Weekend's races draw nearly 3,000 runners to area

Ideal conditions greeted the largest field in recent history for Saturday’s 37th annual Virginia Ten Miler, a signature event for Lynchburg that drew thousands of spectators along the length of the course.

In all — including Friday’s 10th annual Amazing Mile Children’s Run, which maxed out at 500 youth, and the Four Miler, which introduced a new “walkers” division this year — the weekend races drew close to 3,000 participants.

“It exceeded all of our expectations,” said fourth-year race director Jeff Fedorko, who enlisted the help of more than 800 volunteers.

Saturday’s runners ranged from elite athletes to members of area high school cross-country teams, from a woman pushing a stroller as she ran to a trio of men who have not missed a Ten Miler in its 37-year history.

At several locations along the course, live music blended with cheers for the runners as they passed. And at the start/finish line for the Ten Miler at E.C. Glass High School — where names of many of the runners were announced as they crossed the finish line — family, friends and well-wishers crowded the area to get it on the fun.

Benson Cheruiyot, 28, a marathon runner from Kenya, was the overall Ten Miler winner in 49 minutes, 23 seconds, capturing the $600 first-place prize plus a $1,000 bonus for finishing in under 49:30.

“After mile five or six, I was pushing myself because I didn’t have anybody to push me,” said Cheruiyot, who placed second in the Houston Marathon in 2:11:33 earlier this year. “It was very hilly. I could have run 4:20 over the last mile if it was a flat course, (but) I enjoyed the course. It was very good training for the Baltimore Marathon (on Oct. 16).”

He was followed by fellow Kenyan Elkanah Kibet; Bobby Mack, a 25-year-old N.C. State graduate who improved on his fourth-place finish from last year; and Rustburg and VMI graduate Donnie Cowart, 24, running in his first race longer than 10,000 meters.

“This is really a stretch for me,” said Cowart, who placed ninth in the steeplechase at last summer’s U.S. Track & Field Championships in Iowa.

“There was an elite group that broke away at the six-mile mark and I was hoping I could reel them in and finish in the top five,” said Cowart, who caught fifth-place finisher Ronald Korui, another Kenyan, in the sixth mile and passed him in the seventh.

“Just before the nine-mile mark, I was able to push and I put a nice gap on him,” Cowart said. “I had a good surge going up the hill and was able to seal the deal.”

The top finisher among women was Renee High, a 28-year-old graduate of Old Dominion University. Sallie Ford, 23, a Glass and William & Mary alumnus running in her second Ten Miler, finished second.

Ford, who is running for the Charlottesville-based Rag-ged Mountain Racing Team, paced herself and saved en-ough energy for a strong kick up Farm Basket Hill to the finish line, with her former cross-country coach, Danny Boyers, cheering her on.

“I did better than I thought I would,” she said. “I stayed conservative the first half and I think that was a good decision because a lot of runners go out too fast and die. My high school coach was screaming as I came to the finish line.”

On the opposite end of the race’s spectrum was a trio of runners who have finished all 37 Virginia Ten Milers. They continued their streaks Saturday, paced by Lynchburg’s Bill Fastabend, who finished 847th in 1:45:56.

“It was a hot day and I could tell I slowed down this year,” said Fastabend, who finished in around 100 minutes the past four years. “I couldn’t hold my pace (but) at this point, I don’t worry so much about my time, just getting through it.”

Bernie Davis, who, like Fastabend is 73, finished his 34th Ten Miler, missing only the first one and two others.

“I was hoping to beat Fastabend, but I never even saw him,” he said.

The other two runners who have never missed a Ten Miler are Bill Draper, 82, of New Jersey, who finished in 2:32:49; and Jim Montgomery, 76, of Daytona Beach, Fla., who was ushered in by a bunch of Girls on the Run representatives running with pink balloons in 3:09:18.

Fedorko expects not only the quantity, but also the quality of the race’s field to grow in the coming years. That is one of several goals that should help continue the race’s revival, and elevate it to elite status on the national racing circuit.

“We want to be able to compete with the top races in the country with the prize money we offer,” Fedorko said. “That’s a goal. Increasing participation is a goal. Having the community involved is a goal and having the race reflect who we are as a city is the No. 1 goal, so that’s what we’re working towards.”

The event has branched out to become more than just a race, but a community rallying point for charitable causes such as the Coalition for HIV Awareness and Prevention (CHAP).

“They’ve been our charity for four years now, and the main goal of partnering with them is to bring awareness of what people in our community, those unsung heroes in nonprofits are doing,” Fedorko said.

An organization with the acronym M.A.A.M., which stands for Mammograms Annually A Must, handed out pink gloves to runners as they passed by a spirit station at the Farm Basket at the bottom of Langhorne Road.

“That was an amazing success,” Fedorko said. “The aw-areness they brought to who they are and what they do is really unique when you associate it with an event like this.”

Other nonprofits represented included the urban farm Lynchburg Grows, and the Lynchburg-based Sports Outreach Institute, which collected more than 6,000 pairs of shoes to send overseas, an increase of 1,000 over last year.

Four years after taking over direction of the race, Fedorko believes it is well on its way.

“We have moved from ‘The Ten Miler is back,’ to “Mission accomplished,’” he said.

“There’s no doubt this race has re-established itself and we’re looking forward to bigger and better things in the future.”