They call it the Spring Fever 5km. I revert to the original name of Stafford Hospital 5km, which starts at the hospital in Stafford Courthouse.
Mary Washington Hospital Foundation has hosted this race since 2010.
In 2017, I measured a course using Courthouse Road for USATF certification. The route went off hospital property onto Courthouse Road. There is a loop through Stafford Middle and Brooke Point High Schools’ lots. In 2024, VDOT required the Foundation, for the first time, to hire a certified cone setting company to close traffic lanes on Courthouse Road, for $7000.
Before Thanksgiving, the Foundation approached me and Kevin Breen to figure out a course that did not leave hospital property to eliminate the exorbitant expense. We laid out a course and received approval from the Stafford Sheriff Department and VDOT. I measured the course for USATF certification in early March.
All the roads around the hospital are not level. They are either on an incline or decline. Starting and finishing at the same point makes a fair course, even though there were 447 feet of climbing over the 3.10686 miles. We got to go down that 447 feet, too.
After my debacle at the Grand Slamrock 5km on March 15, I visited my cardiologist to eliminate Flecainide from my medications. I started feeling the effects of the drug within days of starting in mid-February and hoped to get used to it, which I never did. Beginning on March 22, I reduced to a 1/2 dosage for a week and a 1/4 dosage for the past week.
There is a chance I will have more AFIB episodes, and we’ll figure out what to do when the time comes.
I’m happy to say that, as of today’s run, I’m back to where I was before starting the drug, and maybe even better.
My plan for the race was a 30-minute warmup, followed by running the entire race. With the amount of uphills, I’d do my best.
With an 8:30 am start time, I headed out late at 7:55 am for my warmup. I did six 3-minute repeats of running 20 seconds and walking 160 seconds. A seventh segment was a 3-minute run. I had turned around after my fourth interval, and my seventh segment got me back to my car.
I wore shorts over compression shorts, a singlet, a ball cap, and my Saucony Triumph 22 shoes. The weather at the start was 61 degrees with a 55-degree dew point, cloudy skies, and no wind.
At the start, I staged myself a little too far back with about 1/2 the field in front of me. The first tenth of a mile drops 30 feet. So, I assumed everyone would be running faster than usual.
After the gun, it took 16 seconds to cross the start line and begin running. I had to navigate through groups of walkers down the first hill.
The first mile includes a loop through a vacant parking lot. With more down than up, my first mile was 10:27.
A little after the one-mile mark, the course turns onto Care Lane and uphill to the hospital’s main parking lot. The .4 mile hill only goes up 51 feet. With a few places to rest, I kept my turnover high and reached the top. The turnaround is 2.501 km into the course. This past Monday, I painted dots on the road for cone placements. The course setup people missed their marks, and the course was 6 feet short.
After turning, we came back down that 51 feet, and my second mile was 10:32. I had survived the middle of the course.
The third mile was a second loop through the vacant parking lot and spur out to Courthouse Road. Then, there is a relaxing downhill until the final .2 miles. My third mile was a 10:49.
The last .2 miles is uphill with an average gradient of 4.1% peaking at 5.1% for the last tenth of a mile. I was surprised with my time over that last tenth of 63 seconds. I felt better than I thought I would and consciously increased my turnover. I didn’t run many shuffles after crossing the finish line.
My finish time was 32:52, a new Garmin PR and 4 minutes faster than my Grand Slamrock 5km time from 3 weeks ago. My heart rate comparisons between the two events were an average of 118 to 138 and a max of 130 to 148. My perceived effort at both races was the same.
I placed 109th overall, 68th male, and 5th in the Male 65 to 69-year-old age group.
Post-race, I did a little cooldown with more walking than running.
My Grand Prix finish streak is now at 60 races. By 2028, it will be in triple digits, and in 2035, I’ll catch Nancy Cooper’s record. On-on.
Tomorrow, I’m running the Tree of Life 10km. They want me to certify their courses. Half of the course is on trail, and I want to see if certification is possible.