Every May outdoor sports enthusiasts gather in Richmond, VA for the Dominion Energy Riverrock, ‘The Nation’s Premier Outdoor Music and Sports Festival’. Overlooking the James River rapids running through downtown Richmond, the festival offers activities for the whole family. This year the event was blessed with clear skies and warm temperatures.
The festival has a little something for everyone, from trail runs to air dogs, boulder climbing to airborne bikes, or live music, the action is non-stop. During my stay I took in several of the competitions, finding interesting places to take pictures and take in the events. Probably the most interesting location was between the bike launch ramp and landing ramp during the BMX competition. Thankfully there were no accidents and I was able to get some wonderful pictures in the process (check out the gallery below).
How far do you think a dog is willing to jump to retrieve a throw toy? 5, 10, 20 feet? Try close to 25 feet in the Air Dogs competition where people from all over bring their dogs to show off how far they can jump. Some dogs are naturals, some not so much. It was nice to stand by the jump pool on this hot weekend as some cool water was often splashed on the viewers by the far leaping dogs.
If observing is not your thing and you like trail running, the events host three different trail runs, a filthy 5k (finish crawling through the mud), a 10K, and even a half marathon trail run. The courses are quite challenging and on warm days like we experienced this weekend, hydration was vital.
Music is always on the agenda. I was able to catch parts of the performances of three bands this year, Palm Palm, Turkuaz, and Full Moon Fever. All total, 12 bands performed over the weekend.
Take a look at the images captured during the event. I am already looking forward to next year to capture even more music performances and activities (maybe next year I will run one or more of the races again, stay tuned!).
Riverrock 2019 images
