Charlottesville 8K

Friday morning started with an MRI on my foot.  I saw Dr. Lutta earlier in the week and he wonders if I possibly have a stress fracture (I won't find out for another week or so at my follow up appointment).  Not exactly the pre-race activity that's normally on the agenda... Then, I took off work at noon and made a quick stop to sign up for a gym membership (specifically for boot camp/strength training classes which is part of the Ironman training plan) before setting out for Charlottesville.  It was raining and traffic was terrible on rt. 29.  This was going to be a long drive.

Jessie was awesome and volunteered to go down early and pick up everyone's packets.  She drove down with Eileen and Henry, and they got all the packets (thanks!!!) and decided to stop for a quick lunch before meeting everyone at the winery.  This gave me a little extra time to get down there, do a quick run-through at Mincer's on the corner, grab some run gels from the run store and a sandwich from Take it Away.  Yum!  By this point, the weather had cleared up and allowed for the 20 minute drive to the winery with the top down, which always makes me happy.

Everyone (me, Jessie, Eileen, Henry, Megan, Mindy, Debbie and the kids) met at Cardinal Point winery, my favorite, where we had a lovely afternoon out on the back porch.  Then, it was off to pick up Darcy, who had arrived and checked into our hotel, and make our way to the Team Z dinner at The Villa (which has cleaned up a LOT from my days at UVA!).  So many people from so many areas of my life doing this race!   It was especially nice to catch up with Hillary who has been absent from the pool for many months (she's concentrating on running this year).  After dinner, Darcy and I made our way back to the classy Super 8 hotel for a lazy evening of television and getting ourselves ready for the race.

At some point during the night I woke up and thought to myself, why am I still planning on running the half marathon?!  What am I trying to prove to myself?!  I think that I had it in my mind that in order to do Ironman in the fall, I needed to do a long running event in the spring.  Right then in there, I made the decision to switch to the 8K race instead.  I slept much better after that, no doubt!  In fact, when the alarm went off at 5:30, I allowed myself to sleep in a little more, rather than my normal type A attitude of getting to the race extra early.  Also, the 8K race started 15 minutes after the half marathon, which allowed us a little extra time.

Darcy and I parked at the downtown mall and walked to the race start.  Darcy headed to the port-a-potty line, which we had been warned was very long, while I made a stop at the registration tent to officially switch races.  I would've run the 8K regardless, but always prefer if everything is official.  It was no problem as the volunteer took down my name and number and made note of the switch.  I was ready to go, pleased with my decision to do the shorter route.

As I walked over to find Darcy, I heard someone call my name.  I looked up and saw Linda standing with a bunch of Team Z people!  We had missed Jessie, Eileen and Henry start their race (half marathon), but found Megan and Mindy and hung with them before the start of our event.  A few minutes later, we were off!  Darcy and I stayed together for the first little bit as we started down a steep hill... not a good sign for things to come!  What goes down, must go up.. and indeed, this was one hilly course.  I decided to walk up the first long hill and Darcy went ahead.  I later passed her when she had stopped to pet a dog on the side of the course.  We continued this back and forth leap frog for the entire race.  My knee bothered me a little, but my foot was fine.

When I got to the water stop which was also the turn-around point, the volunteers told me that I needed to keep going straight.  Huh?  Everyone else is turning around.. is this a joke?  Finally it occurred to me that I was still wearing the half marathon bib number, so they thought I was just really far behind in the longer race.  Phew!  I turned around and started heading back.  Less than a half mile later, Darcy catches up to me again and yells "almost there!".  I respond "nope! we're halfway!"... she hasn't learned that you NEVER EVER say "almost there" to someone unless they are within 100 yards of the finish line! 

Anyway, I kept trotting on, now keenly aware that it was an out and back course and we were going to have to do the exact same hills all over again.  Yuck.  At some point, with about a mile to go, a police officer on a motor cycle rode up next to me and explained that the roads were going to be opening to traffic soon and that us runners would have to move to the sidewalks and obey traffic signals.  I really didn't care for that at all, as we were not going super slow (under 14 min/mi) and there was no posted time limit for the 8K race (time limit for the half marathon was 3 hours, or 13:44/mi pace).  Whatever... kept going and luckily got a bunch of green lights so I didn't have to stop too much.  They also had nobody directing us on the course anymore, so I saw a few runners go off in the wrong direction, unfortunately too far ahead for me to alert.  Down one more hill and up a steep mountain (seriously, think double black diamond ski slope).  I saw Coach Ed cheering on the corner and then just a couple more blocks, and up a small incline to the finish!

As I crossed the finish line, a volunteer handed me a medal.  I didn't see anybody else wearing a medal so I took a look at it and noticed it was for the half marathon runners.  Ha, like anybody should have thought that I finished the half marathon in an hour and 10 minutes!  I promptly went over to another volunteer and returned the medal.  I feel like it's bad ju-ju to have a finishers medal for a race I didn't do.  What I did earn, however, was the pint glass and free beer (they had cider!!!).  Darcy finished just a few minutes behind me, and it got really cold and windy, so we got our post-race refreshments and headed back to the car. 

After a quick stop at Bodo's for a bagel, we drove to Megan's Grandpa's house on Lake Monticello where they were nice enough to let us take showers.  Once everyone arrived home from their races and got ready, we set out for a day at the local wineries!  At the second winery, we ran into David and Anne from Team Z and got to spend time with them also.  Then, Darcy and I said goodbye to the crew as they headed further on the wine tour.  Darcy needed to head back to northern VA by 5pm and I was looking forward to a good night sleep in my own bed.  I dropped Darcy off at her car, still parked at the hotel, and started the drive back to Fairfax, with a nice stop for ice cream.  One more stop at Chick-Fil-A to grab dinner for Jon and me, and then it was a quiet evening on the couch (asleep by 8:30!).  A good day.