'It completes him:' Edinburg 10K a lifelong journey for race director

EDINBURG -- To say it’s taken David Chavana a long road to get to this point would be an understatement.

Chavana has logged thousands of miles over a running career that began with him as an overweight, out-of-shape, ex-high school athlete and slowly transformed him into a seasoned veteran of road races who knows elite runners from around the world.

Chavana, the long-time race director of Edinburg’s annual 10K, started running as a way to whip his body back into shape after gaining nearly 100 pounds his first few years in post-high school life, one that ended his competitive baseball days with a wrecked knee following an errant slide into second base.

Running shed away the pounds and soon became a daily necessity for Chavana, who woke most mornings the past 35 years to lace up his shoes and hit the road. And while each of the miles Chavana logs are an integral part of his life, he says none may be more fulfilling than the 6.2 he’ll put in on Saturday.

Chavana, a school teacher, will retire as race director for the Edinburg All-America City 10K Run after serving as a guiding force for its first 30 years. Although no one has volunteered to take over the race director’s position yet, Chavana said his focus will shift toward just showing up and running the race he helped found three decades ago.

“It was a passion of mine,” Chavana said of what led him to begin the city’s annual run. “It’s a sport that I love and a city I love very much. I felt like it would be a good fit.”

Running didn’t always appear to be a good fit for Chavana, who maintains a lean runner’s build as he nears his 60^th birthday in September.

When he graduated from Edinburg High in 1971 as an athlete whose senior year was cut short by a torn ACL, Chavana weighed less than 150 pounds. Some five years later as a University of Texas-Pan American student and busy new father, he weighed 228 pounds.

But Chavana had an epiphany watching the marathoners in that summer’s Olympic Games and decided he would take up running to lose weight. Chavana, then 24, began to meet up with a group of Pan-Am professors who jogged three to four miles a day along the campus’ edge.

Tom Semper, a retired kinesiology professor who led the runs, bluntly recalled Chavana Thursday as a “little old fat boy” when he joined the jogging group. At first, Chavana was walking breathlessly behind them. Then he was keeping pace. And soon, he was blowing by the group.

“He was totally self driven,” said Semper, calling Chavana a “pretty dog good runner” after he lost weight. “We were just the vehicle.”

Chavana’s running took him to marathons in New York, Houston and elsewhere.

And in those races, he said, he always asked himself why there wasn’t something similar in Edinburg. He joined another local runner and the city’s recreation director in hatching a plan for the 10k, which they christened using Edinburg’s designation as an All-America City.

In the first manifestation of the idea in 1983, about 253 local runners participated, absent any identifying race numbers on their back. Participants were given caps donated by a local bank as souvenirs. Chavana’s brother-in-law drove the pace vehicle, and a sibling who worked for Coca-Cola passed out refreshments.

Owing in part to its early February scheduling and the growing prize pool, the race soon began to attract elite runners and former Olympians from around the world. But as the finish times shrunk, race organizers kept the annual race as much a celebration of running as it was a competition.

Age brackets were added. A separate category for Valley residents was included. The city eventually implemented a 2-mile fun run.

Frank Garza, the assistant city manager who helped found the 10K as Edinburg’s recreation director, recalled them jokingly giving out a last-place award that soon stuck.

“We started giving out that last-place award to make sure that the competitive runners, but also just the regular, common citizens were recognized,” Garza said. “We wanted everybody to be a winner.”

In recent years, as Edinburg’s 10K has become one of the premier races in Texas, Chavana has become a main point of contact for its competitive runners from Kenya, Ethiopia and other countries. Chavana’s wife, Gracie, says he’s developed a good rapport with them because of his own passion for running.

As he’s aged, Chavana’s knees have locked up on him and caused doctors to tell him to stop running. Still, he persists, waking for a 6 a.m. run that averages between four to six miles. On Sundays, he puts in an 8-miler and talks often about running a marathon again.

“Sometimes, I think he goes overboard, but it completes him,” Gracie Chavana said. “It makes him feel like it was a good day when he runs.”

Saturday will be another good day for Chavana, who has run the race in recent years in addition to his director duties. If prior results are an indication, Chavana won’t finish at the front, nor toward the end.

There are measures of success beyond the results.

“To me, we’ve had former Olympians and top-notch runners from all over the world here, but it all goes back to the community,” said Chavana, who hopes to finish within the top 200 this year. “We want this to be a place where kids can learn to support and embrace running.

“I’m always hoping that some child from an elementary school comes out and would say, ‘I want to be a champ some day.’”

Jared Janes covers Hidalgo County government, Edinburg and legislative issues for The Monitor. He can be reached at jjanes@themonitor.com and (956) 683-4424.