Some photos from the Asheville Marathon held at the Biltmore Estate.
I should note that the iPhone’s camera is particularly poor in low light conditions and with fast motion — so the falling snowflakes in the early dawn hours made for quite the digital sampling image challenge. But maybe it adds to the experience that there’s a lot of blurriness and smudges.
I should also note that the snow and/or perspiration froze to my hair and didn’t melt until the closing miles. It felt like I had squeeze dollops of superglue onto a couple of hair follicles.
As an aside, this was a tough day for me. Last week I fell and physically was battered and bruised. This week, I fell emotionally and just couldn’t seem to pull it together. I was actually okay in the falling snow — and there was some real beauty to the whiteout conditions. But as the sun rose, the precipitation stopped, and the fallen snow started melting, the terrain gave way to shoe sole-sucking mud. On top of that, I found my mind forever voyaging to mistakes of the past, metaphorical slip-ups to reflect the slip-sliding on the muddied vineyard roads.
To the great credit of these two women runners — Ashley and Ha — I didn’t give up and ran with them for the closing eight miles or so. They kicked it up a notch and finished ahead of me which is as it should be since they pulled me along. They said I helped them but I think they were just being nice. It’s been a long time since I felt like just stopping in the middle of a race… but I was feeling that way today. I’m glad to have finished but it was a rough, rough day.
On the inexplicable front, it looks like despite coming in AFTER the 3:30 pace group, I still may have won my age group. Maybe that’s what getting old is all about — being awarded for just showing up and finishing the thing.
