Shenandoah Half Marathon

The Saturday before Labor Day I ran the Shenandoah Half Marathon. This was another race hosted by Vacation Races, which hosts races (mostly half marathons) outside national parks and encourages participants to then explore the park they’re running near. I’ve been fighting plantar fasciitis in my right foot since spring and I don’t have much time to run and train right now, so I had really debated whether or not to do this race. In the end, I did decide to go ahead with it, and I’m glad I did. This was third race I’ve run with Vacation Races (the Glacier half, which I talked about here, and the Great Smoky Mountains half, which I haven’t talked about yet), and it won’t be the last- they really are a lot of fun.

you can read more about how Vacation Races runs their eco-friendly races in my post about the Glacier half.

I was only able to run five times in between the Glacier half and the Shenandoah half and only walked a few times, so I was definitely undertrained, but this wasn’t the first time that’s happened. I’ve gone into most of my half marathons with less training than I’d planned.

My plantar fasciitis is still an issue, and I also had a cold, courtesy of Ocean. The little dude brought home germs from the nursery at church for the umpteenth time. Only a year and four months till he’s old enough to move to the next class (not that I’m counting or anything…). So I didn’t go into this race feeling at the top of my game or expecting a PR.

Tuesday we had some glorious, if unusual, rainy fall-like weather that had me hoping for nice weather for the race, but the hot and humid weather on Thursday made me seriously afraid Saturday would be hot and humid as well. I really, really dislike running in heat and humidity.

However, when Friday came we were loading the RV while it rained.

So maybe it wouldn’t be too hot and humid after all.

At that point, I finally checked the weather forecast and saw that it called for rain most of Friday and Saturday morning, as well as temps in the 50s and low 60s. Perfect running weather!

The GPS took us on the scenic route to the race campground, and it really was so scenic. The freeway would have been quicker, but a lot less beautiful than the country roads we drove. When we arrived at the park where the race expo, finish line, and campground were located, we were directed to park at a spot at the back of the expo parking lot, but were then redirected to the parking lot by the small lake. It was a hassle to move since we’d already leveled everything and put the slides out, but there was a lot more privacy and we had the most gorgeous beachfront views.

When we arrived at the race campground and expo area, it was raining pretty hard, but it let up after awhile and most of the evening was dry, though still overcast.

There were only a few RVs at this race (there were quite a few at Glacier), but we were sure thankful for ours when the off and on rain became a downpour multiple times during the night. The poor tent campers…. We’ve tent camped in the rain and we always came out at least slightly soggy, no matter what precautions we took.

I slept poorly, as seems to always be the case before a race, though I think it was worse this time since I actually did sleep through my alarms before last week’s 4 mile race, and the paranoia was running strong.

It was pouring rain when I gave up and got out of bed to get dressed 20 minutes before my alarm was supposed to go off, but it tapered by the time we left the RV to catch the shuttle bus to the starting line. Unfortunately, it started pouring again after we arrived at the start line and our rain jackets couldn’t keep up. We were pretty soaked and the race didn’t start for another half hour. Nothing like starting a race while wet and chilled.

The elevation map had me worried, but in the end the hills weren’t too bad. They weren’t nearly as steep as the hills in the Glacier half. A couple of the hills felt long, but they weren’t as long or as steep as the hill that makes up the first five miles of the Glacier half.

The rain misted off and on, but there were no downpours during the race. The temps were in the mid-50s, which felt great, even when the sun came out just after I hit the 11 mile mark. It was still misting at that time, and it never got too hot.

The scenery was beautiful: misty clouds, rolling hills, farm fields, horses, cows, old barns, dripping trees all around.  Though the smells coming off the horses and cows weren’t quite as beautiful 🙂

I went into this race with no expectations for my finish time. I knew I would be undertrained and since I was worried about the hills, my only plan was to walk the uphills and run the downhills and see how it went. Overall, it went pretty well.

I walked about 5 miles of the race, and I had planned on walking more, but I felt pretty good for the first half of the race, so I ran most of it. My cold, lack of sleep, and a bit of a chill from being wet all combined to make me feel worse than I’d have liked in the second half, but it was not as bad as it could have been. While I walked a good portion of the second half, I did finish fairly strong.

This was my eighth half marathon, and I ran it in 2:51:05, just 4 seconds slower than the Great Smokies half that I ran in 2014. It’s one of my slower times, but not my slowest. I do feel that I benefited from some residual of the training I did this spring for the Glacier half. While I have completed a half with no training (it was advertised as walker friendly, but I was the only one walking, so I ran as much as I could in order to finish faster. I still finished dead last), I wouldn’t recommend it.

At this point I’ve been running consistently for the last ten years, so even though I’m not a high mileage runner I have a decent mileage base and I know what I can do. Like I know I can walk 13 miles- I’ve got the endurance for it, which is why I went ahead and completed this race even though I wasn’t able to train properly for it.  Frame of mind has a lot to do with it too, though.

I think I can, therefore I can.

Even if it’s maybe not the smartest idea I’ve had. That half I didn’t train for? I didn’t train because I’d given birth to Ocean less than four months previous, and while I’d started walking and running a bit, I was still in the process of figuring out when and for how long I could exercise before he wanted to be fed again. That was a tough race, let me tell you, and not an experience I’d like to repeat. Being prepared means fewer sore muscles and a smaller chance of getting injured.

Despite having damp feet because of the rain, I didn’t get any blisters, though if the race had been longer I probably would have gotten some as my preemptive moleskin had loosened and started to shift a bit. Because of the rain, my PF acting up, and my sister’s blisters (her feet didn’t fair nearly as well as mine did), we decided against hiking in Shenandoah NP after the race and just headed home. The park is close enough that we can go another time, and we’ve made numerous trips to the park in the past.

I love that Vacation Races is always adding more races, including races on the east coast. There’s now three: Great Smokies (TN), Shenandoah (VA), and Everglades (FL). Most of the national parks are in the western states, but I’d love to see one more out here: Maine has Acadia NP, and it would be a great excuse for another road trip 🙂

Have you run any of the races hosted by Vacation Races?