Pocahontas Half Marathon, 10K & 5K
Chesterfield, VA
- Half Marathon, 10K, 5K
- Road (Paved)
- Official race website
Come out and enjoy the scenic Pocahontas Half Marathon, 10K and 5K near Richmond. These courses will lead you through the scenic area of Pocahontas State Park. Walkers and strollers are welcome to attend this event. In partnership with Operation Turbo, Pocahontas Half Marathon runners receive a finisher’s Challenger Coin, … MORE
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Wonderfully flat and smooth for woods
Today’s run report. I ran with Bishop’s Events at Pocahontas State Park in Richmond, Virginia. The organizer is a military veteran, and he tries to have a charity partner serving … MORE
Today’s run report. I ran with Bishop’s Events at Pocahontas State Park in Richmond, Virginia. The organizer is a military veteran, and he tries to have a charity partner serving that community. He honored a guy who has run 200 events with them, presenting what looked like a giant (1000x normal size) chess pawn with a nameplate; that guy receives his own customized number, which is 2. He finished first. This was the second flattest and smoothest trail course I’ve ever run (more about the first below). It went through woods. There were leaves almost everywhere. To communicate how flat and smooth, a woman pushing a stroller, with another child alongside, plus a dog, passed me, and she remarked to her older child how there weren’t branches and rocks. The vertical gain consisted of gentle rises, so subtle you could have powered up all of them without breaking a sweat. The route was a double out and back, plus a little spur. The out and back was the 10k segment, and the additional .7 miles was made up with the little spur. I ran a 2:46, finishing 42 of 52. I ran a negative split, by a considerable margin. I passed at least a half dozen people in the last leg. I came up behind two women at the 2:42 mark, and I thought I might even be able to pass them, but at the very moment I considered a sprint they took off, and they ultimately finished more than a full minute ahead, meaning I likely wouldn’t have been able to sustain a pace to pull in front anyway. Saturday Frank had to consider Sunday Frank. I will do this again by the Verrazano Bridge, and my hope is to beat today. That is not an absurd goal. I am creaky, is the problem. My knees aren’t recovering as rapidly as before the pandemic. The first trail route, ranked by flat and smooth, would be the DC Canal Tow Path — Bishop’s puts on events there too. But that isn’t really through woods.