Richmond Riverrock Race Report - Part 2

After the mountain bike race, I rode my bike up the street to the parking garage and back to my car so I could change clothes and get ready for the Scramble. Once I got back to my car, I started refueling. I had a few servings of Hammer Gel with water and an ice cold coconut water that I retrieved from my cooler in the car. The cold coconut water was so refreshing and really perked me up.

While I was getting my gear sorted out, Tim came back up to head back to Charlottesville. We chatted some more before he and his children took off for home. After he left, I put the finishing touches on my race prep and headed back down to the race venue. My first order of business would be to use the bathroom of course. As soon as that was taken care of, I ran into Melissa. Melissa had gotten a ride downtown with a coworker of mine so we did not have two cars at the race and could drive home together afterwards.

We had about 20 minutes to chill out and discuss my race. After a while, we were both kind of surprised that they had not started to gather the runners into the starting gate. There were at least 500 people scattered about near the starting line. Finally about 5 minutes before the race was to start, the race director got on the microphone and hit us with the bad news. There was a severe thunderstorm warning and they were going to have to postpone the race until the following day. Apparently a big storm was coming through with dangerous lightning. They announced that we had about 10 minutes to get back to our cars before the storm hit.

So we headed back home, slightly disappointed but also glad we did not start the race only to be stuck in a bad thunderstorm. We headed home, got changed and went out for Thai food. It was not exactly in our plans but it all worked out ok.

The next morning we got up around 7:30 to eat and prep before the 9:00AM race start. We made our way down to the Island and got free street parking. The start of the race had been moved to Brown's Island since there would not be as many people on the island. The rest of the festivities were over so the population of festival goers had gone way down.

The Scramble has several waves to help spread out runners so there is no congestion on the trails. I was in the 3rd wave. After the gun went off, I found myself about 3 quarters of the way back in my wave. I started off trying to take it easy and having a crowded start helped me rein it in a bit. I did start passing people and it was not long before I was at the front of my wave running at about a 7-minute-per-mile pace. I maintained that pace for a while until we hit the first set of stairs. Running the scramble is neat because you get some great views of the river and downtown Richmond from on top of the flood wall.

I felt pretty darn good and my stomach was not bothering me like it had the previous day on the mountain bike. I slowly continued to pass people before making my way up another long flight of steep stairs. These stairs really get the heart rate up and when I got to the top, I had to walk for about 10 or 15 paces before I was ready to run again. But then I was back although my pace had slowed a bit.

After going up the big stairs and running a little more road, the course dropped into the woods for some fun single track running with roots, rocks, twists, turns, up and downs, etc. I always enjoy running on the trails and since I know them so well, I was able to attack some of the course and pass more people in the woods. It was great fun!

The conditions on the course were pretty muddy. Before even getting to the trail, my shoes were already pretty wet from running through some fairly deep puddles. And after running the first section of trails, we ran through a big culvert that had a fair amount of water in it so my shoes got even more wet. After the culvert, we ran along the river on a very muddy trail with some extremely rooty sections. There was lots of standing water surrounded by lots of mud. At first I was trying to go as close to the side of the trail like everyone else. But after a while, I just started running right through the middle of the puddles. Avoiding them was not really working so I decided it would be safer to just run right through them.

After running this messy section, it was time to cross the river on something they call "the dry wall." Unfortunately for the group of runners I was with, we got off the trail and onto some very slick rocks. We were only off the official trail for about 30 paces or so. I took a hard fall and landed on my left hip on the rocks. People around me immediately yelled, "are you ok." I said, "I will be alright." It was a pretty painful fall. As I pulled myself up, I thought, "now that is going to leave a mark." I kept running though. I only had about 2 miles to go and there was really no point in stopping. If I kept running, the pain would subside. Sometimes it is good to just "walk it off" as some coaches say. In this case, I ran it off. The fall did take some of the steam out of my engine and I ended up running a little slower. The fall also bothered my left knee a bit which, up until then, had not been bothering me at all. It really was not that bad, just a minor annoyance.

After hopping over the rocks and getting over to Belle Island, the hardest part of the race was over. I still had about a mile and a half of trails, footbridge, and road to complete but the rest of the course was pretty easy compared to the previous two sections. As I approached the Brown's Island finish, I picked up the pace and had a decent, strong finish. I felt like if I had not fallen, I could have finished a little stronger but I was happy with my sub 60-minute finish.

After the race, I waited to cheer on Melissa. It was not long before she came across the finish line. She really had a great race. It was her first Scramble and only her second time running the trails. We actually did not pre-run part of the course so they were completely new to her. I am really proud of her strong finish. She had a great race!

Here are a few pictures from the race (see below). Most are at the start and finish but there are two from out on the course. As you can see, this is not your typical 10K.

Next up is the GroundForceIT PowerSprint Triathlon this Sunday. Melissa and I will both be competing. She will likely finish the swim about a minute or two before me. I will try to catch her on the bike if I can and if not on the bike, maybe on the run. Thanks for reading. Looks like my next post will be another race report.