Richmond Monument Ave 10K

“Come on down for the party... Himaintenance has invited us all to her place for a party afterwards...

Bring your tents...

'32oz”

“i've run this before and attended many times. pretty fun race. they have bands set up the whole route. you're pretty much running up and back through the middle of a huge party. unfortunately, i'll be out of town. hope you have fun.”

“also, if you're a runner, you'll be done sooner. the route is flat. running girl used to do it in 40-46 minutes (quicker than my non-running ass).
last edited: 3/23/09 4:08:16 AM”

“Below is the official slide show to the Monument Ave 10K..

I wound up 'running' (jogging) a 55:01, which I guess isn't too back considering I went out drinking the night before, and hadn't done any running since the 50k on Feb 14th.

I will do a complete 'trip report' of 32oz and Himaintenance's 'triatholon' later..

http://www.deanhoffmeyer.com/deans_stuff/ukrops_10k/

'32oz”

“10K in 55 min......I got a little tired reading that.”

“I would have broke 55:00 but one of the bands along the way broke into 'THE CULT'S' L'il Devil, and I stoped to sing a bar or two...

Daaaa da da daa, daaaaaaaa da da daaaaaa

'32oz”

“Woke up Saturday morning slightly hungover, from a decent Friday evening, and then realized I had to go run.. Oh crap...

Anyway, Himaintenance and I headed down to Richmond for the 10K... We got down and parked at about 7:30. This year for the first time they actually had seedings, so the start wasn't a complete mob scene. Since I had never done a 10K I had no official time so I had signed up in the 56 minute wave.

The elite runners started at 8:30, and over the next 14 minutes the seeded runners where allowed to start according to their seedings. At 8:44 the first wave of 1500 '56 minuters' started follow by my wave of 1500 runners.. There were 32000 runners that started, and over 26000 finished, making this the 25th largest race in the WORLD this year.

To say the beginning was slow was an understatement.. There were people who had signed up for the 56 minute wave, who you could look at and tell that there was no way they were going to run it in that time.

By the 1/2 mile point I was passing people who were out of breath and walking. This whole thing is more an event then a race, and it was awesome. People lined the streets, bands were playing, it was like a huge party...

As I mentioned before, one band was playing the Cult.. I heard CCR, the Who etc as I ran.. The race goes up and down monument ave, and you pass monuments of Jefferson Davis, Authur Ashe etc as you run.. It is pretty neat..

The temp was around 50, but it was quite humid. I saw one guy being attended to at mile 6 (yes literally 2/10 of a mile from the finish)..

My goal was to beat 56 minutes, so that next year I could be seeded and at least avoid some of the traffic jam... Anyway I crossed in 55:01 so I made it... Highmaintenance finished about 10 minutes later, (probably due to the fact that I had consumed more carbs on Friday night)...

After freshing up, Himaintenance and I started on the second leg of our triatholon.. (a 100 mile drive to a winery)... We finished the second leg at 2:00 at the doorstep of the Afton Mountain Winery.

The transition period was a little slow as my legs had stiffened on the drive, but we made it through the transition area and entered the 3rd leg of the triatholon: the 7 glass wine tasting event.

We were told that due to a change in ownership, the winery was having an open house. Pretty much it was a free winetasting,.. oh yeah.. After sampling the wines we both liked the 07 reserve and had another glass.

Then it was back on the road for the 10 mile drive to the Humpback Rocks Parking Lot off of the Shenandoah Parkway. Changing into our hiking clothes and grabbing our packs, we headed up the side trail leading to the AT. We then took the AT North to the Paul Wolfe shelter.

There we met Longway as well as a party of 3 guys, 2 from Baltimore and 1 from Tenn as well as a party of 4 gentleman from VA.

We spent the rest of the day BSing and drinking some wine (I accidently left my flask of double expresso Vodka at home) before turning in for the night. The shelter is pretty nice and the creek in front of it was really flowing, so it sounded like it was raining all night. We didn't get the T-storms they were predicting, but it did rain on and off.

On Sunday we headed back to the car for the drive home.

Ah yes, life is good...

'32oz
last edited: 3/30/09 11:23:19 AM”