Charlottesville, Virginia

I was in Charlotesville, Virginia this weekend at a continuing education course titled, Running Medicine 2010: Running Through the Ages. I was informed about this course by a former classmate of mine Ron, who was very interested in going. He went last year when the topic was triathlon athletes/training, and said it was awesome! So we met up in Washington D.C. and flew into Charlotesville, VA on Thursday morning. The course was at the University of Virginia and the campus is very colonial with lots of history. The school was founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1819. Edgar Allen Poe was a student there but did not complete his studies, now they make t-shirts that have his image on them and say "Distinguished Dropout."



Ron did not sleep much on the plane, so while he took a nap I decided to run to Monticello (home of Thomas Jefferson). I had asked the concierge and he said it was about 5 miles, so I started the Garmin and off I went. As I ran I realized that this was probably some national monument that I would have to pay to enter and I had not brought along any cash or credit card. It was exactly 5 miles to the visitor center where I was informed that it would be 22 dollars to go up and see the house. I was also told about a nice trail/boardwalk down to the highway again which I took back to stay off the road. I ran the 10 miles in about 75 minutes and then did a few extra miles around historic Charlottesville. After that Ron and I ran around UVA for another 5 miles so I am crediting myself with 18 miles for the day.

On my way back from Monticello I started to notice a burning sensation on my left achilles tendon. I even stopped to check my skin because it felt like the start of a blister. It continued to bother me the rest of the miles that day and was then sore that afternoon and the next day. I iced it a few times and took some ibuprophen. I was worried about the race on Saturday (Charlottesville 10 miler) and even more concerned about my effort considering the LD50 is now 2 weeks away.

The bulk of the course was on Friday and it was excellent. I will make another post on some of the topics once I can organize my notes and thoughts. Frank Shorter was the keynote speaker and he discussed the history of competitive and recreational running and also training older runners. He was a chatty speaker but everyone didn't seem to mind listening to him talk about running politics and performace enhancing drugs. He was very friendly and didn't mind signing a few autographs for me!

Saturday morning my achilles felt about 95% better so I laced up my addidas adizero tempos and we walked over to the starting line. Frank Shorter was the offical starter for the 35th annual Charlottesville 10 miler, and he addressed the field by saying, "I'm not running with you this year because i just had a 170,000 mile tune up on my hip." He just had a hip resurfacing surgery fro.m an old biking accident. The weather was perfect, about 50 degrees, sunny, and calm. All the first timers at this race were told to go out conservative due to the amount of hills late in the course. I wanted to start off slower anyway to test my achilles. Frank fired the gun and off we went. My heel felt great. I was hoping to run around 62-63 minutes before it started bothering me, now I didn't know. My PR at my only other 10 mile race was 62:20. The course was certainly hilly. We were either going up or down the whole time it seemed. I was able to use the downhills, some of them quite long, to recover and prepare for the next incline. I went through 5 miles in 30:42, still feeling good in the achilles. It finally started to burn around mile 8 but didn't affect my stride or give me any sharp pain so I continued on. Miles 8 and 9 were tough, and if I had known the course better I would have started my kick earlier, but I still PR'd in 62:01 (average pace 6:13)! OFFICIAL RESULTS HERE. That means my second half was 31:39. I was 41st overall (over 2300 finishers) and 4th in my age group. I was very pleased with the PR considering the course and that I have been training for an ultra trail race. I got some ice on my achilles right away at the medical tent. Ron finished his first 10 miler in 1:37:45 which I thought was a great effort considering he finished the LA marathon only two weeks ago.

Here are my mile splits: 6:25, 5:57, 6:10, 6:02, 5:59, 6:07, 6:13, 6:11, 6:27, 6:03. I know that those don't quite add up to 62:01 but the Garmin was a little off on the mile splits. It says I went through 5 in 30:31. My achilles as been sore but not too bad. I will be taking it easy for the next two weeks. I don't think I will be too happy if my achilles starts to bother me at mile 8 on the LD50!