"Footfalls echo in the memory"

To describe this past Sunday's running-learning-curve, I must dip into T.S. Eliot's Four-Quartets.

What might have been is an abstraction

Remaining a perpetual possibility

Only in a world of speculation.

What might have been, what was, perpetual possibilities...

Over one thousand runners assembled, dropped off by shuttle, just before dawn at the Biltmore Estate grounds. 

The weather not at all optimistic: 40 degrees, and beginning to drizzle. 

I found a bathroom, checked my bag, and huddled in the one warm place near the startling line - former horse stables of the Estate.

There's always that moment before a race - jockeying at the start, stretching, tying shoe laces one last time, that I begin to feel a buzz of perpetual possibility - everything begins at that moment the gun's shot, the horn's blown, the buzzer sounds.

I started strong; legs felt light, and lungs opened up. 

The drizzle turned to heavy rains by the 3rd Mile, and did not relent for the next 10. 

I made several tactical errors in this half-marathon. 1. Not accounting for altitude changes (no training in Western, NC, and coming from Piedmont region), & 2. Not grasping the course elevation gains or what the course actually looked like.

Miles 3 through 5 were a steady incline - envision a spiral staircase, except a road wrapped around the mountain in a unrelenting ascension.

I held onto my pace and personal goals until about the 4th Mile. I faced the reality of either gutting it out, and painfully hitting a wall hard enough to keep me from finishing all 13.10, or surrendering to the terrain and mountain, and taking it at much slower tempos to adjust to altitude & elevation gains.

There were portions of beautiful downhills, and flat straightaways, but the majority of the race was hilly & steep.

I was on the course for over 2 hours, and by the 8th Mile my feet were numb inside my wet/cold trainers. Numb feet aren't quite so responsive on rougher surfaces, and miles 9 & 12 were along the French Broad River on a rough pebble/gravel surface.

I'd be hard pressed to think of one mile that was easy. It was one of the hardest races/long runs I've done; however, all the weeks of training, working with form and focused mind/body alignment did - I believe, give me the single mindedness to keep going, one small footfall at a time despite the rain, wind & lingering bronchitis. There was no option to quit, only to conserve energy at the cost of pace and personal record, and keep moving towards that still point:

Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,

Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point

As I rounded the final hill's crest, and saw the blue and white Finish arch beckoning, tears filled my eyes. 

I had learned what it takes, and how I could get through it.

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." 

- T.S. Eliot