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Contents
Dr.
Rob Hinkle
By Randy Mayes
According
to the dominant men’s middle distance runner in southern Virginia, Rob Hinkle,
“A fractured collarbone and separated shoulder from a mountain biking accident
in March of 1998 made me take running more seriously, because I could not afford
to fall on my shoulder again.” He grew up in Hampton, New Hampshire and ran
track at Winnacunnet High School. The former New Hampshire state high school
1981 and 1982 800m & 1000m champion ran cross-country and track for Bowdoin
College his freshman year, then decided to concentrate on academics and pursue
other outdoor sports.
After
graduating summa cum laude from Bowdoin College in 1986 with a degree in
Chemistry, he entered the Doctoral program in Chemistry at the University of
Utah. With a 33:12 10K and a 16:30 5K, he entered the 1988 St. George Marathon
in Utah. With a respectable 2:49:32 after hitting The Wall hard, he took another
break from running and started mountain biking and raced competitively. Rock
climbing, skiing, and off-road motorcycle riding also became his hobbies as he
finished his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry in 1993. His expertise is exploiting the
extremely reactive nature of the carbon-iodine bond in hypervalent iodine
compounds.
He
then moved to California for a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of
California, Irvine that was funded by the National Institutes of Health. The
research focused on attempting to synthesize a very large molecule that affects
growth hormone levels. In 1996, he accepted a position as Assistant Professor of
Chemistry at the College of William and Mary. He teaches second semester organic
chemistry, two lab courses, and a Master’s level course in organic synthesis.
“I
kept running mainly to clear my head and manage the stresses of being a college
professor. Besides being a teacher, I am a research mentor, obtain external
funding, and publish research results."
In the fall of 1988, he usually ran high 16:00’s & low 17:00’s
for a 5K. Then another unexpected occurrence had an impact on his relationship
with running, “In October of ’98 I entered a 5K race where a rabbit took the
first mile out really fast, and I did not want him to get too far ahead. In the
second mile a runner pushed me faster than I wanted to go. I pulled away after
the second mile and kept pushing, resulting in a minute PR of 15:40.”
With the help of fifty mile organized training weeks with the Colonial Road Runners, who train on the athletic field adjacent to his office at William and Mary, he ran several PR’s in 1999. Among those are: 5K (15:07, Keep Newport News Beautiful), 8K (24:47, Shamrock Sportsfest), 10K (31:25, Elizabeth River Run), and ran 1:13:25 at the Colonial Half-Marathon in his first race at that distance. His times earned him the eighth spot overall in the open division for 1999 by the Washington Running Report. In 2000, he will be competing in the sub-masters category.
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