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Blue Ridge Parkway Marathon Results

First let me say using the porta-potty mid-race is a major marathon enhancing experience.

Time: 4:17:31 (PR)

Place: 129th out of 324 overall finishers, 114th dude out of 243 finishing dudes

UPDATE: Here are the overall results.

UPDATE #2: Oops.

I wore the VFFs the whole way. On my hands. There was only a brief sprinkling on the course. The only blemish on my feet is one tiny bloodless cut on the side of my left foot. I believe that happened around the same time I let loose one of Carlin’s 7 words. Near the end I saw MadMayo member Lori, who ran the half (Congrats and great job having fun on such a tough course!), and I passed the shoes to her. A heavy psychological more than physical weight lifted, and I was able to sprint at the end.

Body Check: a couple of weeks ago I twisted my ankle chasing the dogs out of the garden. I stepped in a hole. As I’m sure you’re wondering, I was wearing shoes. I have three dogs, two chickens, a Prickly Theme lawn, complete with Splinter Mulch. And black widow spiders. The lawn is out to get me. Anyway, that right ankle has been tight since then, and it was tough adjusting my form to accommodate on the crazy long and steep downhills. Now the ankle is a little sore in a might/might not take some advil sort of way.

The MistleToe is totally fine. I got only eight hours sleep total in the last two nights worrying about that stupid thing. Which reminds me, why am I still awake right now? I did baby it (and the ankle) a little, at the expense of my left hamstring and quad. I had one of those omg stop wait that hurts more ok keep going ow ow ok walk nope fine keep running cramps in my hamstring around mile 24.

No chaffing. The cotton shirt was fine. Here’s a DIY body lube: Vaseline and olive oil. Seems to work for me. I know, I’m so counter culture.

The Course: BahRuTahhhhhl. I’m going to say it: tougher than Grandfather Mountain. Yes, Grandfather has 300 more feet of elevation climb, but the additional 1400 feet of descents in Blue Ridge holy hell. I pulled out all the tricks in the book and made a few up along the way just to keep my feet (and by extension, body) in good shape. They were steep and never ended. Never. I’m still running down one of the hills now. And the people cheering us on in town for the last eight miles kept saying things like “It’s all downhill from here!” AAAGHH NO! Seriously, it got to the point where when turning round a corner, it would be a relief to see an uphill. Just because it wasn’t a downhill.

And the roads. Very educational. There were a couple of smooth patches. Scattered, here and there. The other 90%? Rough old asphalt and a dash of driveway gravel rock path. Much of it comparable to the surface of my hill. By the end I was craving some smoothness, but truth be told the roughness probably kept my form in check. More smoothness, I probably would have blistered a bit.

Did I mention the descents? Right. I’ll say one more thing on the subject: we went up just as much as we went down. Note how I’ve said little about the ascents. It’s not because they weren’t tough, because they were. It’s just that the descents, holy hell.

It was beautiful. There was one stretch around mile 18 that was through the car dealer district, but at that point I didn’t really care about much other than trying to get my body to work properly on a flat (going downhill doesn’t require as much foot lift, so having to start lifting higher again was tough). I heard a pileated woodpecker, but that was about it for wildlife. All the fast people scared them away I suppose. But the mountains were awesome.

The crowds were great. Not all Bostony of course, but a great turnout for a city the size of Roanoke. Lots of kids, which is always fun as a barefooter. They say the darnedest things, donchya know.

By mile 14, when people asked “why are you running barefoot?” I would just pant, “barefootjosh *wheeze* dot com. I explain it all there.” That was a lot easier than “Well you see, the homo sapien foot is not much different than that of the homo heidelbergensis, which suggest the overall functionality of the foot is being severely under utilized blah blah blah.”

One runner said “I hope you’re up to date on your Tetanus shots.” I replied , “Oh, if I step on something, don’t pity me. Pity the poor thing I stepped on.” She responded “Good one!” Finally got to use it, and it worked.

For barefooters: extreme confidence in hill and surface management a must for this course. Just in case you didn’t read my post and skipped to the end. I wouldn’t blame you.

In Conclusion: Great race, very organized, fun organizers, tougher than Grandfather. And I beat my NYC marathon in shoes time. It was an incredible challenge, and I had a great time giving it my best. Oh – and some evidence:

Charlie’s Soap got them all nice and clean and pretty again, unfortunately my legs are too tired to play photographer.

Next up: Grandfather again (and properly barefoot).

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Copyright Barefoot Josh | The bare foot is the best running coach money can't buy.