I was supposed to race this last year but could not after a January injury, which turned out to be a long-lasting one. Just when I was about to get back to running, I broke my foot. I started running again in November after 9 months of not running. I worked up slowly (in more ways than one!) to a long run of 11 miles, which I did 2 weeks before the race. I had been having some trouble with a few blisters in some of my runs, esp as I ran more volume and more on our lovely hills. The people at the shop tried to help me with that, and then I tried different shoes, which I just couldn't feel right and happy about, and I finally had to return them after a few attempted runs. I decided the blisters were at least a known enemy, and that I could deal with it for one more run and then try some more shoe solutions. Then I got a bit of pain on the bottom of my right foot on Wednesday after a run, in the old shoes, which made me all confused and worried again.

So I went into the race excited about finally participating (last year I gave splits at the 3-mile mark), but with this nagging question of just how my feet would fare.

We had a slightly chilly start (40-ish) but it and we warmed up just fine during the race. And waiting for the start in the 2600+ throng was plenty warm. All the trees are blooming, so everything looks beautiful. We've been running this course and parts of it all winter, and it's such a blast to finally not have to worry about traffic and to run straight up the middle of the road. The course goes through parts of UVA, the center of Charlottesville, a bricked downtown ped mall, some older neighborhoods, the student hangout area called "the corner," then back to the UVA areas.

There were people cheering the runners on for most of the way, and music: UVA pep band just after the start; congo drum guys at about 2.5; another marching band just before 3; a bluegrass band at about 3.5; some other band just before 5; another band and some people with radios in the neighborhoods; then I think the air force "theme" at some point; then there was a bagpiper at about 6.5; a fiddler shortly after that; then we passed back by a few of the previous ones (the course meets itself in a few spots).

In one of the neighborhoods, you get to an overhead banner that points one direction for runners and one direction for donut eaters; they are handing out donut holes (I think this is shortly after mile 6). There was also a cookie lady. I did not eat donuts or cookies because I hadn't trained with them :) (and because I would have needed milk after cookies!).

I was having a great time. And I guess it's a PR if it's the first time you do the race. I'm very happy with the day: it was fun, I started slowly like I needed to (the start is uphill, and in general it's a hilly course), but otherwise maintained a faster pace than I usually have done in training runs. I had a slower mile during one of the hilliest sections, but I had two surprisingly faster than average miles, one of which was the last mile in the race. And, since I had started slow, I was passing a lot of people at the end who had gone out harder than they should have.

I got the blisters as expected, but they weren't any worse than I've had before...a minor discomfort, but still entirely runnable (but not something I want to just live with forever)...but the main thing is that NOTHING ELSE HURTS! When you've had injury trouble, this is such a tremendous joy: to be able to do what you want with running and not hurt yourself. Sure I'd have loved to have been faster, but my time was actually better than I'd have predicted from my pace in most training runs, so I really can't complain. And there's always next year.