:02 (I think that was my official chip time), which is an overall pace of 10:54/mile. My time this year was 22 minutes faster than last year, but still 22 minutes off of my half marathon PR. That just goes to show you how difficult this course is! The weather couldn’t have been nicer for the race today. It was sunny and in the mid 40’s. The only thing we could have done without was the 15 mph winds that we were occasionally running straight into. Overall a great day to run a race. Here is the elevation profile:

The dirty details

Now that you’ve seen the elevation for the race course, I’ll give you the details of the day.

We were a little late getting up this morning. My alarm went off a little before 5 and we had planned to leave by 5:50 AM. However, I was very comfortable and warm and somewhere very far back in my mind I knew there was a reason to get up. Around 5:30 AM I realized we were supposed to leave in 20 minutes and jumped out of bed to get ready. Luckily I laid everything out the night before and had my bag packed, so all we really needed to do was take care of the dogs and eat something.

I ate a lemon flavored Luna bar and had some water and soon we were on the road, about 10-15 minutes later than planned. The drive up to Roanoke was uneventful and we were able to park at the garage that was close to the start/finish lines as planned. We ended up getting into town shortly after 7:00 AM for a 7:35 race start. I was hoping to get there a little sooner so that we could watch the finish of the “Official Unofficial Double Marathon”. That’s right! There are a few runners who meet at 2:30 AM to run the marathon course before the race. They finish around 7:00 AM and then turn around and run the full marathon. Crazy!

We missed them, but we were there in plenty of time to get parked, drop our bag off at bag check, and use the porta potties. Then Barry and I meandered over to the start and waited to run. While waiting, I ran into Anita and Glenda and two other Sole Sisters runners. I met Anita and Glenda two weeks ago at the Color Me Cameron 5K and it was great to see them again! This was their first time running Blue Ridge. There was a moment of silence, the national anthem was sung, and just after 7:35 we were off.

The race starts with a mile in the downtown area, heading for the Blue Ridge Parkway. As we made our way through town we were treated to a nice view of where we were headed: The Roanoke Star at the top of Mill Mountain.

After the first mile, things got serious as we began our climb up the mountain. The Blue Ridge Parkway is absolutely beautiful to run on, especially since everything is green now that spring has arrived. I was able to run for the first 2.5 miles of the race, and then I had to switch on and off walking/running the rest of the way up the mountain.

A steep climb

We got to the top of the mountain just after 4 miles. We got to see the Roanoke Star and I linked up with Anita and Glenda. I ended up running with them until mile 12 and it was great to support each other up the hills that were to come.

Mile 1- 10:02
Mile 2- 11:00
Mile 3- 13:37
Mile 4- 12:57

As we passed the Roanoke Star, we looped around in front of it and began our roughly 2 mile descent down Mill Mountain. This is where you get some beautiful views of downtown Roanoke, where we had started.

On the way down the mountain I tried to just keep myself under control, but not fight gravity. I didn’t want to trash my quads like I did last year, and I am happy to report I managed to not beat them up too much.

Mile 5- 10:05
Mile 6- 9:48

A cow even came out to watch the runners make their way down the mountain

After we got down the mountain we ran along the greenway for about a mile and a half before making our way through some neighborhoods. There was one mean hill we went up during this time that had two left turns in it, making it seem like it was never going to end. Once through the neighborhood we ran over a bridge and make our way to mile 9.

Mile 7- 11:13
Mile 8- 10:44

Once we passed mile 9, we ran a detour route that took us through mile 11. They had to make last minute changes to the course due to flooding on the greenway area we were supposed to run on from miles 9-11. This change added at least 3-4 more “significant climbs” and another 206 feet in elevation change. This was due to twice having to exit off of the road we were on, run under it, and then come back onto it to get us from one side of traffic to the other (since these roads were still open and we were running along the side of them).

As we approached mile 11 I realized we were running through a park that I had been to before. There’s a dog park there that we took Hank to a number of times when he was younger (until he got attacked… then we stopped going). I found it funny that we were running the “wrong way” through the park.

These are the things you entertain your brain with at mile 11, after you have run up a mountain and down the other side and your legs are feeling very fatigued. At the end of mile 11 we had another bridge to climb over (I think that made 3 for the day?) and then we rolled on to mile 12. Somewhere in here we ran up a hill and there was a guy at the top holding a white board that he was using as a poster. It said “You think you’re tired?? I’ve been holding this sign all day!”. That got a laugh out of me.

Mile 9- 10:43
Mile 10- 11:39
Mile 11- 11:16

I got a final burst of energy during the last mile and was able to push the pace much faster than I had the entire race. It helped that there weren’t any more hills to climb up during this final mile. During the last mile we ran past a sign that said “Funeral Home Ahead. Look Alive!”. I had a strong finish and shook the race director’s hand as I crossed the finish line. That is one special touch that I really like about Blue Ridge: the race director stands at the finish line and shakes every finishers hand for the half and full as they come through. After shaking the race director’s hand, a member of the Miss Smith Mountain Lake Scholarship Pageant placed a medal around my neck and a race volunteer (they’re called ‘Sherpas’ because of the mountain-theme to the race) handed me a bottle of water.

Mile 12- 10:43
Mile 13- 9:05

I need to work on opening my eyes during pictures

Barry also ran a great race and finished in 1:49:22, about 5 minutes faster than last year. He said his legs started cramping around mile 9. He was on pace to run sub-1:40 before that happened. He still placed 92nd overall, though!

Anita and Glenda soon came through the finish and we hung out with them for a bit in the finish area.

Anita and me

Anita, Glenda, and me

They offered bagels, shrimp, Banana-flavored Power Bars, sodas (Coke, Diet Coke, etc.), pizza, bananas, water, and chocolate milk. I grabbed a quarter of a bagel, but otherwise didn’t actually go through the food line. Barry and I hung out to wait for the top finishers of the full marathon to come in. I can’t remember their times, but I think the top man came in at 2:48 something (don’t hold me to that) and the top woman came in around 3:24. It’s very inspiring to watch them cross the finish line.

Once we were done watching them finish we swung back by the car to get some money and change into dry clothes and then went to grab some lunch. We walked over to Corned Beef & Co. It was my first time going there and I thought it was really good. They are famous for their sandwiches and pizza, so naturally I got a taco salad.

It’s just what sounded good. And it was pretty good, except I didn’t like the shell. It had been fried and it was really oily.

They had live coverage of the marathon on one of the local stations today, and I recorded it on our DVR. I’m excited to watch it this afternoon! I love watching road races on TV.

Anyone else running a race this weekend? How was it??

This evening we made the hour trip up to Roanoke to attend the expo and pick up our bibs. The expo was larger than last year and they held it in the City Market Building instead of the Taubman Museum. Picking up our race bibs and t-shirts went smoothly and we spent a little time looking at everything there was to see.

This year they not only switched to technical shirts, but they also did a separate shirt for the half and full (which I think is great!) AND they had men’s and women’s sizes. Last year I felt the shirt (a cotton white t-shirt that was the same for the half and full) had a lot of room for improvement, and they came through! I will show you the shirt tomorrow, as part of my race report. I feel like showing a picture of it is like wearing it before completing the race… bad mojo.

They were also handing out these blue bracelets for Boston for everyone to wear. They say “Running for Boston” and “Blue Ridge Marathon” on them. They also had stickers that had a ribbon with 26.2 on it that said “Running for Boston” above the ribbon and “Blue Ridge Marathon” below it (sorry no picture of the sticker).

I will be wearing this tomorrow and for quite awhile thereafter.

Yesterday I mentioned that I was hoping Bill Rodgers, Frank Shorter, and Bart Yasso would be at the expo. And guess what!? They were!! You may have already spotted them in the birds eye view of the expo.

I got to talk to all three of them (although it was hard to get Bart Yasso to detach from his iPad) and they signed my bib. We lucked out and there was no line to talk to them! But as soon as I finished there was a line of about 20 people or so. I guess we timed that one right.

Bill Rodgers said “Lets run forever!”, Frank Shorter said “Way to run!”, and Bart Yasso said “Yasso 800s”…. apparently he knows about my plans to start doing speed work. It was all very exciting and once we were done at the expo I wasn’t quite ready to leave yet, so we walked the two blocks over to the finish line area.

And since we were in Roanoke I also decided we should go by Viva La Cupcake to get some treats for after the race tomorrow. For some reason they don’t look as appetizing in the picture… I don’t know why the key lime pie flavor looks so green. They said tomorrow they will have a banana cream pie flavored cupcake, so we may have to go back!

I have something unrelated to running to share with you. Although I probably could relate it back to running…. I’m as good at that as the father in My Big Fat Greek Wedding was at relating everything back to Greek.

But now I’ve gotten off topic. Here is what I wanted to tell you. Remember during last year’s Olympics how Kerri Walsh Jennings, the volleyball player who plays with teammate Misty May-Treanor, was actually pregnant? Well she had her baby recently and guess what!? She named her baby after our puppy 🙂 I saw an interview where she revealed that the name of their baby girl is Scout, and that she named her after her favorite character in literature. That’s also where I got the name Scout for our puppy! To Kill A Mockingbird is one of my most favorite books.