While we await Old Man Winter releasing his icy grip, I wanted to point out two recent releases from the James River Association that should be of interest to outdoors folks in the area.

The bunkhouse for the JRA’s Ecology School on Presquile.

The first is an opportunity to discover one of Central Virginia’s hidden gem outdoor destinations: Presquile National Wildlife Refuge. Just 15 miles from downtown Richmond, Presquile is a 1,329-acre island in the James River that’s only open by appointment. The NWR system has a few facilities there, and the JRA’s ecology school is based there as well. It’s teeming with wildlife and is a great place to discover by canoe or kayak. And on April 12, the public has that opportunity for the second year in a row. The JRA and US Fish and Wildlife Service and holding their annual Presquile Field Day. Activities lead by the James River Association, VCU, US Fish & Wildlife Service, VA Master Naturalists and the Audubon Society will be going on throughout the day. This is a once-a-year opportunity to see one of Central Virginia’s most stunning natural settings.

The JRA also recently announced that they’re giving away free trees. Who doesn’t love free, right? Especially when we’re talking trees. Actually, they’re giving away money to reimburse people for the cost of planting trees, but the end result is the same.

The wetlands boardwalk on Presquile.

During the spring and fall planting seasons, the James River Association is offering free
trees to Richmond City residents. Homeowners can receive up to a $200 reimbursement per
home for trees planted on their property.

This tree incentive program is only open to City of Richmond residents and reimbursements are
available March through April, and September through November 2014. Homeowners must be
an existing River Hero Home or submit an application to become a new River Hero Home to
qualify.

River Hero Homes is JRA’s certification program that recognizes homeowners who are
successfully taking steps to improve water quality by reducing the amount of stormwater and
pollution leaving their property. To become certified, JRA requires homeowners to install a
river-friendly practice, such as planting trees or installing a rain barrel, as well as following some
simple everyday actions to reduce pollution. These actions, which include picking up after your
pet or planting native plants, may seem small, but when adopted on a wide scale, can have a
significant impact on local water quality.

Tree reimbursements are available on a first-come, first-served basis and will be available until
funding runs out. For more information about this program, and to find out if your property
qualifies, click here.

Mayor Dwight C. Jones and Sports Backers Executive Director Jon Lugbill were joined by City Council President Charles Samuels and Richmond City Health District Director Dr. Donald Stern today in announcing a new course for the second annual RVA Streets Alive! festival on Saturday, June 21.

A scene from last year’s RVA Streets Alive! Festival. Credit: Richmond.com

The event will close Brook Rd. from Abner Clay Park to Broad St. and both northbound and southbound lanes of Broad St. from Adams St. to 6^th St. from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. to allow residents and visitors to use these streets to be active through running, walking, biking, and many other physical activities. Vendors will be on-site offering health and fitness information and interactive demonstrations.

“This year we are keeping the momentum going and adding to the excitement and growth of the Downtown area while also highlighting our City’s Arts and Cultural District,” said Mayor Dwight C. Jones. “RVA Streets Alive! is one of the many ongoing initiatives that keep our city active and vibrant.”

The Mayor’s Healthy Richmond Campaign and the Richmond City Health District partner with the Sports Backers to host RVA Streets Alive! The event is free and open to the public. It was created to promote and celebrate active and healthy lifestyles throughout communities by opening up roads and streets safely to the public for physical activity.

“We love the variety of free activities offered at RVA Streets Alive!,” said Lugbill. “With everything from jump roping and biking to volleyball and zumba, it’s a great opportunity to discover a new, healthy passion.”

In 2013, the event’s inaugural year, more than 15,000 people attended and interacted with more than 70 vendors.

A Better Block in Norfolk at dusk. Credit: Max Hepp-Buchanan

You saw this here first on Feb. 24 ,when Max Hepp-Buchanan, the Sports Backers’ Bike Walk RVA director, introduced the concept to RichmondOutside.com readers. Now the SBs are adding some details:

Richmond’s first Better Block project is coming to North Church Hill on June 13-14, 2014. The Better Block project is designed to temporarily transform a city block into a walkable, bikeable, vibrant place for people to gather, shop, eat, and socialize. In this case, the project will focus on a two-block stretch of N. 25^th St. between P Street and R Street. The Sports Backers will also be hosting a 5k in conjunction with the Better Block project.

“There have been more than 60 Better Block projects all across the world, and we are very fortunate to have the opportunity to bring this experience to Richmond,” Hepp-Buchanan said.

While these “pop-up” businesses, comfortable gathering spaces, and pedestrian crosswalks are gone after the weekend, there is a lasting focus on what can be made permanent in the short term to make the block more livable and attractive to businesses, residents, and developers.

“This project lets us cut through the red tape to show what real change in a community can look like when we all work together,” said Hepp-Buchanan.

Initial partners for this project include Team Better Block, the Sports Backers, Bon Secours Richmond Health System, the City of Richmond, Groundwork RVA, Storefront for Community Design, Partnership for Smarter Growth, and community leaders. This partnership continues to grow, and Church Hill businesses, residents, and organizations are encouraged to play a role in making this a success.

Team Better Block does its thing in Norfolk. Credit: Max Hepp-Buchanan

Individuals wishing to participate in or learn more about the Better Block project in Church Hill are invited to attend a Better Block Community Walk & Talk on Wednesday, March 12 beginning at 6:00 p.m. Team Better Block will guide the community on a walk-through of the project area, starting at the corner of N. 25th Street and Venable Street at 6 p.m. The walk will be followed by a presentation and discussion at the Robinson Theater (2903 Q St) at 7:15 PM.

To volunteer for the Better Block project on June 13-14, please visit the Richmond Better Block website.  To receive updates on the project, “Like” Better Block RVA on Facebook or “Follow” Bike Walk RVA on Twitter.

A competitor in a standup paddleboard race at Riverrock 2012. Credit: Jesse Peters

Last week it was the event schedule, today it’s the bands. Dominion Riverrock is coming together, folks, and it’s making me feel all springy (even if the weather isn’t exactly cooperating).

The Sports Backers announced this morning that The Infamous Stringdusters will headline the shows on Friday, May 16, and Matisyahu will headline Saturday evening’s festivities. According to the press release:

The Infamous Stringdusters sound like no one else, combining virtuosic chops on five traditional bluegrass instruments, with an ethos of pushing the genre forward. The Stringdusters’ live show takes improvised string band music to new places, combining musicianship and songwriting with experimental performance and contagious energy flowing between the band and crowd.

 Matisyahu has established a reputation for following his muse—from the stripped-down roots reggae of the gold-certified Live at Stubb’s to the trippy ministrations of Youth to the polished pop eclecticism of light.

In addition to the two major headliners, the Dominion Riverrock music schedule is jam packed with other local and regional talent. You can click here for the music schedule and here for the schedule of athletic events.

Endorphin Fitness recently announced that on May 4 the Liberty University Online Academy East Coast Triathlon Festival will return to the Innsbrook Office Park in Glen Allen. The “Elite Cup” race is one of three national races in which youth and junior elite triathletes compete for a chance to qualify for the National Championships held in Ohio in August. Now in its second year, the day of racing has become an early-season highlight for local and national triathletes.

“This is the only elite qualifying race on the East Coast and has become a critical event in the lead up to the National Championships,” said Michael Harlow, founder and head coach of Endorphin Fitness. “These young kids are our next generation of Olympians. Being able to produce a high quality race that matches the level of the competition is our focus.”

A scene from the 2013 East Coast Triathlon Festival.

Endorphin Fitness, which is organizing the day’s events, anticipates 750 elite junior athletes, amateur kids and adults will compete across three separate race formats. The races include a kid’s fun race for ages seven to 15; a super sprint distance for amateur youth and adults; and the headline youth/junior elite cup event. The elite race, which is a draft-legal Olympic-style format, will draw the top 13 to 19 year olds from across the country and Canada. Endorphin Fitness expects more than 1,200 spectators and family members to watch the day’s activities.

This year’s event will also include a group of disabled athletes from United Athletics, an organization that pairs able-bodied athletes with individuals that require physical assistance. “The day’s events are not just about elite competition. [We want to encourage] an active community through triathlon. We were very purposeful in structuring the race distances to enable inclusion, from beginners to experienced athletes, as well as disabled athletes,” Harlow said.

Eric Glymph, a local athlete, competed in the amateur event last year while his son, Adam, raced the junior elite race.

“I was so impressed with the 2013 East Coast Triathlon Festival,” Eric Glymph said. “I have attended many youth elite races and other triathlons across the country, and this was by far the best organized race and best venue I have been to.”

Last year’s East Coast Triathlon Festival brought athletes to Richmond from 33 states as well as 19 athletes from Canada.

A few weeks back I was looking at the lineup of films in the RVA Environmental Film Festival, which begins today and runs through Sunday, and saw a couple of productions by local filmmakers that piqued my interest.

Melissa Lesh has two movies entered in the festival. One — Fairy Shrimp — is a four-minute mini-documentary on an ancient species that lives in vernal pools in, among other places, various James River Park System parcels. Ralph White co-wrote and directed the piece with Lesh, which will be shown on Friday (Feb. 7 at the Visual Arts Center at 8:55 p.m.)

Lesh also produced a documentary called James River Sturgeon, which won first place among local documentaries at the festival. That will be shown at 3 p.m. on Sunday at the Byrd Theater.

But Lesh’s isn’t the only sturgeon-related documentary available to festival goers. Local photographer and filmmaker Elli Morris produced The Great Return (trailer above) for the James River Association, a sponsor of the film festival. Morris said the 15-minute film wasn’t completed in time to be entered in the festival, but it will be shown at the after party at 6:30 on Sunday at Hardywood. Like the festival itself, that is free and open to the public.

Morris said she shot The Great Return, which is aimed at middle to high school educators, as well as the general public, over five days in October.

“We just ended up with some amazing footage,” she said. “The days we went out, we just saw a lot of sturgeon. It’s really focusing on the fact that if we can keep the river clear of sediment then the sturgeon will return.”

And if, after taking in Fairy Shrimp and a double helping of sturgeon, you haven’t had your fill of the James River, you can find another film by Morris — Affair with the James — at the Byrd on Sunday between 3 and 5 p.m.

Click here to learn more about the 4th annual RVA Environmental Film Festival and to see the lineup of films.

For years now the Monument Avenue 10K has been the sign for me that spring is here. It’s always held a week or so after the first official day of spring, and the weather can be all over the map, but there’s just something about seeing 40,000 people out being active that gives me that springtime itch.

Last year 38,685 people entered the 10K. That’s below the 2011 record of 41,314 but still a huge number and enough to make it the 8th-largest road race in the country. This year, registration opened on Dec. 1, and as of Monday (Feb. 3rd), according to Jackie Stoneburner, the Sports Backers head of PR and marketing, they had over 24,500 participants registered, putting it on pace to be just below the 40,000 mark.

By contrast, in 2000, the race’s first year, just 2,462 people entered.

Credit: Richmond.com

For the first time this year, the Sports Backers are pushing to bring on board 10,000 new runners. Stoneburner said they typically see about 8,000-9,000 newbies every year, so “we thought if we publicly announced a goal of 10,000, it would get people to start thinking about friends and family that may need that push to get started.”

The biggest new thing for this year’s 10K, she added, “is hosting the Collegiate Running Association’s 10k Road Race National Championships. This means we are doing away with ‘elite’ athletes. The prize money — $10,000 total — will be given to the top college runners.”

According to a Sports Backers’ press release: The only requirement for those interested in competing in a Collegiate Running Association national championship— for road racing, trail racing or mountain racing— is that the participant must be currently enrolled in at least one college course at any level, freeing runners from various restrictions such as maintaining a full-time status and competing only during a four or five year window. These eligibility requirements provide the first opportunity for a true national championship that transcends college divisions to exist.

Click here to sign up for the 15th running of the Monument Avenue 10K. The cost is $40 if you sign up before before March 1. After that, the price jumps to $45. Walk up registration is $55.

“Gravel grinders” are a hard-to-define but growing category of bike race in which riders pedal mountain or cyclorcross bikes on fire roads or double track (or some combination of the two) over long distances.

There are many Gravel Grinders around the country. In the Mid-Atlantic, Iron Cross in Pennsylvania and Southern Cross in Georgia have gained a level of cache among hardcore racers, but neither of those, nor any other race in the region, can match the attendance figures of Richmond’s upstart Monster Cross.

Started by local race promoter Mark Junkermann three years ago, registration for this year’s Monster Cross (at Pocahontas State Park on Sunday, February 24) is already well ahead of last year’s. The 2013 event drew about 600 riders from nine different states. Junkermann said, if trends hold, this year he could have 700 sign up for the 50-mile sufferfest. Over the 50 miles, the course gains and loses between 2,500 and 3,000 of elevation. It’s hillier than you might think, but it’s no mountain beast.

“It partly depends on what the weather is like between now and then,” he said, explaining that if it’s a mild winter, people tend to ride more and feel like they’re in race shape by late February.

Credit: Potomac Velo Club

As for the popularity of Monster Cross, Junkermann said, “I don’t know a bigger one anywhere.”

He attributed that to “luck.” Part of it is the calendar. Another part is location. “Northern people are just itching to get on their bikes out of the snow,” he said.

This year for the first time, there’ll be a beer garden, provided by Center of the Universe Brewing, and on the Saturday before Monster Cross, Junkermann has added to trail runs a 5K and a 15K race. Click here for registration info.

And if you’re wondering about that video above, that was from last year’s Monster Cross. You never know who you’ll run into out in the Pocahontas woods.

As if we needed more evidence that everything the Sports Backers touch (or create) turns to gold, the week after Thanksgiving they announced that they’d filled all 5,000 spots reserved for the inaugural CarMax Tacky Light Run this Saturday evening.

“It’s the biggest first-time event we’ve ever had,” said Jackie Stoneburner, the Sports Backers’ PR and communications manager. She said back in 2000 the first Monument Avenue 10K drew just under 2,500 participants (which is kind of amazing to think about now, when it regularly draws 40,000).

The Tacky Light run is now the group’s fourth-most popular event, after the 10K, the Half-Marathon and the Marathon. And who knows how large it will grow to in future years.

“We had an inkling that it would take off like it did,” Stoneburner said. “With all these theme runs…we thought that this would have the same effect. We knew it would draw in a lot of first-timers and a lot of families because it is non-timed and not competitive at all, but it’s also bringing out the avid runners who want to come out and have a good time and do a fun run.”

Richmonders certainly love their Tacky Lights. That’s always been true. And Midlothian’s Walton Park neighborhood, where the Tacky Light Run winds through, is the epicenter of gaudy Christmas luminosity.

“It’s a really festive neighborhood,” Stoneburner said. “There are 13 cheer stations along the course, and that’s all just neighborhood block parties. There is one woman hosting a singles Meetup. There are 65 people coming, and there’s a waiting list. There’s another RV group…Just this big tailgate party. The support we’ve gotten from the neighbors is just out of this world.

“I don’t want to say there are no other events like this around the country…but this is the largest one we know of.”

While the 5,000 paid entries are all full, a limited number of charity entries to benefit Kicks & Wheels are available for $250 through Wednesday, December 11 at 11:59 p.m. Click here to learn more.

Floating wetlands in Baltimore Harbor.

On December 2nd, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF), the city of Richmond, and Floating Island SE of Raleigh, N.C., will install two floating wetland gardens in Young’s Pond in Bryan Park. The plants in the floating wetlands will absorb and remove pollution from the pond, improve water quality in the Upham Brook watershed, and provide habitat for wildlife. The following day, CBF will plant approximately 100 trees in Bryan Park to create a pollution buffer to trap and absorb runoff from a parking lot. Both projects are part of a larger community partnership project led by CBF to restore Upham Brook, a tributary of the Chickahominy River and Chesapeake Bay. The projects are made possible by a grant from the Chesapeake Bay Restoration Fund using funds generated by the sale of Chesapeake Bay license plates in Virginia. The public is invited to come watch the installation. The trees will be planted on Dec. 3 from 9 a.m. to noon.