Racing and recovery par for the course for Region Ten director

Robert Johnson hadn’t felt any pain in his hip before the Charlottesville Ten Miler, but almost as soon as he took off, it was there.

“I didn’t know I had it — as soon as I started the race, my hip hurt,” Johnson said. “I had to scale back my plans. I realized that I’d done all the training, so I should be able to finish. And that’s what I did.”

Johnson, who battled the hip to the tune of an impressive 1:24.46 finish, is used to overcoming adversity and helping others do the same. He’s the executive director of Region Ten, a community service board that helps provide mental health, intellectual disability and substance abuse recovery services in Charlottesville. Johnson’s participation in the local running community fits in with Region Ten’s mission of recovery and wellness.

Local principal hopes to change community viewpoints

James Pierce, the principal at Clark Elementary school, isn’t just concerned with his own well-being when he runs in local races.

“I run because I like to model physical fitness for my kids at my school,” Pierce said. “We really want to change the perception of our school, because we’re an active community and we really want to let people know that at Clark, we care about physical fitness.”

On Saturday, he rolled to a solid 1:24.17 finish in the Ten Miler, logging an 8:40 per mile pace. Pierce took a big step toward changing those community perceptions when the school started organizing an annual 5K run four years ago as a fundraiser.

UVa employee stumbles across Ten Miler ability

Bill Blodgett completed his training program for a four-mile race, and wanted to stay in a program, so he joined a group bent on running in the Ten Miler.

“I never intended to run the race, but we kept building up mileage and building up mileage,” Blodgett said. “So it was a no-brainer — let’s run the race.”

Blodgett did well, completing his second tour of the Ten Miler on Saturday with a time of 1:22.57 a solid pace for the 60-year old project manager at Virginia.

Blodgett decided to get into running in the fall of 2007 after battling chronic and stiffness and tightness for years. The running has helped, and he’s improving his time too, dropping around a minute per mile between his first and second jaunt.

Mother, friend find time for Ten Miler

Sheila Blackford had already completed one Charlottesville Ten Miler, but her friend Anne Mulligan was ready to give it a try.

So Blackford, mother of two and wife of a high school cross country coach who’d gotten back into running after having her second child, squeezed training runs into her already-demanding schedule so that she and Mulligan could do the necessary long training runs together. The training worked well as both crossed together at 1:37.07.

“That was the motivation, to just have a great time doing it,” Blackwood said. “We’d do all our long runs together.”

More from the road

At Louisa County High and St. Augustine’s College in Raleigh, N.C., Kim Parsons was a sprinter, but now the State Farm employee is getting things done over a longer distance. She’s a spark plug behind a number of fellow employees getting involved in running.

“We formed a team, the State Farm 4-miler team, and then from there we ran the Ten Miler and several community events through the Charlottesville Track Club,” Parsons said.

During this year’s Ten Miler, Parsons and other runners paired with Jeffrey’s Runners, a group that runs in tribute to Jeffrey Centini and helps raise money for an aid fund that provides gifts for cancer patients at UVa’s Children’s Hospital. …

About 16 years after getting involved in running because of her daughter Jennifer Owens, Linda Owens is still at it.

“When I saw her running cross country I figured, well, I’m just going to have to do something,” Owens said. “And I have been running ever since. I love it, it’s my favorite thing to do. You feel like you’ve accomplished something.”

Owens has run in marathons, half-marathons and many other distance events. Next up for her is the Waynesboro half marathon.