OLD-RUNNER.COM

Race #161 - Alyce T. Guettler Hunger Run 5k - Rock Hill, SC - 01/28/12

2012-01-28T21:31:00.002-05:00

After two straight weeks of no races, it was a pleasure to wake up early on this Saturday morning and head to a race. January is probably the month with the fewest races so there aren't a lot to choose from but this is a good small-town race close to home. The Alyce T. Guettler Hunger Run has been held now for 32 consecutive years, which I'm guessing would make it one of the oldest races in the state of South Carolina. It's well organized and things seem to run smoothly, but it's a little old-school, and to me one of the drawbacks is that there is very little online information about the race. There's no website but if you look hard enough you get enough information to find your way there. As I write this at 9 p.m. the night of the race I still can't find the official results, but I've got a busy day scheduled tomorrow so I'll add results later on when they show up. [Note: After I posted this Stan Austin sent me a link to the results, which were up on the Active.com site.]

Much of the race takes place around the grounds of Winthrop University, and after looping around what I believe was Winthrop Coliseum you go back the same route, so the big hill that was such a pleasure to run down near the beginning came back to haunt me the last quarter mile or so of the race. I've gained a few pounds over the winter that I haven't been able to lose yet so I'm not running quite as well as back in the fall, and as I climbed that final hill about 2.9 miles into the race I looked back and there was nobody close enough to catch me so I took a short walk break of about 10-15 seconds, which is something I haven't done in a long time in a 5k. I'm not sure how much it affected my time but I finished 1st in the 55-59 age group and 15th overall in the race with a time of 21:09 so it wasn't terrible but I'm hoping I can get back under 21 minutes this year.

Click Here for Race Results

My Stats:

Time: 21:09
Pace: 6:49
Age Group: 1 of 11
Overall: 15 of 114

**************************************
* RACE RATING (100 Possible Points) *
**************************************

Note: With my new rating system (started in December 2011) there's not a chance of any race scoring near 100. If it's important to you, look at each individual category to see how points were earned (or not). Just trying to be more objective with the details. I generally like all of the races I run. If there's something that really rubs me the wrong way I'll mention it in the summary above.

RACE COURSE (20 possible points)
0 - Chip Timing: (3 points if yes)
0 - Starting Mat: (2 points if yes)
0 - Water Stops: (at least 1 for 5k, 2 for 10k, 4 for half marathon) (2 points)
1 - Course Marking: (0)bad (1)good
1 - Course Scenery: (0)bad (1)good
2 - Mile Markers: (0)poor or none (1)normal (2)with clocks or time called out
2 - Volunteers: (0)too few (2)good
0 - Finish line: (0)mediocre (2)pretty good to excellent
2 - Certified Course: (0)no (2) yes
2 - Correct Distance: (0)no (2)yes
1 - Partly or fully on unpaved roads: (0)yes (1)no

REGISTRATION (6 possible points)
3 - Cost: (0)expensive (1)reasonable (3)cheap! (Just 15 bucks on race day w/no shirt!)
3 - Race Day Registration: (0)no (3)yes

RESULTS (3 possible points)
0 - Posted promptly online: (0)no (2)yes
0 - Clear link on website: (0)no (1)yes

AGE GROUPS (13 possible points)
2 - 3 deep awards: (2)yes (0 for anything less)
2 - 5-year age groups (5 points) (0 for anything less)
0 - 14 and under group (1)
1 - 65+ group (1)
1 - 70+ group (1)
1 - Top Overall M/F: (0)none or first only (1)top 3 or better
1 - Masters Category(40+): (0)no (1)yes
0 - Grand Masters Category (50+): (0)no (1)yes

AWARDS (9 possible points)
1 - Overall Winner Awards: (0)none (1)yes (2)excellent
1 - Age Group Awards: (0)none (1)yes (2)excellent
0 - Door Prizes or Drawing: (0)no (2)yes
0 - Finisher Medals for All Finishers: (0)no (1)yes (3)really cool medals

POST RACE (7 possible points)
5 - Food for Race Participants: (0)none (1)some (2)adequate (5)a feast!
0 - Entertainment: (0)no (1)yes
1 - Finisher times posted after race: (0)no (1)yes

REST ROOMS (4 possible points)
0 - Porta Potties: (0)no (1)limited, long lines (2)plentiful
2 - Indoor Restrooms: (0)no (1)limited, long lines (2)plentiful

T-SHIRTS (8 possible points)
2 - T-Shirts: (0)no (2)yes
1 - Design: (0)not good (1)not bad (2)nice
0 - Material: (0)cotton (2)technical fabric
2 - Discount for no-shirt option: (0)no (2)yes

PHOTOGRAPHY (12 possible points)
0 - Professional Photography: (0)no (5)yes
0 - Prices: (0)expensive (2)reasonable (5)cheap!
0 - Free Photographs (newspaper, etc.): (0)no (2)yes

PARKING (8 possible points)
2 - Close to Start: (2)yes (0)no
2 - Close to Finish: (2)yes (0)no
2 - Plenty of spaces: (2)yes (0)no
2 - Free Parking: (2)yes (0)no

WEBSITE (5 possible points)
0 - Dedicated race website (0)no (2)yes
0 - No dedicated site but separate page on other site (organization, running store, etc): (0)no (1)yes
0 - Results or link to results posted on website: (0)no (2)yes

OTHER (5 possible points)
2 - Shelter from Inclement Weather (needed or not): (0)no (2)yes
0 - Swag (free socks, water bottles, etc.): (0)no (1)yes, some (2)excellent
0 - Part of race series or Grand Prix: (0)no (1)yes

TOTAL: 50

Race #160 - Resolution Run Half Marathon - Travelers Rest, SC - 01/07/12

2012-01-07T18:06:00.000-05:00

I feel like a complete underachiever since almost every other runner I know ran either an ultramarathon or a full marathon this morning, but I did manage to finish 1st of 17 in the 50-59 age group (less than two months from my 60th birthday) and 17th of 196 overall at the 9th Annual Resolution Half Marathon in Travelers Rest, South Carolina. This is a particularly hilly area near Paris Mountain and last year it was my second slowest half marathon out of the thirteen half marathons I ran, so my goal going in was to at least run better than I did last year. It ended up well, with this year's time being over 7 minutes faster than last year. The weather was spectacular for January 7th with the temperature in the mid 40s at the beginning of the race to around 60 degrees at the finish -- much better than last year's bone-chilling 22 degrees at the start of the race that was cold and windy throughout.

This is a fun race that's organized well by the local YMCA. They announced at the awards that we could sign up for next year's race today for only 15 bucks. That's a great deal for a half marathon registration and I was tempted but you never know what might happen over a year's time, although I hope to be back for my third year in a row then.

My Stats:

Time: 1:38:37
Pace: 7:32
Overall: 17 of 196
Age Group: 1 of 14 (50-59 age group)

Click Here for Race Results

Click Here for 160+ Free Photos from Greenville Online

**************************************
* RACE RATING (100 Possible Points) *
**************************************

Note: With my new rating system there's not a chance of any race scoring near 100. If it's important to you, look at each individual category to see how points were earned (or not). Just trying to be more objective with the details. I generally like all of the races I run. If there's something that really rubs me the wrong way I'll mention it above.

RACE COURSE (20 possible points)
3 - Chip Timing: (3 points if yes)
0 - Starting Mat: (2 points if yes)
2 - Water Stops: (at least 1 for 5k, 2 for 10k, 4 for half marathon) (2 points)
1 - Course Marking: (0)bad (1)good
1 - Course Scenery: (0)bad (1)good
1 - Mile Markers: (0)poor or none (1)normal (2)with clocks or time called out
2 - Volunteers: (0)too few (2)good
2 - Finish line: (0)mediocre (2)pretty good to excellent
0 - Certified Course: (0)no (2) yes
2 - Correct Distance: (0)no (2)yes
1 - Partly or fully on unpaved roads: (0)yes (1)no

REGISTRATION (6 possible points)
1 - Cost: (0)expensive (1)reasonable (3)cheap!
3 - Race Day Registration: (0)no (3)yes

RESULTS (3 possible points)
2 - Posted promptly online: (0)no (2)yes
1 - Clear link on website: (0)no (1)yes

AGE GROUPS (13 possible points)
2 - 3 deep awards: (2)yes (0 for anything less)
0 - 5-year age groups (5 points) (0 for anything less) (had 10-year age groups)
1 - 14 and under group (1)
0 - 65+ group (1)
0 - 70+ group (1)
1 - Top Overall M/F: (0)none or first only (1)top 3 or better
1 - Masters Category(40+): (0)no (1)yes
0 - Grand Masters Category (50+): (0)no (1)yes

AWARDS (9 possible points)
2 - Overall Winner Awards: (0)none (1)yes (2)excellent
2 - Age Group Awards: (0)none (1)yes (2)excellent
0 - Door Prizes or Drawing: (0)no (2)yes
3 - Finisher Medals for All Finishers: (0)no (1)yes (3)really cool medals

POST RACE (7 possible points)
5 - Food for Race Participants: (0)none (1)some (2)adequate (5)a feast!
1 - Entertainment: (0)no (1)yes
1 - Finisher times posted after race: (0)no (1)yes

REST ROOMS (4 possible points)
2 - Porta Potties: (0)no (1)limited, long lines (2)plentiful
2 - Indoor Restrooms: (0)no (1)limited, long lines (2)plentiful

T-SHIRTS (8 possible points)
2 - T-Shirts: (0)no (2)yes
1 - Design: (0)not good (1)not bad (2)nice
2 - Material: (0)cotton (2)technical fabric
0 - Discount for no-shirt option: (0)no (2)yes

PHOTOGRAPHY (12 possible points)
5 - Professional Photography: (0)no (5)yes
2 - Prices: (0)expensive (2)reasonable (5)cheap!
2 - Free Photographs (newspaper, etc.): (0)no (2)yes

PARKING (8 possible points)
2 - Close to Start: (2)yes (0)no
2 - Close to Finish: (2)yes (0)no
2 - Plenty of spaces: (2)yes (0)no
2 - Free Parking: (2)yes (0)no

WEBSITE (5 possible points)
0 - Dedicated race website (0)no (2)yes
1 - No dedicated site but separate page on other site (organization, running store, etc): (0)no (1)yes
2 - Results or link to results posted on website: (0)no (2)yes

OTHER (5 possible points)
2 - Shelter from Inclement Weather (needed or not): (0)no (2)yes
0 - Swag (free socks, water bottles, etc.): (0)no (1)yes, some (2)excellent
0 - Part of race series or Grand Prix: (0)no (1)yes

TOTAL: 72

Race #159 - Freedom Park New Year's Ultra Run Half Marathon - Morganton, NC - 01/31/11

2012-01-01T22:19:00.003-05:00

I didn't really have any big plans for a race on New Year's weekend, but on Thursday night when Stan Austin mentioned on Facebook that the ultra run in Morganton was adding a marathon and half marathon option at the last minute, I jumped at the chance to get one final half marathon in for the year. If you're scoring at home, you may remember that I had intended to run a half marathon every month in 2011. It didn't quite work out because I got sidetracked in November, but I managed to run a couple during two months and with this one on the last day of the year I ended up with 13 for 2011. I'll keep trying to run 10 or 12 half marathons a year as long as I can. Right now it's my favorite distance since it provides plenty of challenge while not requiring any extra training.

Since the marathon and half marathon were just added in the final week with no advertising at all, they were both tiny races, with only 6 runners in the marathon and 12 in the half marathon. Still, running simultaneously on the 1-mile walking track around Freedom Park along with the 24-hour ultra race there were plenty of runners on the track. In order for all the races to end at the same finish line the half marathoners lined up at a mark probably a third of a mile or so from the finish line and the marathoners were maybe a third of a mile in back of us. We all started promptly at 10 a.m., exactly two hours after the ultra began. I took the lead in the half marathon and was ahead for about 6 miles, but all the while there were two girls following me carrying on what seemed to be a leisurely conversation and I knew it was just a matter of time before they nonchalantly pranced around me. As they passed I managed to gasp out a few words: "What kind of time are you shooting for... 1:30?" I asked. Without missing a beat and hardly breathing, one of the girls just said, "-ish" and they were on there way. I watched them fade off into the distance little by little until the last lap when they were probably a half mile ahead of me.

I did finish third overall in the half marathon and was the first male finisher so that was nice, but it was such a small race it's hard to revel in the accomplishment of being "1st overall male" so I'll try to restrain myself.

As I write this the results aren't available yet. My guess is that David Lee of Lee Timing is probably sleeping all day after being up for the 24-hour race and half the night before it started just getting everything ready. Once the results are available they can be found at the link below.

Click Here for Race Results

Click Here for Race Website

**************************************
* RACE RATING (100 Possible Points) *
**************************************

RACE COURSE (20 possible points)
3 - Chip Timing: (3 points if yes)
0 - Starting Mat: (2 points if yes)
2 - Water Stops: (at least 1 for 5k, 2 for 10k, 4 for half marathon) (2 points)
1 - Course Marking: (0)bad (1)good
1 - Course Scenery: (0)bad (1)good
2 - Mile Markers: (0)poor or none (1)normal (2)with clocks or time called out
2 - Volunteers: (0)too few (2)good
2 - Finish line: (0)mediocre (2)pretty good to excellent
2 - Certified Course: (0)no (2) yes
2 - Correct Distance: (0)no (2)yes
1 - Partly or fully on unpaved roads: (0)yes (1)no

REGISTRATION (6 possible points)
3 - Cost: (0)expensive (1)reasonable (3)cheap!
3 - Race Day Registration: (0)no (3)yes

RESULTS (3 possible points)
0 - Posted promptly online: (0)no (2)yes
1 - Clear link on website: (0)no (1)yes

AGE GROUPS (13 possible points)
0 - 3 deep awards: (2)yes (0 for anything less)
0 - 5-year age groups (5 points) (0 for anything less)
0 - 14 and under group (1)
0 - 65+ group (1)
0 - 70+ group (1)
1 - Top Overall M/F: (0)none or first only (1)top 3 or better
0 - Masters Category(40+): (0)no (1)yes
0 - Grand Masters Category (50+): (0)no (1)yes

AWARDS (9 possible points)
1 - Overall Winner Awards: (0)none (1)yes (2)excellent
0 - Age Group Awards: (0)none (1)yes (2)excellent
0 - Door Prizes or Drawing: (0)no (2)yes
0 - Finisher Medals for All Finishers: (0)no (1)yes (3)really cool medals

POST RACE (7 possible points)
5 - Food for Race Participants: (0)none (1)some (2)adequate (5)a feast!
0 - Entertainment: (0)no (1)yes
1 - Finisher times posted after race: (0)no (1)yes

REST ROOMS (4 possible points)
2 - Porta Potties: (0)no (1)limited, long lines (2)plentiful
2 - Indoor Restrooms: (0)no (1)limited, long lines (2)plentiful

T-SHIRTS (8 possible points)
2 - T-Shirts: (0)no (2)yes
2 - Design: (0)not good (1)not bad (2)nice
2 - Material: (0)cotton (2)technical fabric
2 - Discount for no-shirt option: (0)no (2)yes

PHOTOGRAPHY (12 possible points)
0 - Professional Photography: (0)no (5)yes
0 - Prices: (0)expensive (2)reasonable (5)cheap!
0 - Free Photographs (newspaper, etc.): (0)no (2)yes

PARKING (8 possible points)
2 - Close to Start: (2)yes (0)no
2 - Close to Finish: (2)yes (0)no
2 - Plenty of spaces: (2)yes (0)no
2 - Free Parking: (2)yes (0)no

WEBSITE (5 possible points)
2 - Dedicated race website (0)no (2)yes
0 - No dedicated site but separate page on other site (organization, running store, etc): (0)no (1)yes
2 - Results or link to results posted on website: (0)no (2)yes

OTHER (5 possible points)
0 - Shelter from Inclement Weather (needed or not): (0)no (2)yes
0 - Swag (free socks, water bottles, etc.): (0)no (1)yes, some (2)excellent
0 - Part of race series or Grand Prix: (0)no (1)yes

TOTAL: 57*

* With my new rating system there's not a chance of any race scoring near 100. If it's important to you, look at each individual category to see how points were earned (or not). Just trying to be more objective with the details.

Race #158 - Mount Mourne Christmas Elf 5k - Mooresville, NC - 12/24/11

2011-12-24T14:29:00.002-05:00

I had heard a lot about this race from others who have run it in the past and the reviews were always good, so we headed over to the Mooresville area to experience it for ourselves. It actually exceeded our expectations, being just about a perfect race except for a glitch in putting down the cones or marking the course or something (I never figured out what exactly). The result was that the race was quite a bit longer than a 5k. According to several other people I talked to, they all had Garmin measurements of between 3.38 and 3.40 miles although personally my Garmin measured only 3.25. I don't check distances as I'm running, but I usually have a pretty good feel for how fast I'm running and I felt like I might have been somewhere between about 20:45 and 21:00, so as I approached the finish line and saw the clock at 22 minutes I was surprised. My final time of 22:39 still won my age group (55-59) and everybody else seemed to think they would have been about 2 minutes faster on an accurate course.

Other than that it was a really fun race. The race is sponsored the by Mount Mourne Fire Department and the runners are able to stay inside the building both before and after the race. The course was mostly flat and fast and the post-race food was spectacular. Of course, I ate too much as usual. It's beginning to look like I won't really get back on my diet until January rolls around, but since that's just a week from now maybe I won't do too much damage between now and then.

Notably, the winner of the race was Anthony Famiglietti, two-time Olympian and six-time National Champion at a variety of distances, who literally ran away with the race at a pace of 4:37. Back in 2007, Fam, as he is popularly known, ran the fastest 5k by an American on US soil at a time of 13:11. Now that's fast.

Click Here for Race Results

Overall Male Winner:

Anthony Famiglietti (15:52 -- 4:37 pace)

Overall Female Winner:

Jean Hargett (23:00 -- 6:41 pace)

(These paces were taken from the race results site and wouldn't be accurate for an accurate 5k. According to Dave Munger, the paces posted on the results site were adjusted to 5,541 meters.)

My Stats:

Time: 22:39
Pace: 6:35
Age Group: 1 of 15
Overall: 23 of 228

**************************************
* RACE RATING (100 Possible Points) *
**************************************

RACE COURSE (20 possible points)
3 - Chip Timing: (3 points if yes)
0 - Starting Mat: (2 points if yes)
1 - Water Stops: (at least 1 for 5k, 2 for 10k, 4 for half marathon) (2 points)
0 - Course Marking: (0)bad (1)good
0 - Course Scenery: (0)bad (1)good
1 - Mile Markers: (0)poor or none (1)normal (2)with clocks or time called out
2 - Volunteers: (0)too few (2)good
2 - Finish line: (0)mediocre (2)pretty good to excellent
0 - Certified Course: (0)no (2) yes
0 - Correct Distance: (0)no (2)yes
1 - Partly or fully on unpaved roads: (0)yes (1)no

REGISTRATION (6 possible points)
1 - Cost: (0)expensive (1)reasonable (3)cheap!
3 - Race Day Registration: (0)no (3)yes

RESULTS (3 possible points)
2 - Posted promptly online: (0)no (2)yes
0 - Clear link on website: (0)no (1)yes

AGE GROUPS (13 possible points)
2 - 3 deep awards: (2)yes (0 for anything less)
5 - 5-year age groups (5 points) (0 for anything less)
1 - 14 and under group (1)
1 - 65+ group (1)
1 - 70+ group (1)
1 - Top Overall M/F: (0)none or first only (1)top 3 or better
0 - Masters Category(40+): (0)no (1)yes
0 - Grand Masters Category (50+): (0)no (1)yes

AWARDS (9 possible points)
2 - Overall Winner Awards: (0)none (1)yes (2)excellent
2 - Age Group Awards: (0)none (1)yes (2)excellent
2 - Door Prizes or Drawing: (0)no (2)yes
0 - Finisher Medals for All Finishers: (0)no (1)yes (3)really cool medals

POST RACE (7 possible points)
5 - Food for Race Participants: (0)none (1)some (2)adequate (5)a feast!
0 - Entertainment: (0)no (1)yes
1 - Finisher times posted after race: (0)no (1)yes

REST ROOMS (4 possible points)
1 - Porta Potties: (0)no (1)limited, long lines (2)plentiful
0 - Indoor Restrooms: (0)no (1)limited, long lines (2)plentiful

T-SHIRTS (8 possible points)
2 - T-Shirts: (0)no (2)yes
2 - Design: (0)not good (1)not bad (2)nice
0 - Material: (0)cotton (2)technical fabric
0 - Discount for no-shirt option: (0)no (2)yes

PHOTOGRAPHY (12 possible points)
0 - Professional Photography: (0)no (5)yes
0 - Prices: (0)expensive (2)reasonable (5)cheap!
0 - Free Photographs (newspaper, etc.): (0)no (2)yes

PARKING (8 possible points)
2 - Close to Start: (2)yes (0)no
2 - Close to Finish: (2)yes (0)no
2 - Plenty of spaces: (2)yes (0)no
2 - Free Parking: (2)yes (0)no

WEBSITE (5 possible points)
0 - Dedicated race website (0)no (2)yes
1 - No dedicated site but separate page on other site (organization, running store, etc): (0)no (1)yes
0 - Results or link to results posted on website: (0)no (2)yes

OTHER (5 possible points)
2 - Shelter from Inclement Weather (needed or not): (0)no (2)yes
0 - Swag (free socks, water bottles, etc.): (0)no (1)yes, some (2)excellent
0 - Part of race series or Grand Prix: (0)no (1)yes

TOTAL: 55*

* The new rating system generates lower scores than the old one but it's much more objective. For me personally I liked this race a lot and look forward to running it again. What made a lower score for this race was a lack of professional photography (which many races don't have) and, most notably, the glitch in the distance, which I'm sure will be corrected next year.

Race #157 - Columbia Half Marathon - Columbia, SC - 12/17/11

2011-12-17T20:18:00.001-05:00

The Columbia Half Marathon is one of 22 races in the USRA Half Marathon Series held in cities around the country. It was the 12th half marathon in my quest to run at least one half marathon each month in 2011. Uh, I'm not sure if I've mentioned this or not but I missed the half marathon I had scheduled for November because we had company, and according to my wife Linda, "Nobody cares about that streak but you." After I thought about it for a minute I realized she was right, so I skipped it. No big deal really, because she's right. I'll still try to run a half marathon every month if there's one that I'm able to run, but I won't get too bent out of shape if there's not one, and some months maybe I'll run more than one.

Beginning with this race I've got a brand new Race Rating system in place. I believe it's much more objective than my original rating method since it's mostly yes or no (you can see the details below). I decided to make it add up to a maximum of 100 points so it should give a better idea of how each race really stacks up against the others. I designed my first rating system in about 15 minutes after I had run around 5 or 10 races, so I feel like I've learned a lot since then about what's good or not good about races. Of course, I could never be completely objective since it's still partly based on my own observations, but it should be better than before.

One reason for a more comprehensive rating for each race is that it's easier than writing about each race. I'm not really a writer but I do want to document my races so at least I'll know I'm still hanging in there and maybe I'll refer back to the ratings in case I plan on going back in the future. Currently my job has me too busy to spend a lot of time on a blog so I'll possibly just write a couple of sentences about a race unless there's something great I want to share.

Hope you like the new rating system, and if you think I can improve on it let me know and I'll definitely consider it. It's just some things I thought up one afternoon and I'm sure I've left out some items that might be more important to others than they are to me so let me know if you think something should be changed.

Oh yeah, we were talking about the Columbia Half Marathon...

Something I should probably mentioned is I really liked this race. There were a lot of great things about it and very few negatives. Having said that, the total of 75 points out of a possible 100 would lead you to believe it wasn't great, but with my old system of rating it would have easily been over 90. The new ratings will definitely be lower and there's no way that ANY race will reach a score of 100, but I do think it's pretty fair the way it's set up and over time the best races should still have the highest scores.

Click Here for Race Results

Click Here for Race Website

My Stats:
Time: 1:33:34
Pace: 7:09
Age Group: 1 of 12
Overall: 18 of 290 (6.2%)

Alejandro Arreola (left) Overall Half Marathon Winner
Richard Hefner (middle)
Bob Heck (right) 9th overall

RACE RATING (100 Possible Points)

RACE COURSE (20 possible points)
3 - Chip Timing: (3 points if yes)
0 - Starting Mat: (2 points if yes)
2 - Water Stops: (at least 1 for 5k, 2 for 10k, 4 for half marathon) (2 points)
1 - Course Marking: (0)bad (1)good
1 - Course Scenery: (0)bad (1)good
1 - Mile Markers: (0)poor or none (1)normal (2)with clocks or time called out
2 - Volunteers: (0)too few (2)good
2 - Finish line: (0)mediocre (2)pretty good to excellent
2 - Certified Course: (0)no (2) yes
2 - Correct Distance: (0)no (2)yes
0 - Partly or fully on unpaved roads: (0)yes (1)no [half mile stretch of gravel road]

REGISTRATION (6 possible points)
1 - Cost: (0)expensive (1)reasonable (3)cheap!
3 - Race Day Registration: (0)no (3)yes

RESULTS (3 possible points)
2 - Posted promptly online: (0)no (2)yes
0 - Clear link on website: (0)no (1)yes

AGE GROUPS (13 possible points)
2 - 3 deep awards: (2)yes (0 for anything less)
5 - 5-year age groups (5 points) (0 for anything less)
0 - 14 and under group (1)
1 - 65+ group (1)
1 - 70+ group (1)
0 - Top Overall M/F: (0)none or first only (1)top 3 or better
1 - Masters Category(40+): (0)no (1)yes
0 - Grand Masters Category (50+): (0)no (1)yes

AWARDS (9 possible points)
1 - Overall Winner Awards: (0)none (1)yes (2)excellent
2 - Age Group Awards: (0)none (1)yes (2)excellent
0 - Door Prizes or Drawing: (0)no (2)yes
3 - Finisher Medals for All Finishers: (0)no (1)yes (3)really cool medals

POST RACE (7 possible points)
5 - Food for Race Participants: (0)none (1)some (2)adequate (5)a feast!
1 - Entertainment: (0)no (1)yes
1 - Finisher times posted after race: (0)no (1)yes

REST ROOMS (4 possible points)
0 - Porta Potties: (0)no (1)limited, long lines (2)plentiful
2 - Indoor Restrooms: (0)no (1)limited, long lines (2)plentiful

T-SHIRTS (8 possible points)
2 - T-Shirts: (0)no (2)yes
2 - Design: (0)not good (1)not bad (2)nice
2 - Material: (0)cotton (2)technical fabric
0 - Discount for no-shirt option: (0)no (2)yes

PHOTOGRAPHY (12 possible points)
0 - Professional Photography: (0)no (5)yes
0 - Prices: (0)expensive (2)reasonable (5)cheap!
0 - Free Photographs (newspaper, etc.): (0)no (2)yes

PARKING (8 possible points)
2 - Close to Start: (2)yes (0)no
2 - Close to Finish: (2)yes (0)no
2 - Plenty of spaces: (2)yes (0)no
2 - Free Parking: (2)yes (0)no

WEBSITE (5 possible points)
0 - Dedicated race website (0)no (2)yes
1 - No dedicated site but separate page on other site (organization, running store, etc): (0)no (1)yes
2 - Results or link to results posted on website: (0)no (2)yes

OTHER (5 possible points)
0 - Shelter from Inclement Weather (needed or not): (0)no (2)yes
0 - Swag (free socks, water bottles, etc.): (0)no (1)yes, some (2)excellent
1 - Part of race series or Grand Prix: (0)no (1)yes

TOTAL: 68

Race #156 - Speed for Children in Need 5k - Charlotte Motor Speedway - 12/10/11

2011-12-10T19:17:00.001-05:00

We were able to sleep in today since this week's race was a rare afternoon event. You'd think Charlotte Motor Speedway would be a great place for a road race, and it does have certain advantages such as being private property so you don't have to worry about clearing off the public streets at a certain time, but this was the second race we've run at the speedway and one drawback of both races has been the parking situation. That seems a little odd since there are probably 50,000 parking spaces or so -- surely more than any other location in the Charlotte area -- but sometimes more is not better. There were parking attendants directing people on where to park, but our parking spot was probably about a half mile from where race registration was taking place. We arrived around 2:30, which was 30 minutes before race time. We were able to jog down and make it in time, but it's still nice to be able to park more closely.

In the end, it hardly mattered that we parked a half mile from the starting line, because we ended up at the finish line on the big track at the speedway. There might have been a faster way out but if that was the case, we couldn't find it, so we and everyone who was leaving as we did just backtracked the way we ran in, and after walking a mile or so we ended up at our cars.

There were 625 finishers in the race, which makes it a fairly large race. Any time there are that many runners there should be a starting mat, which would allow everybody to be timed fairly beginning when they cross the starting line. I was near the front so it wasn't an issue for me, but after I ran all the way down the dragstrip and returned 4 minutes later, there were some people who had just crossed the starting line. Since everybody's time started as soon as the gun went off, that means some people's times were as much as 3 or 4 minutes slower just because of their position at the start.

Lord knows I don't like to complain (huh??), but while I'm at it, the coup de grace, was the age group awards. I know everybody's not interested in such trivialities, but quite a few of us are interested, and we're the ones who are most likely to frequent the races. There were awards for the top 3 male and female finishers as well as the top 3 male and female masters (ages 40 and up), and that's fine, but it was definitely downhill from there. The age group awards went 1-deep in 10-year age groups, which is pathetic. I knew that going in since the website said that's how the awards were, but it still stinks. I finished 2nd out of 40 runners in the 50-59 age group (I'm 59) and 22nd overall in the race, but still didn't place. I would hope they'll consider normal age groups and awards in the future (3 deep in 5-year age groups).

I seem to be getting a little grumpy here, so I'll try to change gears before I have to go take a nerve pill or something. There were some good things about the race... It's a nice place to run and it's not everyday you get to run a race at a major speedway. They showed the finish line and all the finishers on the Jumbotron (the world's largest HD video board) and the post race food was pretty good. Run for Your Life always does a good job posting the results quickly and getting them online. Also the post race food was pretty good, with lots of assorted snacks and fruit as well as some of the tastiest bagels I've ever had, and there was plenty of it.

I'll be 60 next time this race rolls around, which would possibly give me a better chance to get that one top spot in the age group, but it's really deeper than that. I'm a conscientious objector when it comes to 10-year age groups anyway, and only one award in a 10-year age group is ridiculous, so I'd probably just stay away on general principles unless it changes.

Click Here for Race Results

Race Rating:

9 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
2 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10) (there just weren't enough)
7 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
7 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
7 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
0 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
6 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
7 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
6 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
2 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average) (bad logistics from start to finish)
7 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
0 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
0 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
5 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities
0-10 Other

TOTAL - 69

My Stats:

Time: 21:08
Pace: 6:44
Age Group: 2 of 40 (50-59 age group)
Overall: 22 of 625 (3.5%)

Race #155 - Silvia A. Martz Memorial 5k - Honolulu, HI - 12/03/11

2011-12-10T06:32:00.001-05:00

It's taken me a week to get around to writing about this race, partly because I've spent all week trying to get caught up with the work I got behind on while on vacation, and partly because there's no way I can do it justice. This was just a small 5k, not unlike you would find anywhere else although since it was in Honolulu, just across the street from Waikiki Beach, it will go down as one of the most memorable and special races I've run. To make things even more special, my son Joe, who we were visiting, also ran the race. He's not a runner so a 3.1 mile race is definitely a challenge for him, but he did great and finished 3rd in his age group. I'm hoping that one day all of my kids will make running a daily part of their life. Hey, you gotta try to stay in shape somehow and there's no better way to do it.

I'm still pressed for time (another race this afternoon!) so I'll shut up and let the pictures tell the story.

We arrived early to make sure we would be at the starting line on time. It's nice to get to a December race with temperatures in the low 70s.

Joe and I warmed up just a little as we waited for the race to start.

The starting line...

Throughout the race I was near 47-year-old Craig Linghor. Up until this point about halfway through the race I was right behind him. I passed him here but we still finished within second of each other. The course was a double loop around 300-acre Kapiolani Park, the oldest public park in Honolulu.

Linda seemed to blend in with the background...

I finished 12th overall and 1st in the 55-59 age group at 20:33. I'd like to run the 5k races consistently in under 20 minutes but realistically that's probably never going to happen. Right now I've got a pretty good streak of sub 21-minute races going and it would be great if I could stay at that level for a while.

Here I'm talking to 54-year-old Ash Dustow, who finished in 17:34. That's fast at any age, and almost unbelievable for someone who's 54 years old. That's equivalent to a 25-year-old running it in 14:57. For the record, my age equivalent time would be 16:41.

I met Halina Zaleski before the race as we were both running around the parking lot warming up. She won first place in the 60-64 female age group. She has the distinction of being the first and probably the last person to ask me if I was "a ringer from the mainland." I'm sure it was tongue-in-cheek, and I just had to laugh.

My son Joe was a real trooper, being somewhat out of shape and running 3 miles. He also managed to get 3rd place in the 35-39 age group. My family accuses me of being competitive (maybe just a little bit) but to have Joe or any of my other kids running circles around me would be a dream come true. Of course it doesn't count if I'm so old I can't run anymore.

Linda made her way to the finish line as she's done more than 130 times over the past three years. I've been amazed how she's stuck with running since we began in 2008, especially since I can't ever remember seeing her run even one time prior to that in 30 years of marriage.

Pretty and fast (pretty fast) Constance Tammon from Oregon made a splash and finished 3rd overall among females (21:46)...

A post-race view from across the street...

Ash Dustow collects is award for 3rd place overall...

24-year-old Warren Nastivar was the overall winner with a time of 17:03.6...

I won the 55-59 age group. Second place went to Chris Mewhort, who would look more like Santa Claus if he weighed 345 pounds, which he did in 2006. His doctor told him to either lose weight or shop for a casket. Since then he's lost 160 pounds and has become an avid runner. I didn't get a chance to talk to him at the race but wish I had met him.

Jack Gubbins won the 85+ age group... Jack is 91 years old! Just running 3.1 miles at any speed is an accomplishment in that age group!

Click Here for Race Results

Click Here for Race Photos on My Facebook Page (96 photos)

Race Rating:

6 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
6 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)
8 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
4 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
8 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average) (white cotton but cool design... I'll wear it.)
4 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
0 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
6 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
7 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
9 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
8 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
7 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
0 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
4 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities
0-10 Other

TOTAL - 89

My Stats:

Time: 20:33.5
Pace: 6:38
Age Group: 1 of 4
Overall: 12 of 101

Race #154 - Elf Stampede 5k - Spindale, NC - 11/26/11

2011-11-27T11:25:00.001-05:00

It's a rare occasion lately when we've been able to run more than one race in a week, but running the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day left Saturday wide open for another race if we could find one. As you can imagine, the options are limited on Thanksgiving weekend, but we were pleased to find this race, now in its second year, in Spindale, North Carolina. It's about a 50-mile drive for us, but I don't really mind a little drive on Saturday morning. The website said registration ended at 8 a.m. and the fun run for kids started then, followed by the 5k at 9 a.m. That's a long wait in the freezing weather and we spent most of the time until about 20 minutes before the race staying warm in the car. One of the nice things about small races is that most of the time you can park up close and see what's going on. We watched the kids fun run -- at least the start and finish -- as people began warming up for the main event. There were a handful of people we knew there -- several from Shelby and Bobby Aswell from Cornelius, who never misses a race if there's one to be had.

I was glad that my Garmin came back to life after about 24 hours of window shopping for a new one. Apparently my Garmin Forerunner 110, a watch I love to hate, will live to see another day. If it ever dies, and surely it will, I hope to replace it with another Garmin Forerunner 305, a much better watch in my opinion although apparently the red-headed stepchild of the Garmin Forerunner line.

As the race started I was glad I didn't have to guess at things like I did in the last race without my watch. After all of the Thanksgiving eating I've done over the past week I'm a little on the sluggish side although I was happy with finishing in under 21 minutes, at a time of 20:50. There was one pretty big hill about halfway through then a few ups and downs in the last mile, but not bad. I was behind Bobby Aswell pushing his daughter in a stroller for almost the entire race (he's fast and without the stroller he's so far ahead of me I can't see him). About a tenth of a mile from the finish the first overall female, Mandy Huffman, zoomed past me and beat me by a couple seconds, but gentleman that I am, I hardly ever try to bust a gut to beat a girl... not that I could have caught her anyway.

Linda and I both won our respective age groups, and the age group awards, while nothing fancy, were at least different: Christmas ornaments with the race details (gold for 1st place, white for 2nd place, and red for 3rd place). The post race food wasn't bad, especially the tons of homemade brownies. People kept grabbing them and they kept bringing out huge trays of them. I ate 3 or 4 myself, which didn't help my diet a lot, but it's the season to indulge.

Click Here for Race Results

Race Rating:

7 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
5 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)
7 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
7 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
5 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
0 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
4 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
3 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
6 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
6 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
5 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
5 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
4 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities
0 - 0-10 Other

TOTAL - 78

Race Stats:

1st Overall Male: Jonathan Thacker (17:04)
1st Overall Female: Mandy Huffman (20:47)
Total Finishers: 150

My Stats:

Time: 20:49
Pace: 6:43
Age Group: 1 of 7
Overall: 15 of 150

Race #153 - Southpark Turkey Trot 8k - Charlotte, NC - 11/24/11

2011-11-24T21:04:00.001-05:00

This was our third year in a row to run the Southpark Turkey Trot. It's part of the Running Journal Grand Prix. If not for that, I'd probably run one of the smaller races on Thanksgiving morning. It's way too crowded, parking is a little bit of a headache, there are never enough porta potties, and the starting line is a mess. For some reason unknown to me though, it's probably the second most popular race of the year in Charlotte after Thunder Road. This year there were 4,831 finishers in the 8k alone, and a huge number in the 5k as well although I'm not sure how many. I heard that the site said they had a total of 8,500 registered runners. There are about 20 porta-potties and the lines are so long that if you want to start the race on time you better be able to just hold it in until after the race.

With around 5,000 runners in the 8k you'd think there would be some kind of corral system at the start of the race, but nope, it's every man, woman, and child for themselves, and I seemed to be in back of several hundred of the slowest ones. Although I was fairly close to the starting line, it took 20 seconds after the gun went off for me to reach the starting line, and then I spent the next couple minutes zigzagging through slow runners just to get into an opening where I could run a straight line.

It was uncharted territory day for me. For the first time since it really mattered, I wasn't able to use my heart rate monitor. I normally start my Garmin, build up my heart rate to cruising speed, then hold it there throughout the race, usually with good results. As we drove to the race on this morning I reached down to start my Garmin and nothing happened. I hit a variety of buttons to try to reboot it, all to no avail. I finally gave up and took off the watch and the heart monitor strap (I figured I may as well be comfortable) and took it as an opportunity to just guess my way through. I had just read an article on the previous night about how one running coach discouraged the use of all of this technology, and although I didn't agree with it this was the only option I had for today's race.

It was a little odd not having to start my watch at the starting line, and I felt a little strange not being able to check my heart status as I ran, but in a way it was liberating to a certain degree. There were mile markers in the race but no clocks along the way and nobody calling out times, so the only way I could gauge my speed was by the speed of the other runners, especially the ones I knew. In the first mile, I caught up with Steve Staley and passed him, then Brenny, then somewhere around the middle of the race I saw William Walker from Winston-Salem, one of the state's fastest runners in the 60-64 division who is also competing in this year's Running Journal Grand Prix, and I asked him if he had seen Butch Holt, and he hadn't. I pulled out ahead of William for a while but he passed me later on and went ahead to catch Butch, who was up ahead, and beat him at the finish line. Around the 3rd mile Louis Anderson caught up with me. I don't know Louis personally and figured this wasn't the time to introduce myself but I knew he was in my age group and is a great runner. He was on the state champion cross country team in high school and was runner-up in the mile championship in high school as well and still one of the fastest in our age group. Louis passed me and after a couple minutes I went back past him and didn't see him for a while, but I had the feeling he was close behind. Sure enough, somewhere around the 4-mile mark Louis passed me and slowly faded off ahead.

In the end, it didn't matter all that much that one or the other finished ahead of me. I was a little disappointed to finish 7th in the age group but there were 117 in my age group and it was possibly the most competitive local race I've been in since I started running. By the way, the winner of my age group (55-59) was Jerry Clark, who blistered the course in 28:57, a new state age group record!

As far as my own results, my chip time of 33:13 (pace 6:41) was an all-time 8k PR for me so I can't complain about the 7th place finish. Second place in the age group was 31:22 and all of the other top people in the age group were bunched fairly close together after that. I'm not sure how much the difficult start affected me (reaching the starting line and dodging the slow runners in front) or the lack of my heart rate monitor. Maybe if I had started in front and had my HR monitor I could have knocked another minute or so off my time, but we'll never really know and it's not a big deal.

The good news is that this fall I've managed to get a new Personal Record (PR) in all of the major distances that I normally run: 5k (19:40), 10k (41:44), 8k (33:13), 15k (1:04:47), and half marathon (1:31:57). None of those are going to break any records, but they beat the PR's I set two years ago and are still fast for the 55-59 age group. In February I'll be moving to the 60-64 age group and I'm really happy to be running my fastest times at 59. No doubt, at some time I'll be moving in a different direction with progressively slower times, but after a disappointing year last year I thought that had already happened, so pulling out a better year this year was exciting.

Click Here for Race Results

Click Here for Race Photos from Carolina Snapshot

Race Rating:

9 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
7 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)
9 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
2 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10) --> Nothing but oranges!
6 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
6 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
5 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
6 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
7 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
4 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
3 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
5 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
0 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
2 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities
0-10 Other

TOTAL - 81

My Stats:

Time: 33:13 (chip time)
Pace: 6:41
Age Group: 7 of 117 (6%)
Overall: 161 of 4831 (3.3%)

Race #152 - Santa Scramble 5k - Concord, NC - 11/19/11

2011-11-19T19:29:00.001-05:00

The Santa Scramble has the distinction of being the first race that Linda and I have run for four straight years, partly because we've only been running for a little over three years, but it's one of those races we look forward to every year because it's one of the most fun, and also because it's arguably the fastest 5k in the Charlotte area. Just as in the previous three years, today's race was once again my fastest 5k of the year, an all-time Personal Record of 19:42, being only the second time I've run a 5k in under 20 minutes, with the first time being my race here in 2009 when I ran 19:51. And just for the record, Linda ran her all-time 5k PR here today as well!

*****
Note: I originally posted my time in this race as 19:40 (the clock actually read 19:39 as I crossed the finish line). However, when the official results were posted it said that my time was 19:42, so I've made adjustments to my original post.
*****

I've been doing my best running ever this fall and in the past couple months I've had an all-time PR in the half marathon, the 10k, and the 15k, so I thought I had a chance to get a new 5k PR here. I've learned though that's it's not always so easy to run your fastest race ever just because you think you should. There are always things getting in the way of running perfection, and last week was a bad week for my diet. Even running 40 miles a week I have to count points on the Weight Watchers diet so I don't gain weight because I really like to eat -- excessively so really -- so when my friend Brian Trotter started a new thread in our Facebook page having people guess what my time would be, it added a whole new level of pressure. I don't think anybody really gives a flip, but at least in my own mind I felt like I needed to get that 5k PR if possible. Next year I'll be 60, and maybe I'll be faster then, but there's probably a better chance that I'll be slower, so this was the time and the race to do it.

I had a plan, as always, to run according to my heart rate. The plan was to build my heart rate up until I reached 170 beats per minute (bpm). That's a little higher than normal for me but only by about 5 beats per minute. Still, 5 bpm can make a big difference in a race. The first 2.5 miles or so of this race is pretty flat, with just some gentle up and down slopes of maybe a degree or two. Hardly anything that can be called a hill. Then at about the 2.5 mile mark in the race there's a big downhill that's almost a half mile long that takes you to within about a tenth of a mile to the finish line, and there's a little bit of an uphill there. I knew that in order to get a PR I would need to maintain my 170 heart rate as I ran down that half-mile hill. That's not as easy as it sounds. If you think about it, it's much easier to run uphill and get a higher heart rate since the added stress of going uphill makes your heart work harder. Conversely, as you're going downhill your heart ordinarily takes a break and beats more slowly because it's not working as hard. In order to beat my PR I knew I would have to make better time going down that hill than my body would naturally want to go. To maintain the 170 heart rate I would have to work harder and run harder just to keep the same amount of exertion. I hope that makes sense... it did to me.

I never look at my pace or time in a race, and it wouldn't have helped me today anyway since the race started surprisingly quickly and I wasn't able to get my Garmin running until at least a quarter mile into the race. As I made the last turn I looked for the clock at the finish line and it was right around 19:30. I wasn't sure how long it would take to make it to the finish line so I gave it all I had, wanting to at least beat my previous PR of 19:51, and as I crossed the finish line the clock read 19:40 (actually 19:39, but later the official results said 19:42). That was pretty exciting, especially knowing that I may never see a time like that again. But ya never know. I'll be back.

Click Here for Race Results

Race Rating:

7 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
10 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)
6 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
5 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
7 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
0 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
6 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
3 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
10 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
8 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
5 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
4 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities
5 - 0-10 Other (5 extra points for awards going 5 deep in age groups!)

TOTAL - 94

My Stats:

Time: 19:42
Pace: 6:21
Age Group: 2 of 8
Overall: 37 of 594

Race #151 - Vulcan Run 10k - Birmingham, AL - 11/05/11

2011-11-06T13:35:00.003-05:00

It was an up and down week for a lot of runners this week -- they were either up in New York for the NYC Marathon or down in Georgia for the Savannah Marathon. We decided to take the road less traveled and headed over to the Vulcan Run 10k in Birmingham, Alabama, the third of ten races in the Running Journal Grand Prix series. This was our second trip to the Vulcan Run, and again we stayed at The Tutwiler Hotel, a beautiful and historic hotel built in 1914 that has been converted to a Hampton Inn. The Tutwiler is just 2 blocks from the starting line and 1 block from the finish line and is the perfect place to stay for this race. Their free breakfast is served from 6 to 10 a.m. so I had some oatmeal and orange juice before the race, then after the race I came in and took a shower and changed clothes and met Linda as she crossed the finish line, then we both went back and after she cleaned up we had some more breakfast then headed over to the awards ceremony and big after-race party at the Boutwell Auditorium near the finish line.

The weather was perfect (if you don't mind it being kind of cold) and Linda and I both ran our fastest 10k race ever! This is a great course and pretty fast. There's just one big hill about halfway into the race but other than that it's fairly flat with long straight stretches with no turns to slow you down. This was my fifteenth 10k and before the race I felt like it might be a new Personal Record for me. I had set my PR here two years ago at 42:31 and I seem to be running better now than I was then so I hoped my race time would show it.

Since that first race I've changed the way I run, now only monitoring my heart rate and paying no attention to my pace. For this race I decided to try to start out strong and build my heart rate to 170 (about 89% of my maximum heart rate) and keep it there throughout the race. There are other factors involved (diet, training, weather, etc.) so I'm not always able to pick a number such as 170 and make it work, although when I've been able to the results have been good.

I hit the 1-mile mark at about 6:15 and felt good. It takes me a while to reach that 170 mark but by the third mile and the big hill I was at 170 and felt like I would be able to hold on to it. The fourth mile was at the end of the long hill and I have a tendency to slack off if I'm not careful as I go downhill just to take a rest so I had to keep reminding myself to keep my legs moving fast enough to keep my heart rate up. You can see from the table that after the fourth mile I was able to gradually build up for the rest of the race. My goal for the race was to beat my old PR of 42:31 and as I came down the home stretch the clock read around 41:30. I wasn't sure how long it would take to reach the finish line from where I was but I didn't waste any time and finished with an official time of 41:44, a 47-second PR from my time two years ago.

Couple of other things... The T-shirt is a short-sleeved tech shirt and one of the best ever (I'm 2 for 2 on good shirts over the past two weeks). The post-race party is fantastic, with lots of good food and inside the auditorium, where it's warm. There's $5,000 in prize money for the top 6 men and top 6 women, which is great if you're one of them. The age group awards were pretty bad though: fairly cheap generic medals although they were at least inscribed on the back. It's strange because two years ago there was a nice custom medal for age group winners.

Click Here for Race Results

Click Here for Race Photos from Sports in Motion

Click Here for Race Website

Race Rating:

7 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)

7 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)

8 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)

9 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)

9 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)

6 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)

5 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)

6 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)

7 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)

8 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)

3 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)

8 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)

10 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)

5 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)

4 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities

0-10 Other

TOTAL - 102

My Stats:

Time: 41:44

Pace: 6:43

Age Group: 1 of 63

Overall: 55 of 1,294

Race #150 - Spinx Run Fest Half Marathon - Greenville, SC - 10/29/11

2011-10-30T13:41:00.001-04:00

This will go down as one of my most memorable races. It was my 150th race in a little more than three years, so that's a bit of a milestone in itself, but more importantly it was my all-time fastest half marathon of the 28 half marathons that I've run. I was amazed when I reached the finish line in 1:31:57, which is 14 seconds faster than I ran in The Scream a few months ago. I never thought I could run a better time than The Scream since it was loaded with 8 or 9 miles of downhill running, so a PR on this fairly hilly course in Greenville, South Carolina, was something I didn't even consider before running. My goal going in was to finish somewhere in the 1:34 to 1:37 range and I would have been happy anywhere in that area.

With 2,635 finishers in the three races -- marathon (436), half marathon (1,268), and 5k (931) -- this is one of the largest racing events of the year in Upstate South Carolina. This year the half marathon was the second race in the Running Journal Grand Prix series, which I have run for the past two years and plan on continuing this year as well, at least until my 60th birthday in February when I'll be changing age groups.

For the most part the three races were on three separate courses although a few times during the race we ran side-by-side with runners from the full marathon for short distances. The full marathon was an out-and-back course but the half marathon was more of a loop that ran through different areas around Greenville. We ran through city parks, down greenways, and through business areas and scenic neighborhoods. It was a beautiful course but as slow as you're traveling when you're on foot, there's only so much sightseeing you can do when you're in a race. I started out fast as I always do and a half mile or so into the race there were only four runners ahead of me. I'm accustomed to being passed often as the race progresses but on this day I wasn't passed nearly as much as usual, ending up 35th overall out of 1,268 finishers for 3rd place in the Grand Masters category.

I started the race with Butch Holt and Louis Messina, two other Charlotte area runners who are following the Running Journal Grand Prix this year. Both won their age groups in this race, Butch in the 60-64 age group and Louis in the 65-69 age group. Butch is one of the fastest runners in the 60-64 age group in North Carolina, and in February I'll be moving up to that group as well. Today I jumped out ahead and wasn't sure where Butch was, but I felt certain that he wasn't far behind. Sure enough, when I got to a big turn on a hill 8 miles into the race, I took a peek back and Butch was right behind me. He's caught me plenty of times in races so it's never a surprise, and I try to look at things philosophically... I'm running as best I can, and if anybody goes ahead of me it's because they're able to run faster, at least at that moment. As mentioned earlier, I get passed a lot and it's something I'm used to and don't fret over. I'll just finish the race wherever I'm capable of finishing and I hope everyone else does the same.

Usually when Butch passes me in a race he's out of sight within a minute or two. On this day though, after he passed he wasn't leaving me completely behind. I looked at my heart rate and it was 165. Earlier in the race I had been comfortable running at a heart rate of 168 beats per minute so I stepped it up just a little to get to 168, and before I knew it I was within about 2 or 3 seconds of Butch. At one point 9.6 miles into the race I actually caught him for a few seconds before he took off again, although I was able to stay about 2 or 3 seconds behind.

I passed the 10-mile clock and just caught a glimpse of it. I didn't really catch the time but I felt like I was doing pretty well and I decided to rev up my heart rate a little more from 168 to 170 and see how I felt. Everything seemed right so I decided to hold it there if I could over the last 3 miles. Usually in those last few miles of a half marathon I'm fading fast and slowing down to the 7:30 range, give or take, but today everything was clicking. I ran mile 11 at 7:05, then mile 12 at 7:07. I caught Butch somewhere around the 12th mile, took a chance on passing him, then tried to hold on. Mile 13 for me was at a 6:44 pace and I'm pretty sure that's the fastest 13th mile I've ever run. I crossed the finish and took a look back, and there was Butch just a few steps behind. I'm hoping over the next few years while we're in the same age group I can make things interesting by keeping up with him, at least part of the time.

I should add that regarding the race itself, it's one of the best. The organizers, the Greenville Track Club, in particular race director Ed Hughes, really know how to put on a good race. The post race food was fabulous, the long-sleeved tech shirt and design is easily one of the best shirts I've received in 150 races. Finally, the finish line is inside Fluor Field, home of the Greenville Drive, the Class A minor league baseball team, which has to be one of the greatest minor league stadiums in the country. It's designed like Fenway Park complete with the 30-foot high "Green Monster" wall in left field, and runners enter in right field and then run three-fourths of the way around the inside of the park to the finish line near home plate.

Click Here for Half Marathon Results
Click Here for Full Marathon Results
Click Here for 5k Results

Click Here for Official Race Website (find photo link here when available)

Race Rating:

9 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
6 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)
8 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
9 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
10 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
6 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
5 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
6 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
7 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
7 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
8 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
0 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
6 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities
0-10 Other

TOTAL - 101

My Stats:

Time: 1:31:57
Pace: 7:01
Age Group: 1 of 29 (3rd place Grand Masters)
Overall: 35 of 1,268

Race #149 - Rocktoberfest Half Marathon - Charlotte, NC - 10/22/11

2011-10-22T21:32:00.000-04:00

The Rocktoberfest Half Marathon is the same race that used to be the Dowd Y Half Marathon but the name was changed this year. Definitely a good move on the part of the race organizers, who evidently decided that a new name would generate some extra excitement, and I agree. Linda and I have only run this race once before -- it was Race #8 back when we first started running in 2008. At that time we both only ran 5k races and I remember being in awe as we watched the half marathon start before the 5k race. It was the first time I had even been near a half marathon, and at that time it was hard to imagine running a race that was 13.1 miles long. I can't remember my exact reasoning but just a few short weeks later I ran the Thunder Road Half Marathon for the first time (Race #14).

The weather was seasonably cool, about 40 degrees, and as always I dressed warmer than almost anybody else, although it felt good to me and I didn't overheat at anytime during the entire race. Despite being in the porta-potty line 3 minutes before the start of the race, I managed to make it to the starting line just before the race began and nudged my way close to the front. I got off to a good start, hitting the 1-mile mark at about 6:19. Shortly thereafter the hills came, as they usually do in Charlotte, and the subsequent miles were considerably slower.

For some reason this was one of those rare races where I couldn't get my heart rate up to the area where I seem to usually be most comfortable, around 165-170 beats per minute. As you can see in the charts below, usually I build up my heart rate in the first mile or two until it's in the mid to upper 160s. In today's race (the first chart below) I built up to the low 160s but after a couple miles I started dipping down into the 150s and I really wasn't able to build it back up. I was finally able to push it a little bit in the final mile and at the very end I managed to hit 169, but in most races my average heart rate throughout is in that area. In Myrtle Beach my average for the entire race was 170 bpm, while today my average was only 158, which I think is the lowest I've ever recorded.

Rocktoberfest Half Marathon (2011)

Lungstrong 15k (2011)

Battle of the Triad Half Marathon (2011)

Myrtle Beach Half Marathon (2011)

I don't ever look at my actual pace as I'm racing, and I was afraid that with the low heart rate I might be running more slowly than I felt like I was running. As we crossed the timing pad 10k into the race my split time was 43:42, which was encouraging, but I still wasn't sure how I would fare the rest of the race. The clock at the 10-mile point was at about 1:11 and I knew if I went into jogging mode I'd end up over 1:40 for the race, which I didn't want to do, so I pushed on as best I could for those final 3 miles, ending with a time of 1:35:27, which was second in the 55-59 age group to the always speedy Tim Richter, who entered the age group this year and has come in 1st place in every race since then, at least the local ones.

Click Here for Race Results

Click Here for Race Photos Carolina Snapshot

Race Rating:

8 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
7 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)
7 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
5 -10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
7 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
5 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
6 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
7 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
5 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
8 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
5 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
3 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities (Just 3 porta-potties for 1500 runners + crowded inside Y)
0-10 Other

TOTAL - 91

Race Stats:

1st Overall Male: Michael Creason (1:17:46)
1st Overall Female: Sonja Davy (1:21:58)
Total Finishers: 708

My Stats:

Time: 1:35:27
Pace: 7:15
Age Group: 2 of 18
Overall: 57 of 708 (8.17%)

Race #148 - Komen NC Foothills Race for the Cure - Hickory, NC - 10/15/11

2011-10-16T19:19:00.003-04:00

This was our third time to run the Komen NC Foothills Race for the Cure 5k. Originally we were planning to run the Hopebuilders 5k in Charlotte, partly because it's a little closer and also just for some variety, but when I found out my old high school buddy John Cushing was going to run it with his wife Diane, we decided to come back to Hickory to run the Komen race. It was John and Diane's first race and they decided to go along with the untimed runners and stay together, which is probably a great decision for their first race, and they finished standing up and smiling, so I'm hoping they liked it enough to catch the running bug.

For me, of course, I'm a little on the competitive side so I lined up as close to the front as I could behind a flock of determined 10-year-olds. I knew that I'd spend the first half mile dodging them, which I did, but before long things cleared out and I could count the runners ahead. I could see that I was 11th overall and thought it would be nice to finish in around that same position, but of course I still had most of the race ahead of me. Hickory is where I grew up, and it occurred to me as I was running this race that it's one of the few courses where I actually know all of the turns along the way. It's always nice and nostalgic to run past my old high school. There's not really a flat race in Hickory, but this one seems to me to be less hilly than most races in the foothills. The most challenging hill comes about 2.8 miles into the race, a fairly steep winding hill that climbs back up to the Lenoir Rhyne University campus where the race begins and ends. It really didn't bother me much although I was passed for good by a 38-year-old whom I had been jockeying for position with, who had a lot more steam left than I did by that point. I felt pretty good though and it was the fifth 5k in a row that I finished in under 21 minutes. My final time was 20:45, which was about 45 seconds faster than the same race last year, and I finished 8th overall of 457 runners and won 2nd place in the Masters Division (40 and over).

There was one major snafu that occurred. At the very beginning, just before the race started, the race director said that the computer had crashed that contained all of the registrations for the runners, which meant they needed to add all of the names and important information back into the computer as people finished. The awards were supposed to take place at 10:15. Of course, not only did it take much longer than that, but almost an hour later, at 11:10, they announced that only the top 3 male and female awards would be given then, and everybody else could pick up their awards on Tuesday. That's kinda sorta okay, but it's a 50-mile drive for me so it's not as okay as it would be if I lived in Hickory.

Click Here for Race Results (Overall)
Click Here for Race Results (Age Groups)

Race Rating:

7 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
7 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)
1 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
7 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
4 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
0 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
4 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
7 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
6 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
5 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
9 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
5 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
8 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities
0-10 Other

TOTAL - 84

Race Stats:

1st Overall Male: Paul Pauma (17:58)
1st Overall Female: Grace Ridley (21:02)
Total Finishers: 457

My Stats:

Time: 20:45
Pace: 6:41
Award: 2nd Place in Masters Division (40 and older)
Overall: 8 of 457 (1.8%)

Drew Walker Newspaper Article

2011-10-14T10:42:00.000-04:00

My good buddy from Greenwood, South Carolina, Drew Walker, recently had a write-up about his running exploits in the Greenwood newspaper. Check it out. Drew is an outstanding runner and an avid racer, having already run 52 races just this year! He qualifies as another "old runner" at the age of 52, but he looks about 20 years younger. Here's a link to the article...

http://gwdtoday.com/from-the-cooper-river-bridge-run-to-the-boston-marathon-p27755-1.htm

Race #147 - LungStrong 15k - Cornelius, NC - 10/08/11

2011-10-08T16:38:00.002-04:00

What a great sport this is! Where else can you gloat over a record of 1 win and 146 losses? It was inevitable that my winning streak would end at 1 today, but I wasn't deterred. Win or lose, I'm addicted to getting up on Saturday morning and heading to a race. This was only the 3rd time I'd ever laced 'em up for the 15k distance. My first was this same race in 2009, when I finished in a time of 1:08:16 for 3rd place in my age group, then back in March of this year I ran the Gate River Run 15k down in Florida and was disappointed with my time of 1:10:04.

My goal for today was to beat my time from two years ago and hopefully finish under 1:08. A little more lofty goal in the back of my mind was that it would be nice to finish in under 1:06, which would be 22 minutes for each of the three 5k segments of the race.

It was great to see and talk to a lot of Charlotte area runners at the starting line. This was the final race in the Run For Your Life Grand Prix series so most of the Charlotte speedsters were in attendance. I'm not running that series and it's only the second one of the GP races I've run this year but a lot of our speedy friends are involved.

As usual, I took off at a pace that's probably too fast and always a faster pace than I'm able to maintain during the race. For me that's normal and something I expect to do. I take a different approach than most runners in racing. Most decide what pace they want to run then try to stick with that pace throughout the race. With me, I try to run with even EFFORT throughout the race. I just monitor my heart rate, build up to a cruising speed, then try to keep my heart rate at that level throughout. That means I go faster down hills and go slower up hills, and as a race progresses and I get tired, my effort doesn't produce quite as much speed so I slow down. It's just a normal progression that I'm used to. One of the results is that I get passed by a lot of people who are running those even paces, and I pass very few people along the way since I start out fast and end up slow. Some very good runners have questioned my technique and said I'd do better if I would take a more standard approach to running, but it works for me, and best of all I really don't get totally exhausted like I used to. Since my effort remains the same I feel pretty good the whole time. Of course my muscles get tired so there are limits, but up to a half marathon distance it seems to work well.

I got off to a good start for me, hitting the 1- and 2-mile marks at a little under 6:40 each and crossing the 3-mile mark at 20:02. This was actually one of my most consistent long races as far as pace, with my slowest mile being 7:07. I thought about looking at my time in the last three-tenths of a mile after spotting the 9-mile marker, but decided I'd just find out when I got to the end. As we rounded the last corner I could see the clock ahead, and it was great to see I'd finish the race in under 1:05, even better than I had hoped for and a new Personal Record by more than 3 minutes. All in all, it was a fantastic day. The PR's are few and far between when you're 59 years old.

Click Here for Race Results

Race Rating:

9 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
8 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10) (Great Medals!!)
6 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
6 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
6 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
6 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
0 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
6 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
7 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
7 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
7 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
0 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
6 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities
0-10 Other

TOTAL - 88

Race Stats:

1st Overall Male: John Compton (48:25)
1st Overall Female: Carolyn Maye (59:05)
Total Finishers: 504

My Stats:

Time: 1:04:47 (chip time)
Pace: 6:58
Age Group: 2 of 11
Overall: 72 of 504

Race #146 - Stanley Creek Massacre 10k - Stanley, NC - 10/01/11

2011-10-01T17:19:00.002-04:00

Y A Y ! I W O N ! -- Sorry for the inordinate amount of horn-blowing, and I hope I didn't startle anybody, but I'm kinda giddy about the fact that I finally won a race. It's always been in the back of my mind that it would be so cool to actually be at the very front of a race. I'm a pretty fast guy for my age (59) and usually finish in the top 10-15% overall in races, and I've done pretty well in my age group, but when it comes to actually being first overall in a race, that's a position normally reserved for the very fastest and usually much younger folks. Since I only started running at the age of 56, I've never had to worry about whether or not I might actually win a race, and I've been quite content to just do well in my age group. A few times I've been fortunate enough to finish 4th or 5th overall, but there are almost always a few young guns out there who are more than happy to keep me firmly anchored in the reality of my advancing age.

This was a small race and the 5k and 10k runners all lined up together. I wasn't sure who was running what but there was no sign of the high school cross-country runners that I heard would be at the race, so I was glad to know that I wouldn't have to be chasing them the whole way. Within about 10 seconds of the start of the race I was running down the road in first place, which is a position where I've seldom found myself in a race. I didn't dare look back for fear of somebody ready to pounce as soon as they smelled my fear.

About a mile or so into the race the 10k runners took a left turn while the 5k runners went straight ahead. I took the turn and ran up to a point to where I would be able to see who was behind me. I turned for a second and the only runner I saw, maybe 50-100 yards back, was my friend Heather Vellers. I could tell it was her with just a glance because we were both wearing our bright yellow Gaston County Runners singlets. I turned back around and followed the police car around several neighborhood streets and in a while the 10k route caught back up with the 5k route, so for the next half mile or so we were all running together and I was mixed in with the 5k runners.

I didn't bother to look back again while both races ran together because I still didn't know who was running which race, but after the 10k separated from the 5k again I waited until I was at the top of a fairly large hill and took another peek back, but as far as I could see there was no one behind me. It seemed a little odd for me to be out there all alone with a police escort, and I hoped that he was on the right course. Every once in a while I would be reassured when I spotted the orange arrows we were told to follow at the beginning of the race.

Although it's close to my home town of Gastonia, I haven't spent any time in Stanley. The race was described as a "killer hillfest" and that's all I knew about the course. I couldn't imagine THAT many hills in Gaston County, but lo and behold, it almost seemed as though they borrowed some hills from other places just to add them to this course. I'm not crazy about running hills and I don't do much hill training, but I don't worry about them either. I figure we all have to run the same course so that levels the playing field. On the steepest hill in the race, which was part of the out-and-back route, I had to put on the brakes on the way out so I knew I'd have trouble coming back up it later in the race. I felt a little dorky on the way back when I stopped to walk two times as I climbed that single hill, wondering what my police escort might be thinking about the first place runner taking walk breaks in the race.

A few more times I looked back to see who might be stalking me, but I never did see another runner, and when I hit the 6-mile mark it looked like I would finally win that elusive first race. As I approached the finish line, there was my wife, best friend, and biggest supporter jumping up and down and cheering me on along with many other folks who had already finished the 5k or were waiting for other runners. It was definitely a goose-bump moment for me, and no doubt one of my proudest and most memorable moments as a runner. And finally I had an answer to a question I've asked myself many times: "Do you think I'll ever win a race?" Yep.

Click Here for 10k Results

Click Here for 5k Results

Some of the Gaston County Runners at the Race

Race Rating:

4 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
3 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)
3 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
5 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
7 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
0 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
4 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
3 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
6 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
9 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
5 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
0 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
0 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
4 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities
10 - 0-10 Other (Extra credit for creating a race I could actually win!!)

TOTAL - 67

Race Stats:

1st Overall Male: Richard Hefner (44:09)
1st Overall Female: Heather Vellers (48:08)
Total Finishers: 22

My Stats:

Time: 44:09
Pace: 7:15
Age Group: 1 of 2
Overall: 1 of 22

Race #145 - Run for Green Half Marathon - Davidson, NC - 09/17/11

2011-09-17T17:01:00.000-04:00

Photo courtesy of Bobby Aswell

Well, this one got off to an interesting start. First there was Kalib Wilkinson, from Lynchburg, Virginia, who went out like a bolt of lightning, leaving everybody behind right from the beginning. He never looked back and never was challenged, finishing with a time of 1:10:06, more than 12 minutes ahead of second place. It's not too surprising since he finished 22nd OVERALL in the 2011 Boston Marathon with a mind-boggling time of 2:19:53. The women's winner, Molly Nunn, is one of North Carolina's best known runners, and she finished fourth overall with a time of 1:22:40. Molly recently missed qualifying for the Olympic Trials by less than 1 minute.

But to me, the really interesting thing about the start was that as we were going down what was quite a bit of downhill in the first mile, I was in about tenth place overall. I'm the first to admit that I always start out too fast. That's just the way I roll. It's not ideal but it works for me probably as well or better than anything else (for instance, running equal or even negative splits like most good runners do). I knew that I was way out of my league about halfway through the first mile, but the pace seemed awfully slow, so before you know it, there I was in 2nd place, passing everybody except Kalib Wilkinson, who was in another county by then. I know how these things work and I knew it was just a matter of time before they all passed me up without so much as a "Good Job," but I didn't really mind knowing that was my ultimate fate. At the 1-mile marker I was still ahead of that group, and there was what appeared to be a professional photographer who was snapping photos as I tried my best to look like I belonged in front of Molly Nunn and her entourage. If he got a good picture of that, you can bet I'll be changing my profile picture on Facebook.

Me and Grand Masters winner
Alan Pover of England, who at
age 62 ran the race in 1:28!

So getting back to reality, by the time we reached the 3-mile marker I think I was back in about 10th place again, which was no surprise and no disappointment to me. There are a lot of fairly small hills in this race that wear you down, and two years ago, the only time I had previously run it, my time was 12 seconds slower than in the Asheville Citizen-Times Half Marathon, generally regarded as one of the toughest half marathon courses in the state.

I'm two years older now, and the difference in 57 and 59 is not the same as, say, 17 to 19, when two years of maturity might be a boost. Nope... I've received pretty much all the benefit I'm gonna get from more maturity. Having said that, I feel like I'm a better runner now than I was two years ago. Since I was a little over 1:40 then, I thought a reasonable goal for this race would be to finish in under 1:40. I seldom look at my progress in a race unless there are clocks at each mile, which wasn't the case in this race so I wasn't really sure how I was doing. Just yesterday I read about Dave Munger's pre-race strategy in his blog and I made a comment telling him that he'd probably pass me 8 or 9 miles into the race. I missed it by a little bit, but there he was chugging right past me at around 10.5 miles in, just before the biggest hill. He walked for a few seconds as he said he would, but I walked for what seemed like a minute or so before running again, and before long he was completely out of sight. As he was passing me he mentioned that we were both ahead of our projected pace, which was good to hear. As I passed the 13-mile marker I thought about hitting my watch to see what my time was, but I decided I'd just rather be surprised when I see the clock. I do that often and I've had some good surprises and some bad surprises, but today was a good one as I finished well under my 1:40 goal with a time of 1:35:25 and winning my age group.

Click Here for Race Results

Click Here for Official Race Photos

Race Rating:

4 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
7 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10) (Gift Certificates)
2 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
4 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
5 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
5 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
6 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
3 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
7 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
0 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
5 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities
0-10 Other

TOTAL - 76

My Stats:

Time: 1:35:25
Pace: 7:17
Age Group: 1 of 7
Overall: 25 of 300

Race #144 - Big Red Shoe 5k - Charlotte, NC - 09/10/11

2011-09-10T20:21:00.001-04:00

Jonas runs with dad (our son Dave) in his first official race.

This was a special race for us -- the 1k was our 3-year-old grandson Jonas's first race ever. We'd been hoping we could take him to a race all summer and it didn't work out until September, but it was a great first race for him. Add a petting zoo, moon bounce, clowns, balloons, and lots of other excitement for kids and it was a perfect Saturday morning at the races.

The 5k was a good one for me as well. I finished with my second best 5k time of the year -- 20:13 -- and was 5th overall in the race, winning the Grand Masters and a $50 Omega Sports gift certificate.

Proceeds from this race go to the Ronald McDonald House (thus the "Big Red Shoe" moniker) and Myers Park Baptist Church does a good job with it. All participants get a free pancake breakfast after the race, and there were other goodies available such as watermelon and frozen yogurt.

Click Here for Race Results
Click Here for Race Photos at Carolina SportPix

Race Rating:

7 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
8 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10) (No trophies but lots of money$$)
6 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
8 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
5 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
5 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
6 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
7 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
7 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
6 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
9 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
5 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
5 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities
0 - 0-10 Other

TOTAL - 99

Race Stats:

1st Overall Male: Chris Parnek (18:22)
1st Overall Female: Cynthia Lucas (21:09)
Total Finishers: 156

My Stats:

Time: 20:13
Pace: 6:31
Age Group: 1 of 5
Overall: 5 of 156

Race #143 - Midnight Flight 10k - Anderson, SC - 09/02/11

2011-09-03T18:14:00.000-04:00

This was my third straight year of running the Midnight Flight 10k, the first race in the Running Journal Grand Prix. After running a disappointing time of 47:07 in last year's race I hoped to redeem myself by running under 45 minutes this year. Things worked out well for me and I chopped about 4 minutes off last year's time, finishing in 43:09 (with a chip time of 43:04), finishing in 1st place in the 55-59 age group.

It was a little sad not having some of the Charlotte area guys there who I've run the RJ Grand Prix with over the past two seasons, but a couple of other Charlotte runners are there this year -- Butch Holt and Louis Messina -- so we've still got some representation from the area. I'll be switching age groups on February 27, 2012, before the end of the current season, so the only points I'll get will be in races before that date. I told Linda last year that I wouldn't run this series this year, but since I'll still be eligible for points in six races and they're all a lot of fun I decided to give it a shot. Linda's not thrilled but I think she kind of enjoys the traveling, and I figure as long as I'm able to do it and get some points I'll stick with it.

At the beginning of the race I lined up near the front with Louis and we noticed that Butch had left us and lined up directly behind William Walker, a particularly fast runner in Butch's age group (60-64) who has finished ahead of Butch a couple times this year. They're two of the fastest runners in the state in that age group, and both of them are usually way ahead of me at the finish line. As we took off at the beginning of the race I expected to look ahead and see them out ahead of me but I didn't see either one of them. I reached the 1-mile marker at 6:17 and still hadn't seen them so I figured Butch's plan was just to stay with him and not let him get away. Usually Butch goes out like lightning though so I wondered if a slower early pace was a good idea for him. The course is out-and-back, and as I turned around and ran a tenth of a mile or so I saw Butch, then another tenth of a mile behind him was William, so I figured Butch decided somewhere along the line that William wasn't having one of his better races and he better take off on his own pace.

For me, knowing that Butch Holt was behind me gave me some incentive to try to keep up my pace. The last race we did together on July 4th was one of my fastest 5k races of the year, where I finished in 20:23. In that one Butch had completely left me behind after I stayed pretty close to him for the first mile. He finished that race in 19:44, faster than I've ever run, so let's just say he's usually not too worried about me. The sixth mile of this race is the toughest mile by far, with a long uphill climb that seems to go on forever. The past two times I've run it I've stopped and walked at least once and probably two or three times (I don't remember exactly) but this year I was determined to keep running. I checked my heart rate as I approached the hill and it was 173 beats per minute, which is high for me but not too unusual. I decided to try to keep my heart rate at that level, speeding up if I saw 172 and slowing down if I saw 174, and I'd check it every 30 seconds or so. That seemed to work for me and the readout on my Garmin said I averaged a heart rate of 174 in the sixth mile. I crossed the finish line with the clock reading 43:09, with Butch 10 seconds behind at 43:19. In about six months I'll be in Butch's age group, and I'm hoping I can stay in good enough shape to give him a little bit of competition. Right now when I'm running my best and he has an bad day, I'm right there.

Click Here for Race Results

Race Rating:

4 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
6 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10) (Nice hat this year!)
5 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
7 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
8 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
6 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
0 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
6 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
7 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
7 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
8 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
5 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
7 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities
0-10 Other

TOTAL - 96

Race Stats:

1st Overall Male: Ricky Flynn (31:50)
1st Overall Female: Caitlin Ranson (39:37)
Total Finishers: 318

My Stats:

Time: 43:09 (43:04 chip time)
Pace: 6:56
Age Group: 2 of 16 (1 of 15 counting Grand Master bump-up -- 1st place AG)
Overall: 31 of 318

Race #142 - Battle of the Triad Half Marathon - Kernersville, NC - 08/27/11

2011-08-27T19:14:00.000-04:00

This was my 25th half marathon, and if there's anything I've learned in those 25 races it's that 13.1 miles still feels like 13.1 miles no matter how many times I run it. Seems like I'm always running out of gas about 10 miles into the race but so far I've managed to have enough fumes to cross the finish line. I'm not sure I've mentioned it in the blog until now, but one of my goals this year is to run at least one half marathon each month in 2011, and so far I'm on track...

January: Resolution Run Half Marathon - Travelers Rest, SC - (01/08/11)(Time 1:45:46)
February: Myrtle Beach Half Marathon - Myrtle Beach, SC - (02/19/11)(Time 1:34:21)
March: Germantown Half Marathon - Memphis, TN - (03/20/11)(Time 1:36:38)
April: Knoxville Half Marathon - Knoxville, TN - (04/03/11)(Time 1:59:08)
May: New River Half Marathon - Todd, NC - (05/07/11)(Time 1:46:37)
June: Charity Chase Half Marathon - Hickory, NC - (06/04/11)(Time 1:42:15)
July: The Scream Half Marathon - Jonas Ridge, NC - (07/16/11)(Time 1:32:11)
August: Battle of the Triad Half Marathon - Kernersville, NC - (08/27/11)(Time 1:39:44)

And these are on my schedule for the rest of the year...

September: Run for Green Half Marathon - Davidson, NC - (09/17/11)
October: Spinx Run Fest Half Marathon - Greenville, SC - (10/29/11)
November: Thunder Road Half Marathon - Charlotte, NC - (11/12/11)
December: Columbia Half Marathon - Columbia, SC - (12/17/11)

Anyway, that's the plan. I just like trying to keep myself in half marathon shape by running them when I get a chance.

Before I go off on a tangent, let me get back to the Battle of the Triad Half Marathon. This race was a little on the smallish side compared to most other half marathons I've run, with only 171 finishers, but it was well organized and a lot of fun. I wasn't thrilled with my time of 1:39:44, but I finished 16th overall so I wasn't the only one who had a less-than-stellar time. With Hurricane Irene looming off the coast of North Carolina, the winds were probably around 20-25 miles per hour throughout the entire race, and for some reason we seemed to be running into a headwind almost the whole time. One time I felt the wind at my back, but that was short-lived, and after a minute or two I was again running head-on into the wind. I heard that same observation from other runners as well. It was a fairly hilly course as well, not nearly as bad as Asheville or Hickory, but there were lots of hills to contend with.

There were a lot of nice little extras that this race provided. The goody bag not only included a nice water bottle but an embroidered running hat with the "Battle of the Triad" logo. Linda ran the 5k (she won her age group too!) and while she waited for me to finish the half marathon they were giving away extra shirts and hats from last year, so we came home with 3 running hats and 3 race shirts. The T-shirts are great quality tech shirts with a nice design. The engraved marble plaques for age group awards were top-notch as well, and all half marathon finishers received a nice finishers medal. There was also plenty of post-race food including Panini sandwiches, soft drinks, chocolate milk as well as regular post-race fare.

Click Here for Race Results

Race Rating:

6 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
8 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)
6 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
8 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
8 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
0 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
6 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
7 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
7 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
9 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
7 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
5 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
4 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities (no porta potties at location or on course)
0-10 Other

TOTAL - 95

Race Stats:

1st Overall Male: Rich Swor (1:12:28)
1st Overall Female: Heather Magill (1:25:15)
Total Finishers: 171

My Stats:

Time: 1:39:44
Pace: 7:32
Age Group: 1 of 5
Overall: 16 of 171

Race #141 - Soldiers Reunion 5k - Newton, NC - 08/20/11

2011-08-20T13:30:00.003-04:00

This was my third year in a row to run the Soldiers Reunion 5k in Newton. It's actually a pretty big 5k by small-town race standards, and it's also one of the longest running races in the state. I've always thought of it as a pretty fast and flat race too, but after the race a couple of people mentioned to me that it's not as fast as, for example, the hilly Waldensian Classic held a week earlier in Valdese, and their times were slower here by 30 seconds to a minute. After running two 5k's last week with times of 20:20 and 20:29 I was hoping to get into "20-minutes flat" territory, but I didn't quite make it, although my time of 20:43 was 1st in my age group and a minute and 5 seconds faster than last year's memorable showdown between Steve Staley and me where we finished 1-2 in the age group, both at 21:48 and with me ahead only by a few hundredths of a second. Two years ago I ran this same race at 22:10, so I'm really happy with this year's time of 20:43. It's nice to feel like there might be a possibility for additional improvement ahead, especially since I'll be entering the 60-64 age group in just a few months.

I'm currently on a 7-day work week so until that's no longer the case I'll probably be cutting the blog entries short. One other thing I should mention about this race though is that my wife Linda took a nose dive at about the halfway point of the race. Thankfully she's not injured too badly -- just a few abrasions, mostly to her knee and elbow, and it remains to be seen if there's much bruising or possibly a knee problem that keeps her out of running for a while. It was the first fall either of us has taken in three years of racing and I'm hoping it'll be the last one a for a long time to come.

Click Here for Race Results on Active.com

Click Here for 200+ Photos on Flickr Posted by the City of Newton

Race Rating:

3 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
9 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)
9 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
8 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10) (watermelon/cantaloupe/soft drinks, & more)
7 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
5 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No) (FREE on Flickr!)
6 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
7 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
7 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
8 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
7 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
5 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
5 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities
0-10 Other

TOTAL - 100

Race Stats:

1st Overall Male: Dave Max (17:03)
1st Overall Female: Savannah Fornshell (20:35)
Total Finishers: 287

My Stats:

Time: 20:43
Pace: 6:34
Age Group: 1 of 5
Overall: 32 of 287

Race #140 - Rock 'N Run 5k - Charlotte, NC - 08/13/11

2011-08-13T21:52:00.001-04:00

To be honest, what drew me to this race was the cool website, but I really couldn't decide whether to run this one or the Great Waldensian Footrace in Valdese, and since the day-of-race registration was $35 for the Rock 'N Run 5k but only $15 for the Waldensian race, I almost headed out to Valdese. When I woke Linda up she said she wanted to just stay home, and rather than drive the 65 miles or so to Valdese I just headed to Charlotte instead.

The race was held at the NC Music Factory, which was in a completely different area than I thought, but luckily the GPS took me straight to the race site. There were a lot of people there but after I had registered and had been there for 10 or 15 minutes I still didn't see anyone I knew. Finally I spotted Steve Austin, then Ken Simpson, then Jerry Sofley, and Herb Berman. A few other familiar faces showed up but I was surprised how few of the regular Charlotte runners that I know were there.

This race is kind of a modified out-and-back course: you run almost halfway then go a couple blocks around a big neighborhood (maybe a half mile) then get back on the course where you're meeting all of the slower runners heading in the other direction. There are some gentle slopes, I think, but no big hills at all that I remember. Unlike the previous night's race where I stayed close behind Mitchell Rippy the whole time, much of the time I was by myself in this one with the runner ahead being far enough ahead that I couldn't catch him and the runners behind being so far away that I didn't feel like they could catch me. To me that's one of the times I have to dig in a little and remind myself to keep running hard. It's easy to just get complacent and go into mosey mode.

I expected to be a little sore from running a 5k less than 12 hours earlier on Friday night, but I felt surprisingly good with no aches or pains at all. I was hoping to run in under 21 minutes, and as I approached the finish line I could see on the finish line clock that I would reach my goal. I was more than satisfied with my time of 20:29.

The emcee of the awards ceremony was John Ahrens, the meterologist on WSOC-TV, and he really did an outstanding job of bringing some excitement to the awards. In addition, they had some unbelievable door prizes for the runners including a big flat-screen TV and quite a few other high-end items.

I registered on race day and they were out of T-shirts except for XL. They told me they would knock 5 bucks of the registration fee (from $35 to $30) if I didn't want a shirt. Some races don't offer a discount but they should, so I do appreciate it.

I should probably mention that I had returned to the Weight Watchers diet program about two months ago after having slowly gained about 10 pounds over the previous two years. I actually lost the 10 pounds in about 4 or 5 weeks and my weight seemed to stabilize there at about 140 pounds. That's a BMI between 20 and 21 and should be good for me. Since my body seems to be telling me to stop trying to lose weight I decided to go on the Weight Watcher maintenance plan, which allows me to eat more food than diet mode but not to gain weight, so that's what I'm trying to do now.

I had always heard that for every pound you lose (within reason) you should gain about 2 seconds per mile in speed. Since I lost 10 pounds, that means if the formula is correct I should gain about a minute in speed for a 5k race (10 pounds x 2 seconds = 20 seconds per mile; 3 miles x 20 seconds = 1 minute). These recent race times of 20:20 and 20:29 are about a minute faster than I had been running, so it looks like the formula is working for me so far. There are always other factors involved with training, diet, health, etc., but it's nice to see that this worked. Now if I can just figure out a way to drop just 1 more minute off my 5k time!

Click Here for Race Results

Click Here for Race Website (Photos can be found there when available)

Race Rating:

9 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
7 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)
10 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
7 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
5 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
5 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
6 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
7 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
7 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
6 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
8 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
5 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
4 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities (no porta-potties)
0 - 0-10 Other

TOTAL - 100

Race Stats:

1st Overall Male: Paul Mainwaring (16:14)
1st Overall Female: Michelle Hazelton (18:32)
Total Finishers: 478

My Stats:

Time: 20:29
Pace: 6:36
Age Group: 3 of 12
Overall: 29 of 478

Race #139 - Dog Days Twilight 5k - Kings Mountain, NC - 08/13/11

2011-08-13T19:40:00.001-04:00

This was the inaugural Dog Days Twilight 5k and it turned out really nice. The race starts and finishes at Patriot's Park in Kings Mountain, which is a place I associate with the frigid Jingle Bell Run that is hosted in Kings Mountain in the middle of December. It seems to always be one of the coldest races of the year and after running it for two straight years I remember when it was the only race on that cold Saturday morning this past December I decided to just stay in bed. The Dog Days Twilight 5k was much different, of course, and the temperature seemed just about perfect to me.

This was the second week in a row that we ran a race that was organized by one of our running friends, this time Margot from Kings Mountain, and she did an outstanding job for the most part with the course being clearly marked and having volunteers at all turns, great T-shirts, a top-notch timing company, etc. There were a couple of minor snafus though -- they ran out of water, and somehow they also ran out of medals halfway through the awards ceremony. I'm not sure how that happened, but she assured the age-group winners who didn't get a medal that they'll mail them their medals when they're able to get some more, and she's the type who will carry through with that.

I heard that the course for this race was just about the same as for the Jingle Bell run but in the opposite direction, which whoever's in charge of the Jingle Bell 5k might want to consider for next year, allowing the runners to finish on a little downhill instead of the grueling uphill in the opposite direction. There were some hills -- they call it Kings Mountain for a reason -- but really nothing that stands out as a particularly difficult uphill. I'm one of those people who doesn't really notice or remember hills, either uphill or downhill, unless they're real monsters.

Most races are held in the morning and I'm not usually too thrilled with nighttime races because (a) I'm not used to running them, and (b) my diet tends to get out of hand during the day before the race, which usually results in worse race results. On this day though I not only kept my diet under control, I even ate my morning pre-race meal a couple hours before race time -- a large portion of old-fashioned oatmeal with raisins.

I really felt good during the race. I was right behind Mitchell Rippy the entire race. He even looked back one time and yelled, "Don't let me hold you back!" He wasn't holding me back, of course, I just couldn't catch him. Mitchell is a fast runner in the 45-49 age group and is usually farther ahead of me, but on this night he had an Ace bandage wrapped around his right ankle and was obviously not 100%. At the finish line I was a second behind him at a time of 20:20, which was my second fastest 5k this year, so I'm very pleased with that, especially since it was a night race.

After the race we waited for the awards and then tried to get home at a decent hour so we could get up for another race on Saturday morning (that'll be a separate blog entry).

Click Here for Race Results

Race Rating:

4 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
6 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)
6 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
4 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
7 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
0 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
6 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
3 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
7 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
6 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
7 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
0 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
6 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities
0-10 Other

TOTAL - 76

Race Stats:

1st Overall Male: Garrett Willis (18:23)
1st Overall Female: Michele Hoheiser (21:53)
Total Finishers: 118

My Stats:

Time: 20:20
Pace: 6:34
Age Group: 1 of 8
Overall: 9 of 118

Race #138 - Run From Knobby 5k - Casar, NC - 08/06/11

2011-08-06T21:44:00.002-04:00

I decided to bypass the Blue Points 5k in Charlotte today and instead headed for Casar, North Carolina, population 308, for the Run From Knobby 5k. The town of Casar was originally named Caesar (as in Julius Caesar or Caesar salad), but when they applied for a post office the name was misspelled and it officially became Casar. Knobby is the area's legendary ape-like character who seems to be a distant cousin of Bigfoot, and over the years there have been numerous Knobby sightings by area residents.

About a month ago Angie, one of the Shelby runners who we've become friends with through the local races, asked me to post an event for the race on Facebook. It was her first attempt at directing a race, and since then she's been transferred to Florida and has already moved, so I wasn't sure what to expect. Turns out that it's nice to have friends who are willing to help and are knowledgeable about races, and the race went over without a hitch. My own thought was that in such a remote location and little lead time and hardly any advertising this would be a tiny race, but it was a real success with 130 registered runners, which is great for a first-year race in an out-of-the-way location.

The race route was beautiful but tough, winding around the foot of the South Mountains, and at times it felt more like a roller coaster than a public road. There were some huge hills and very few flat areas, but it was an out-and-back course so anywhere that you had to go uphill you also had the benefit of the downhill when you were running in the opposite direction. Still, lots of hills tend to slow people down and there were very few Personal Records being set. I felt really good during the race, finishing 9th overall with a time of 21:03. Of note, at the turn-around point halfway through the race there was Knobby himself, giving a high five to everybody as they turned to go in the other direction.

Click Here for Race Results on Athlinks

Race Rating:

3 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.) (Facebook only)
5 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)
7 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
5 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
6 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
0 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
4 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
3 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
7 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
7 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
5 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
5 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
5 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities
0-10 Other

TOTAL - 76

My Stats:

Time: 21:03
Pace: 6:47
Age Group: 1 of 4
Overall: 9 of 126

Race #137 - Run/Walk for the Greenway - Salisbury, NC - 07/23/11

2011-07-23T22:32:00.001-04:00

If there had been another race around we would have probably ended up there instead, but having made the trip for the 14th Annual Run/Walk for the Greenway I'm really glad we ended up in Salisbury. It's a first class 5k race all the way: a beautiful course mostly on the greenway with a nice finish on the school track, great organization with lots of volunteers, plenty of food (donuts, chicken nuggets, and lots of good stuff), beautiful trophies, a ton of nice door prizes given out just before the awards, and a nice size crowd of 246 finishers.

It was hot, of course, as you would expect in July, and being one of the hottest days of the summer it was pretty steamy at the 8 a.m. start. Because of the heat, many of the runners I talked to felt like their times were a little off. I felt good and won my age group but was a little disappointed that my 21:07 time was actually 19 seconds slower than a 5k tempo run I did on the treadmill just two days ago. Maybe that's not surprising considering it was cooler inside on the treadmill and although the hills weren't bad at all in the race, the treadmill with a 1% incline all the way was pretty flat.

Click Here for Race Results (PDF)

Click Here for Race Photos on Facebook (Vac and Dash)

Race Rating:

6 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
9 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)
9 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
9 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
7 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average) (tech, but kind of plain)
4 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
0 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
4 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
7 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
8 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
5 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
6 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
5 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
5 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities
0-10 Other

TOTAL - 94

My Stats:

Time: 21:07
Pace: 6:48
Age Group: 1 of 12
Overall: 26 of 246

Race #136 - The Scream! Half Marathon - Jonas Ridge, NC - 07/16/11

2011-07-17T07:35:00.000-04:00

The T-shirt says, The Scream! Half Marathon is "13.1 Miles of Pure Hill!" That's not entirely true. While there are probably 8 or 9 miles of downhill that will make your quads and calves scream with delight (or possibly horror), there's enough uphill to bring you back to reality. For me, every time we hit the small uphill sections they almost felt like huge mountains after getting used to all the downhill, but enough people passed me on those hills that I thought I might be in the minority. There's no doubt that the huge downhill sections helped a lot of people run their fastest half marathon time ever. I cut about a minute off my Personal Record from the 2010 Little Rock Half Marathon with a time of 1:32:11, which was 1st in the 55-59 age group and 24th overall.

Honestly, I was just a little disappointed with my time since I've been running well lately and had dropped 10 pounds over the previous four weeks. I felt like there was a good chance for me to run in under 1:30, but as reality sinks in, whether you have some major downhill help or not, you still have to run 13.1 miles and it's just not that easy. Possibly some of my problem was that about 11 miles of this race is run on unpaved roads. While I know that it's supposed to be easier on the joints, I run just about 100% of the time on pavement and prefer the smoother surface. Still, the race was great fun and lived up to its expectations, and when race director David Lee asked for a show of hands on who ran a PR (Personal Record), it looked like maybe three-fourths of the runners lifted their hands.

You'd expect it to be too hot to run a half marathon in the middle of July, but that definitely wasn't the case for this one. When we arrived at Jonas Ridge it was cold and foggy with a light rain. The temperature was probably about 58 degrees and the light rain continued to fall throughout the race, although as we came down the mountain the temperature rose a little, and at the finish it might have been 65 degrees.

I had made plans to meet up with Sharon Davis from Albemarle a couple months ago, and we had planned to both drive to the finish line then take one car to the top and leave the other at the bottom, then go back and get the other car after the race. Wow, that sounds so much easier to do than it would have been in real life. Peter Asciutto, the Vac & Dash guru, wanted to hand out some flyers to promote his upcoming half marathon/10k/5k, Run The Valley, so he offered to drive us to the top and meet us at the bottom, then return us back to the hotel where Sharon was staying in Morganton after the race. That worked out perfectly for us and saved hours of driving. By the way, Sharon ran spectacularly as always and was the 3rd overall female to cross the finish line just like she was at Hickory's Charity Chase Half Marathon last month!

The logistics of getting to and from your car might have been the most challenging part of this race. Even if you took the bus from the finish line to the starting line, just getting to the finish line in your car to catch the bus was a challenge since the finish was several miles out a remote dirt road. I didn't really hear any complaints though so I guess people just looked at it as part of the racing adventure.

Finisher medal photo and T-shirt graphic photo by Bobby Aswell.

The rain finally stopped around the time of the awards ceremony, and about 5 minutes into the awards the post-race pizza arrived. It was a little late for those who didn't stay for the awards, but a great reward for staying. It marked the first time since my return to Weight Watchers a few weeks ago that I didn't bother counting WW points for the day -- way too depressing. It probably didn't help matters that I got a chocolate milkshake and medium fries on the way home, or that I also ended up taking my grandson to Ben & Jerry's before the day was over. On Sunday I'm back to fruit, veggies, and counting everything I eat, but it was nice to have a day off of the diet, even if it did mess up any weight loss I might have achieved for the week.

Click Here for Overall Race Results

Click Here for Age Group Race Results

Click Here for The Scream! Official Website

Race Rating:

10 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
9 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10) (Great Finisher Medals!)
8 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
8 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
10 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average) (One of the best ever!)
4 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
0 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
6 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
7 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
8 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
1 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
5 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
0 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
3 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities
10-10 Other -- Big extra credit for majority of runners getting a new PR -- fastest course ever!

TOTAL - 99

Race Stats:

1st Overall Male: Josh Baker (1:12:56)
1st Overall Female: Courtney Ellabarger (1:28:33)
Total Finishers: 190

My Stats:

Time: 1:32:11 (New Personal Record)
Pace: 7:02
Age Group: 1 of 9 in 55-59 age group
Overall: 24 of 190 (13%)

Race #135 - Coon Dog Day 5k - Saluda, NC - 07/09/11

2011-07-09T15:45:00.004-04:00

There weren't a lot of races around the Charlotte area this weekend, so I was excited when I found the Coon Dog Day 5k in Saluda, North Carolina. This sounded like it should be a lot of fun and it definitely met our expectations. This was the 48th annual Coon Dog Day celebration and I think the 5k race has been a part of the festivities for much of that time.

Parking was a little bit of an issue but it was handled nicely by the volunteers. The race started and finished about a half mile from the parking lot so we walked to the starting line, but that's not too big of a deal of you're coming out to run a road race anyway.

I liked the course but it was a challenging one. The first mile of the race was almost entirely uphill, followed by rolling hills in the second mile and, mercifully, a nice downhill finish in the last mile.

I'm now in my fourth week of Weight Watchers and I'm not positive what my "official" weight is (my official weekly weigh-in is on Sunday morning) but I've stuck with the WW program and feel possibly better than I've ever felt in my three years of running. I think I've lost about 1 pound this week, and if that's correct that's a total weight loss of about 8 pounds since I began back on the WW program four weeks ago. Along with the weight loss I'm noticing a real improvement in the way I feel during the races. My time was around 21:25 (haven't seen the official results), which was first in the 55+ age group. I'd like to be under 21 minutes right now and I think I will be on a flatter course, but with all of the hills in Saluda it's probably about right.

We don't know many people in this area but it was good to see running buddy Drew Walker, who drove his Stickermobile from Greenwood, South Carolina, for the race. Drew runs more races than just about anybody I know -- 71 last year alone!

It was great also to meet Fred Reinhard, a 66-year-old runner from Sullivans Island, South Carolina. Fred is not only a nice guy but one of the fastest veteran runners anywhere and a South Carolina state age-group record holder. Just a couple months ago he placed 3rd in the 65-69 age group at the Cooper River Bridge Run (he's been 1st several times in the past) with a time of 43:23, so he's still flying high.

The awards ceremony was held downtown on the main stage, which was a couple miles away from the main parking area at the Saluda Mountain Jamboree. Access was easy back and forth though with a free tram ride both ways.

It was a little disappointing that the oldest age group was 55+. With so many older runners competing there really should be 5-year age groups up to age 80, or at the very least 70. I won't complain a lot since I managed to squeak out a win in the 55+ age group, but I'm sure there were some 70+ guys who weren't thrilled about competing with us young whippersnappers.

The T-shirts were great for this race -- one of the few 5k shirts that I'll actually wear. They're high quality tech shirts with a nice design, and I just love the sound of the Coon Dog Day 5k!

Click Here for Race Results (PDF format) (unformatted results below)

Click Here for 138 Professional Photos by Carey Pace on the Coon Dog Day 5k Facebook Page

Click Here for Coon Dog Day Festival Site

Race Rating:

6 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
8 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)
5 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
7 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
9 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
5 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
4 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
7 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
7 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
3 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
9 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
0 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
4 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities
0-10 Other

TOTAL - 88

My Stats:

Time: 21:25
Pace: 6:53
Age Group: 1 of 14 (50-59 age group)
Overall: 12 of 206

Mile Splits:
1 -- 7:12 (uphill)
2 -- 7:08 (rolling hills)
3 -- 6:26 (lots of downhill)

Linda - 2nd Place - 55+ age group
Richard - 1st Place - 55+ age group

Coon Dog Festival 5K
Results
July 9, 2011
PLACE FIRST LAST AGE SEX TIME
1 Zach Boone 14 M 18.34.89
2 David Hefley 34 M 18.40.65
3 Nick Murray 15 M 19.25.79
4 Christopher Czech 28 M 19.32.89
5 William Butler 15 M 20.07.40
6 Tommy McAfee 51 M 20.11.25
7 Phil Feisal 47 M 20.15.27
8 Sam Inman 49 M 20.23.08
9 Jonathan Kirkland 18 M 20.58.50
10 David Martoccia 46 M 21.06.53
11 Kylie Smith 38 F 21.14.08
12 Richard Hefner 59 M 21.25.07
13 Drew Walker 52 M 21.34.03
14 Shawn Pace 32 M 21.36.00
15 Chris Sherman 16 M 21.47.00
16 Ian Schools 19 M 22.08.54
17 Cosby Dudley 51 M 22.14.48
18 Patrick Cole 13 M 22.17.51
19 Rebecca Elliott 17 F 22.20.58
20 Mead Walker 28 M 22.27.60
21 Sean Smith 38 M 22.29.03
22 David Spark 62 M 22.39.35
23 Paul Fitzpatrick 47 M 22.42.36
24 Scott Kohr 49 M 22.46.83
25 Daniel Worley 23 M 22.53.55
26 Bruce Arrington 51 M 22.55.58
27 Jason Suhy 30 M 22.57.77
28 Simon Niebler 19 M 23.11.30
29 Lance Morsell 14 M 23.16.17
30 Fred Reinhard 66 M 23.21.67
31 Nicholas Foil 21 M 23.23.58
32 Nate Inman 13 M 23.26.78
33 Leyden Hane 35 F 23.31.70
34 Anne Smith 41 F 23.35.20
35 Cathy Pryor 48 F 23.51.29
36 Elisabeth Elliott 20 F 23.58.73
37 Seth Knight 14 M 24.01.67
38 Alan Redmon 45 M 24.02.46
39 Vickie Steuben 51 F 24.10.93
40 Zoltan Desi 36 M 24.14.18
41 William Kirkland 22 M 24.17.73
42 David Bendert 44 M 24.21.18
43 Wayne Boynton 66 M 24.22.74
Coon Dog Festival 5K
Results
July 9, 2011
PLACE FIRST LAST AGE SEX TIME
44 Steve O'Brien 56 M 24.47.34
45 Frances Bendert 40 F 24.51.87
46 Brian Asbill 43 M 24.54.79
47 Henry Asbill 9 M 24.56.43
48 Dewayne Elliott 48 M 24.58.44
49 Jay Goree 55 M 24.59.45
50 Anthony Stepp 18 M 25.02.14
51 Margaret Manuel 38 F 25.03.60
52 Greg Coast 52 M 25.06.80
53 Thomas Ingram 41 M 25.23.51
54 Kenan Dudley 16 M 25.41.25
55 Alli Bendert 14 F 25.51.43
56 Gay Reilly 49 F 25.56.51
57 Bruce Douglas 54 M 26.00.16
58 Matthew Reed 22 M 26.01.93
59 Richard Carns 43 M 26.05.31
60 Beth Harris 48 F 26.26.68
61 Bill Hay 50 M 26.28.28
62 Alice Tongue 26 F 26.31.84
63 Brian Pace 41 M 26.40.23
64 Kate Seng 38 F 26.41.22
65 Meredith Harling 30 F 26.44.73
66 Justin Ward 25 M 26.48.13
67 Angela Conner 51 F 26.55.77
68 Chris Moss 39 M 26.57.78
69 Judith Spivey 50 F 27.03.35
70 Linda Ketcham 47 F 27.05.10
71 Anthony Marino 14 M 27.07.15
72 Kelly Harris 22 F 27.11.77
73 Byron Butler 40 M 27.13.05
74 Ben Cates 14 M 27.14.97
75 John Marino 46 M 27.16.88
76 Woodley Nelson 34 F 27.18.08
77 Michael Lewis 42 M 27.23.06
78 Scott Sweet 14 M 27.24.57
79 Peggy Mary Ambler 33 F 27.36.35
80 Tessa Epperson 14 F 27.48.49
81 Dale Epperson 38 M 27.49.60
82 Julie Allen 30 F 27.52.84
83 Sara Lacono 33 F 27.54.27
84 Thomas Tennant 44 M 27.55.05
85 Leigh Paschke 30 F 27.55.94
86 Lucy Somers 14 F 27.01.25
Coon Dog Festival 5K
Results
July 9, 2011
PLACE FIRST LAST AGE SEX TIME
87 Danny Senn 57 M 28.17.34
88 Kyle Edney 31 M 28.18.91
89 Taylor Reeves 18 F 28.22.66
90 Elizabeth McIntosh 20 F 28.23.46
91 Michelle Greene 22 F 28.24.62
92 Srebrenka Robic 36 F 28.39.89
93 Carol Jean Vosburgh 65 F 28.46.40
94 Carrie Evans 14 F 29.07.34
95 Jason Ferguson 36 M 29.09.11
96 Scott Strong M 29.10.88
97 Jerry Smith 40 M 29.14.30
98 Coleman Troop 21 M 29.21.49
99 Jim Winfree 60 M 29.24.33
100 Jim Becker 42 M 29.28.15
101 Jen Mahoney 37 F 29.30.96
102 Jessica Franco 32 F 29.36.89
103 Kinney Gause 65 M 29.38.41
104 Alice Hunter 50 F 29.39.61
105 Randy Hunter 49 M 29.40.52
106 Henry Sparrow 64 M 29.42.14
107 Amy Caughorn 27 F 29.50.54
108 Erika Ashley 33 F 30.19.14
109 Frances Whiteside 29 F 30.21.11
110 Hans Morgan 32 M 30.22.59
111 Hillary Bendert 12 F 30.26.86
112 Andy Ratcliffe 35 M 30.28.49
113 Polly Ketcham 21 F 30.37.41
114 Tamara Faulkner 47 F 30.41.86
115 Lynn Kohr 44 F 30.43.95
116 Carol Kellar 39 F 30.45.86
117 Amy Parrish 38 F 30.49.75
118 Jacob Asbill 5 M 31.29.65
119 Sarah Asbill 43 F 31.30.90
120 Kristen Harvey 45 F 31.37.89
121 Jessica Ward 18 F 31.55.63
122 Ashtan Evans 23 F 31.57.94
123 Bryan Powell 25 M 31.58.77
124 Whitmire Lori 45 F 31.59.95
125 Sarah Johnson 17 F 32.31.15
126 Blake Butler 12 M 32.39.24
127 Amy Cole 40 F 32.48.05
128 Monique Ruiz 29 F 32.59.33
129 Bobbie Williamson 32 F 33.25.64
Coon Dog Festival 5K
Results
July 9, 2011
PLACE FIRST LAST AGE SEX TIME
130 Brandon Moffitt 33 M 33.34.33
131 Sallie Covington 19 F 33.41.33
132 Bill Corder 40 M 33.46.25
133 Kathy Campbell 40 F 33.48.06
134 Claudia Tafurt 46 F 33.48.96
135 Terrie Harris 46 F 33.49.86
136 Elizabeth Beard 18 F 34.00.38
137 Malinda Whitaker 42 F 34.01.93
138 Meghan Horsey 14 F 34.12.22
139 Heather Pittman 15 F 34.13.60
140 Bess Wilson 30 F 34.24.19
141 Abigail Moffitt 34 F 34.28.17
142 Dale Cleaveland 56 M 34.29.70
143 Boots Summers 31 M 34.31.64
144 Veronica Alverson 36 F 35.04.81
145 Reece Alverson 6 M 35.05.56
146 Lauren Hendrix 20 F 35.06.44
147 Tom Nerad 39 M 35.22.28
148 Kenneth Andersson 65 M 35.24.29
149 Susan Webb 53 F 36.05.56
150 Cole Nerad 11 M 36.22.60
151 Charlie McCollough 8 M 36.23.28
152 Cindy Camp 45 F 36.34.47
153 Linda Hefner 58 F 36.49.04
154 Cori Ray 32 F 37.15.36
155 Daniel Callahan 44 M 37.17.34
156 Frank Webb 56 M 37.46.68
157 Anna Johnson 15 F 38.07.36
158 Claire Reeves 15 F 38.08.80
159 Keith Mattison 49 M 38.13.43
160 Meg Hendrix 52 F 38.15.23
161 Karla Ward 49 F 39.04.16
162 Toni Atchley 46 F 39.05.78
163 Julia McCollough 48 F 39.52.63
164 Mike Chivers 41 M 39.55.74
165 Anna Chivers 43 F 39.59.30
166 Russell Harper 41 M 40.15.17
167 Adam Hendrix 16 M 40.57.97
168 Tylar Powell 12 F 41.26.33
169 Lily Pittman 12 F 41.32.28
170 Mollie Belise 12 F 41.34.21
171 Dayna Lewis 40 F 41.42.44
172 Mary Ferguson 34 F 41.51.59
Coon Dog Festival 5K
Results
July 9, 2011
PLACE FIRST LAST AGE SEX TIME
173 Jodee Skoog 35 F 41.52.65
174 Michelle Tennant Nicholson 41 F 41.57.48
175 Kate Spencer 14 F 42.30.98
176 Richard Chivers 71 M 42.34.25
177 Joelle Chivers 33 F 42.35.48
178 Anna Hudson 25 F 42.55.74
179 Katie Wilson 22 F 43.02.54
180 Lance Chambers 16 M 43.15.15
181 Mary Wise Howle 15 F 43.16.83
182 Logan Nerad 8 M 43.31.10
183 Ashley Schultz 15 F 43.33.04
184 Carey Nerad 39 F 43.43.29
185 Nancy Wooten 58 F 44.05.00
186 Valerie Holt 40 F 45.52.55
187 Kaya Parham 15 F 46.26.89
188 Samantha Pennington 17 F 46.52.94
189 Louise Maurisset 17 F 46.54.56
190 Julia Wooten 25 F 46.55.51
191 Lauren Johnson 25 F 47.15.61
192 Julie Johnson 55 F 47.20.13
193 Walker Manuel 7 M 47.42.94
194 Larry Fincher 76 M 47.44.66
195 Steve Manuel 60 M 47.46.63
196 Nick Swafford 66 M 49.00.04
197 Denise Kennedy 41 F 49.01.24
198 Bert Swafford 44 M 49.02.44
199 Cindy Crawford 50 F 53.07.39
200 Amy Dillon 34 F 53.08.80
201 Brittney Smith 15 F 53.49.74
202 Laura Huber 16 F 53.51.53
203 Sara Smith 14 F 53.53.14
204 Jennifer Smith 24 F 54.17.91
205 Emily Burgis 22 F 54.327.52
206 David Cantwell 50 M 59.15.06

Race #134 - Firecracker 5k - Columbus, NC - 07/04/11

2011-07-04T14:05:00.001-04:00

We celebrated the 4th of July this year with a trip over to Columbus, North Carolina, which is at the bottom of the mountain as you leave Asheville on Interstate 26. Unfortunately, it's still on the edge of the mountains so there are all kinds of hills, which resulted in a slower race time for me (21:27) than a couple days ago in the much flatter Huntersville race. I also ran an 11-mile training run yesterday, and with no rest in between and the hilly course I expected to be slower. Still, I felt good and I'm still on track with my "comeback" although I was enticed by some of the homemade baked goodies after the race and even more junk at the 4th of July festival just a block away.

This is a small-town race but a lot of fun, with cash for the overall male and female winners -- $100 for 1st place, $50 for second place, and $25 for third place. I was excited that Phyllis Neriah, from our running club (Gaston County Runners) ran in her very first 5k race ever and walked away with 50 bucks as the 2nd place overall female in the race!

Click Here for Race Website

Click Here for Results

Race Rating:

8 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
8 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)
8 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
7 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
5 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
0 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
4 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
7 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
6 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
6 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
7 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
0 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
6 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities
0-10 Other

TOTAL - 86

My Stats:

Time: 21:27
Pace: 6:57
Age Group: 1 of 2
Overall: 13 of 66

Race #133 - Firecracker 5k - Huntersville, NC - 07/02/11

2011-07-03T12:53:00.000-04:00

After last week's DNF debacle in Oakboro I was anxious to get back out to a race this weekend and put all of that behind me. This was our first race in two years at the HFFA (Huntersville Family Fitness & Aquatics) and I didn't really remember the course the race took, so it was nice to be reminded that it's a fairly flat course. It does go up and down some but it's mostly long, gentle slopes, and to make things even better it's both a downhill start and a downhill finish.

I'm now in my third week since I've returned to the Weight Watchers program. The 10 pounds or so that I had gained since I did my best running back in the fall of 2009 had me running increasingly slower times. I had been trying to watch my diet a little bit, but that never works, and even with all of the running I managed to add about a half pound or so every month.

In the three weeks of my new Weight Watchers program I've been pleasantly surprised to see that the new guidelines since I've been away from WW are much better than the old program, which is saying a lot since the old program was better than anything else I'd ever seen or tried. Over the past three weeks I really haven't been hungry at all, and most importantly, I've managed to lose about 7 of the pounds that I had gained, so I feel like I'm really back on track for the first time in a while.

I knew that with the lost weight I should run faster, and nothing less than running a race would really give me an idea of whether it's working or not. I felt really great compared to how I felt at China Grove three weeks ago, where I ran my slowest 5k in eight months (21:44) and felt awful as I was doing it. It was at China Grove where I decided I had to get back to Weight Watchers if I wanted to really get myself straightened out.

I'm excited to say that my plan worked, and after just three weeks of an improved diet but no changes in my training, I went from my slowest 5k in eight months to my fourth fastest 5k ever at 20:23!

I'm definitely not through losing weight, but of course I'd like to settle in at a weight that is optimal for me. Right now my Body Mass Index (BMI) is about 21.4 and I'm thinking I might run my best at a BMI somewhere between 19 and 20. The only way to know for sure is to try it, so over the next few months I'll be trying to get to that level and see if it's a good place for me.

Click Here for Race Results

Click Here for My Race Photos on Facebook

Click Here for Race Website (Photos coming soon after race)

Race Rating:

8 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
7 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)
5 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
5 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
5 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
5 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
6 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
7 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
8 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
9 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
8 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
5 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
4 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities (Indoor bathrooms but no porta-potties)
0-10 Other

TOTAL - 96

Race Stats:

1st Overall Male: Brad Popple (15:43)
1st Overall Female: Michelle Hazelton (18:31)
Total Finishers: 471

My Stats:

Time: 20:23
Pace: 6:34
Splits: 6:02 - 6:51 - 6:47
Age Group: 1 of 7 (55-59)
Overall: 48 of 471

Race #132 - Freedom Run 5k - Oakboro, NC - 06/25/11

2011-06-25T15:14:00.000-04:00

In the grand scheme of things this is just a tiny blip on the radar, but this one will go down as my first DNF (Did Not Finish) after managing to get through the first 131 relatively unscathed. There have been quite a few races in the past where I've heard other people talk about taking wrong turns, and I thought if I stayed with it long enough it would eventually happen to me, and on this day it was my turn. It's not a great big deal, but it's a little disappointing to find out in the middle of a race that you've run in the completely wrong direction.

There were several places along the course where the only way I knew which way to go was to follow the runners ahead of me. The place where I took my wrong turn actually had the word "EXIT" written on the ground with an arrow pointing to the left. Unfortunately, I wasn't looking at the ground and there were no runners close by either ahead of me or behind me so I kept following the path to the right that looped around the lake. When I veered off course I was 7th or 8th overall in the race and was running well, so as bad as the DNF was, it's better that it was the result of getting off the path than something catastrophic like a heart attack or breaking my nose in a fall, so I'm ready to get back in the saddle next week.

I do hope that Oakboro people will do a better job in the future with the course. I ran the same race last year and it wasn't a problem, but in that race there were people nearby so I stayed on track without any difficulty. They should have a person posted at a turn like that (I'm not familiar with the park and didn't even see the trail going out that way until I came back around looking for it), or at the very least they should have some big arrows pointing in the correct direction (not just drawn on the ground).

As I write this the results haven't been posted, but they should be up in a day or two on the Vac & Dash results page...

Click Here for Race Results

Race Rating:

2 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
6 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)
6 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
4 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
6 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
0 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
4 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
3 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
1 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
9 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
3 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
0 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
0 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
6 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities
0-10 Other

TOTAL - 54

My Stats:

DNF (Did Not Finish)

Race #131 - Summer Breeze 5k - Charlotte, NC - 06/18/11

2011-06-18T18:31:00.000-04:00

This was the first Run for Your Life Grand Prix series race I've run this year although the RFYL GP season has been in full swing for several months. After having missed two or three of the early races because of a conflict in schedules with the Running Journal Grand Prix I decided to mostly avoid this series. I planned on running the Summer Breeze in particular because I was carrying around a couple of awards from other races for people who I knew would be here, and also because there's just something about the Summer Breeze that draws me in even though it's never been one of my best races as far as my own performance goes. As much as anything else, I think the big attraction for me is the name "Summer Breeze." I'm notoriously warm-blooded and have always disliked being outdoors in cold weather. Although I've toned it down a little, I've been smirked at more times than I can count on those cold days when I'm all bundled up for a race. To me, anything colder than 60 degrees at race time sends me rummaging through the closet for a long-sleeved Under Armour shirt, which many times I regret halfway through a race, but I just can't stand being cold. It's those times when I'm cold (about 8 months of the year) that I do my best to conjure up warm thoughts, and there's no better race than the Summer Breeze to get my warm-weather memories poppin'.

This past week marked the beginning of what I hope will be an about-face on my race times. It was my fastest recent 5k time and my best Summer Breeze 5k time ever, about 22 seconds faster than last year, and 45 seconds faster than last week's 5k time at China Grove.

The big change came about not because of any changes in my training, but because I went back on the Weight Watchers plan. Three years ago I lost 50 pounds with a combination of Weight Watchers and running and became a lifetime member of Weight Watchers, which would have allowed me to attend the WW classes for free indefinitely as long as I kept up with the program. Genius that I am, a few months later I decided that I was running enough that I didn't need the WW plan to maintain my weight, and little by little over the past two years I've slowly gained some weight. Not really enough to be referred to as thin as opposed to scrawny, but I had gradually picked up about 10 pounds since the fall of 2009, when I was at 143 pounds and running my best race times.

This time around I'm doing Weight Watchers Online so I'm not going to the meetings, but it's a tremendous program either way if you apply it to your life, and after just one week of a much improved diet and losing about 3 pounds I feel the best I've felt since I ran my peak race times.

Today I was happy to finish 2nd in my age group at 20:59 (chip time). The best part was that I felt relatively good during the race. Oh, for sure I felt like I was dying, which seems to be normal for a 5k race, but I didn't feel nearly as close to death as I did last week, so I guess that can be described as "relatively good." One of the nice things about the Run For Your Life races this year is that the results are listed on Active.com, and they can be sorted in several ways including "Age Graded Results." It was nice to discover that on an age-graded basis my 75.8% placed me at 17th out of 297 males in the race. That's not nearly as impressive as 78-year-old Charlie Rose finishing in 22:34 (88.9%) or 62-year-old powerhouse Butch Holt's 19:58 (81.7%), but it's still a definite improvement for me.

There are a lot of good things about the Summer Breeze 5k, and Lord knows I don't like to complain, but there are a few things about this race that irk me, so let me share some of them with you, in no particular order...

Cost and T-shirts: Race day registration is available, which is great, but $35 is about 5 bucks over my annoyance meter. Add to that the fact that they were out of T-shirts so I paid $70 for Linda and I to run a 5k race and didn't get so much as a T-shirt. If a race runs out of T-shirts and offers a $5-10 discount, then I feel that I'm getting my money's worth, but that wasn't offered as an option.
Water Stops: I was amazed that the only water stop on the course was manned by a total of only two people. That seems pretty unbelievable for a race with more than 600 runners.
Porta-Potties: Or lack thereof. The two Freedom Park bathrooms had huge lines, just as in previous years, before the race. I'm pretty sure that one well-known Charlotte runner was STANding in the bathroom line when the race started and ended up missing the beginning of the race. C'mon RYFL, how 'bout springing for some porta potties in these races.
Awards: Actually, as bad of an award the plastic cup and orange sunglasses were for this year, this was actually an improvement over last year's age group awards, which consisted of a hand towel if I remember correctly. Still RFYL manages to provide some of the worst age group awards I've seen, all the while touting, "Deluxe Awards at Every Race." I could provide some examples of races with better awards, but it would probably be easier to provide examples of races with more pathetic awards, since there are so few of them. In a race with 600 runners, if each runners pays $25 to register (remember I paid $35), then the income would be $15,000. I know there are expenses, but I still think a trip to the trophy shop would be in order.

Click Here for Race Results

Click Here for My Race Photos on Facebook

Race Rating:

9 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
3 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)
7 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
4 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
4 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average) (-1 for no race-day reg shirts)
6 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
0 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
6 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
7 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
7 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
5 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
5 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
0 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
3 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities
0-10 Other

TOTAL - 76

Race Stats:

1st Overall Male: Paul Mainwaring (16:06)
1st Overall Female: Michelle Hazelton (18:48)
Total Finishers: 615

My Stats:

Time: 20:59 (chip time)
Pace: 6:45
Age Group: 2 of 15
Overall: 87 of 615

Race #130 - China Grove Main St. Challenge 5k - China Grove, NC - 06/10/11

2011-06-11T11:09:00.000-04:00

The China Grove Main Street Challenge is one of those races that is growing by leaps and bounds in recent years. Three years ago in 2008 there were only 254 finishers. In 2009 it swelled to 390, then in 2010 there were 531, and this year it topped out at 606 runners crossing the finish line. I really don't like racing at night and seldom do well at it, but this is such a fun race that I just hate to miss it. It attracts some of North Carolina's best runners. There's a little prize money involved, but I think the big draw is that it's a fun race on a Friday night with a great post-race celebration and lots of camaraderie among runners. I couldn't count the number of familiar faces and friends that I had met at other races, all meeting up in the tiny town of China Grove, population 3,616, but bursting at the seams on this beautiful summer night.

Did I mention there were some fast runners out there? The top three runners all finished the race in less than 15 minutes. Charlotte speedster Jason Holder blistered the course in 16:23, a time that most of us could never even dream of, yet he finished 6th in his age group. There were 23 runners who finished in less than 18 minutes -- a time that would win most local races -- and 45 finished in under 20 minutes.

So, needless to say, I was somewhere back in the pack, but ultimately glad I finished in what came close to being my first DNF (Did Not Finish). At the first mile split I was at 6:55, about 20 seconds slower than my normal first mile, and I seriously considering throwing in the towel, but as I thought about having to walk back to the finish line and explain it to everybody (I didn't have a good excuse other than feeling lousy) I decided to just keep going. It worked out generally okay and at the finish I was in the neighborhood of the times I've been running lately -- somewhere between 21 and 22 minutes -- and I managed to eke out a 2-second age group win over another runner in my age group at 21:44.

One final note... Lately my diet has been a disaster (just ask anybody who saw me with an ice cream cone AND a lime slushy 10 minutes before the China Grove race). Before I began running I was known for two things: being a ukulele player and eating way more than any one person should ever eat. I still dabble with the ukulele, but that's relatively harmless. The eating is a problem though. I've decided that this week I'll be re-joining WeightWatchers and try to climb back aboard the sensible eating wagon. As scrawny as I may still appear, I've gained about 10 pounds since I did my best running and I really think I need professional help. Linda and I both became Lifetime Members of WeightWatchers three years ago but we didn't keep up the requirements so we'll both be going back the drawing board, hopefully beginning this week.

Click Here for Race Results

Race Rating:

5 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
7 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)
7 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
9 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
5 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
0 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
6 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
7 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
8 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
8 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
5 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
6 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities
0-10 Other

TOTAL - 91

Race Stats:

1st Overall Male: Ryan Woods (14:46)
1st Overall Female: Caitlin Chrisman (17:21)
Total Finishers: 606

My Stats:

Time: 21:44
Pace: 7:00
Age Group: 1 of 19
Overall: 83 of 606 (13.7%)

Race #129 - Charity Chase Half Marathon - Hickory, NC - 06/04/11

2011-06-04T21:39:00.002-04:00

Note to Self: Don't wear the 3.6 ounce racing flats the next time you run a half marathon.

It's not that they're not comfortable. They actually feel great and they're the only shoes that keep my piggies from crying wee-wee-wee all the way home after a race. I've been wearing them for 5k races and wore them again for my 10k in Huntsville this past Monday, and they felt so good I decided I'd wear them in Hickory's hilly but fantastic Charity Chase Half Marathon. Bad idea. After 5 or 6 miles my feet still felt fine, but the constant pounding without any cushioning to speak of took its toll, and the last 5 miles of the race ranged from mildly unpleasant to pretty durn painful. As I write this about 8 hours after the race, my feet feel great (no sore toes!) but I think every muscle is my legs is sore, so after that successful experiment I will now return to wearing trainers for any race longer than a 10k.

But enough about me and my piggies and sore legs. This is my second year running the Charity Chase Half Marathon, and although it does rank up there with some of the most difficult half marathons because of the numerous hills, it's absolutely one of the most awesome races you'll find anywhere. Bobby Aswell, Jr., who has run more than 160 full marathons as well as countless other races ran his first Charity Chase Half Marathon today and stated on his Facebook page after the race, "Awesome race. One of the best races I've ever run. Will definitely go back." It's hard to put your finger on just one thing about this race that makes it so good, but I'll try to list a few of the outstanding features...

Water Stops -- This is the only race I've ever run where each water stop is manned by workers from different charities. They compete to see who can provide the best water stop and after the race the runners are encouraged to vote for their favorite stops, and the top vote-getters receive more for their charities. Every one of them did a great job, and what a huge difference it makes when something is at stake for their charity.
Ice Cold Towels at 10 Miles -- When's the last time you were in a race where they handed out ice cold wet towels at the 10-mile mark in the race? I've never seen it until now. I held on to mine like a security blanket for the rest of the race and it was really nice to have. I was offered a fresh one at the finish line.
Swag -- A nice reusable cloth shopping bag from Fleet Feet contained a Balance nutrition bar, a packet of Biofreeze, a magnetic chip clip, a couple of notepads, and various other small things. You also got a free pair of Balega socks that retail for about $10 (you could choose the size).
T-Shirt -- Every year the Charity Chase T-shirt is fantastic -- a nicely designed high quality tech t-shirt. I was disappointed last year when I messed up my Charity Chase shirt trying to pin a race number on it just a couple weeks after the race. This year after the race they were selling what was left over of last year's shirts for 5 bucks so I bought two of them.
Post Race Food -- Lots of tasty food is provided to runners after the race. This year it included Cheerwine, Rita's Italian Ice, Papa John's pizza, chicken biscuits, popcorn, and a variety of pastries, bagels, fruit, water, and sports drinks.
Crowd Support -- It's not exactly the New York City Marathon, but for a city the size of Hickory there's great crowd support, although I guess a lot of it comes from the charity volunteers. Still, it's appreciated and you hardly ever find yourself running very far without some encouraging shout-outs along the way.
Live Footage at the Finish Line -- If your friends or family couldn't make it to the race there was over two hours of live footage broadcast live on the Internet from Livestream that recorded every finisher as they crossed the finish line.
Race Size -- It's limited to 600, which is big enough without being too big. I like being able to park a hundred yards from both the starting line and finish line.
Awards and Awards Ceremony -- The age group awards are cool little bobbehead trophies, identical to what was given in this year's much larger Knoxville Marathon. Nice finisher medals are also provider to everybody who finishes the race. My friend Sharon Davis was 3rd overall female and received a nice trophy (not a bobblehead) along with a gift certificate for $50 (not sure what 1st and 2nd got). The awards ceremony is very well done also and it seemed that most people hung around for the awards.

I'm sure I'm leaving out some things, but you get the idea. If you're looking for a first class half marathon to add to your calendar for next year, look no further... you won't be disappointed!

Overall Race Results

Age Group Race Results

Click Here for Race Photos from SportsFotos

Race Rating:

7 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
8 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)
8 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
10 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
9 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
5 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
6 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
7 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
8 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
7 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
9 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
0 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
7 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities
0-10 Other

TOTAL - 105

Race Stats:

1st Overall Male: Josh Baker (1:15:04)
1st Overall Female: Katy Gane (1:33:08)
Total Finishers: 471

My Stats:

Time: 1:42:15
Pace: 7:48
Age Group (55-59): 3 of 11 (27.3%)
Overall: 55 of 471 (11.7%)

Race #128 - Cotton Row Run 10k - Huntsville, Alabama - 05/30/11

2011-06-03T14:53:00.001-04:00

This Memorial Day we were back in Huntsville for the Cotton Row Run, the last stop for the Running Journal Grand Prix season. It was already hot and steamy at 7:30 a.m. for the start of the 10k, and the heat was even more oppressive for the 9:00 a.m. 5k start, which Linda ran. Not too far into the first mile I considered just dropping out since I had a lead in the 55-59 age group of more than 100 points in the Grand Prix, but I figured instead I'd just take it a little easy and walk all of the water stops, which is what I did. I think all of the walking might have helped my time since I ended up winning my age group in the race with a time of 44:42. It was a minute or so slower than last year's time when I finished 3rd in my division but the heat seemed to take a lot out of the other runners as well.

The Cotton Row Run has been a Memorial Day fixture in Huntsville for more than 30 years and is one of Alabama's premier road races. With around 4,000 runners in the 10k and 5k combined, it's big enough to feel like a major event without the logistical problems that surround races with tens of thousands of runners. The race expo held at the Von Braun Center is a good one with plenty of deals on running clothes and shoes, and the post-race party is great as well, with lots of good stuff like pizza and chocolate milk as well as the standard runner fare like bananas and bagels.

This race is famous for the huge steep hill in the middle of the course that is probably the steepest hill I've ever encountered in a race. The only one I can think of that comes close is the hill on Walnut Avenue near the end of the Asheville Citizen-Times Half Marathon. I'm not sure which one of these is steeper, but the hill in Huntsville is probably twice as long. I found a great video on YouTube that was just posted that runs about 11 minutes and shows at least the bottom part of the climb and all of the runners who climbed it to that point. I was pretty amazed that probably the first 30 runners didn't walk at all, then little by little more and more people walked it until the final minute when many more people were walking than running. When I reached the bottom of the hill my heart rate was at 170. I thought I'd start out walking and then if my heart rate dropped I'd start running. My heart rate never went below 170 and I walked the entire hill. If you want to see my walking technique, I can be seen from about 7:00 to 7:30 in the video (#111 wearing a white singlet with red horizontal stripe over the chest and blue shorts and white hat). Other Charlotte area runners in the video are Alejandro Arreola, who comes along at about 4:10 and Alice Rogers is right behind him at about 4:20. Both of them ran the whole thing. After me at about 9:15 is Jerry Sofley, my Gastonia cohort, who also walks the hill.

The Running Journal Grand Prix season ended with the Charlotte area runners winning big. Alejandro Arreola was the Overall Mens Champion for the season and Alice Rogers was the Overall Female Champion. Other area winners for the season were Jerry Sofley, who was 1st place in the 60-64 age group, 88-year-old Margaret Hagerty was the Veteran Female Champion, Bob Nelson was 2nd in the 55-59 age group, Bob Heck was 2nd in the 40-44 age group, and I was 1st place in the 55-59 age group.

Speaking of videos, I found the hill video when I was uploading the video I made at the race. It's not nearly as dramatic as the hill climb, but I was going for more of an overall view of the race...

Click Here for Race Results

Click Here for Professional Race Photos from Village Photography

Click Here for My Photos on Facebook

Running Journal Grand Prix winners from the Charlotte NC area.
L-R: Richard Hefner, Alejandro Arreola, Alice Rogers,
Jerry Sofley, and Bob Heck.

Race Rating:

8 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)

8 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)

6 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)

9 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)

5 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)

6 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)

5 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)

6 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)

7 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)

7 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)

5 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)

9 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)

10 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)

5 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)

7 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities

0-10 Other

TOTAL - 103

My Stats:

Time: 44:42

Pace: 7:12

Age Group: 1 of 82

Overall: 113 of 1878

And for the support
of this
Declaration of
Independence
we mutually pledge
to each other
our Lives, our
Fortunes, and our
Sacred Honor
***
Brandon Mader of Huntsville
(pictured above)
carried the American flag
throughout the entire race.
He finished 12th overall
with a time of 35:43.

Race #127 - Belmont Classic 5k - Belmont, NC - 05/28/11

2011-05-28T12:11:00.002-04:00

Hometown races are always a lot of fun and it's just a couple miles to downtown Belmont from where I live. Our new running group, the Gaston County Runners, is doing great thanks to the enthusiastic bunch of people who are involved, and today we had more than 20 club members at the race. Things went okay for me despite the fact that I ate three hotdogs for lunch yesterday. I need to be reminded occasionally that that is not a great idea. My time today of 21:36 was 29 seconds slower than last year (21:07) but 31 seconds faster than I ran it two years ago (22:07). I'm happy with that considering I'm two years older now.

I don't have a lot of time to write today. Linda and I are heading out for Huntsville, Alabama, for the 32nd annual Cotton Row Run 10k, which I'll be running on Monday (Memorial Day). It's the final race of the season in the Running Journal Grand Prix.and one of my favorite races of the year. This year I've got a 180 point lead over 2nd place (Hi Bob!) going into the last race, so that's kinda nice...

http://running.net/male-55-59

Two Charlotte area runners, Alice Rogers and Alejandro Arreola, are leading in overall points this year and will be the Open Division Champions for the year, and Jerry Sofley of Gastonia (like me) is set to win the 60-64 age group once again.

Click Here for 2011 Belmont Classic 5k Race Results

Race Rating:
6 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
4 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)
6 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
6 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
6 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 - 4/6   Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
0 - 0/5   Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
6 - 4/6   Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
7 - 3/7   Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
6 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
6 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
5 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
5 - 0/5   Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
6 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities
0-10 Other

TOTAL - 83

My Stats:

Time:   21:36
Pace:   6:57
Age Group: 2 of 11
Overall: 17 of 233

Race #126 - Caped Crusaders 5k - Boiling Springs, NC - 05/21/11

2011-05-21T22:23:00.000-04:00

For Linda and I, this was our first race ever in the Shelby/Boiling Springs area. I'm not sure why that is, and on the way home we talked about running more races here in the future. This race was held on and around the beautiful campus of Gardner-Webb University. As soon as we arrived we started seeing friends from this area who we know from being regulars at the races. There was Bruce Putnam and Bubba Anthony, who both live near the campus, and Angie Burn and Becky Strahler, who finished 1st and 2nd overall in the female division, just a second apart. There were also several from our Gaston County Runners group who made the short trip to Boiling Springs for the race, so although it was our first race in the area it felt like a home-town race with lots of friends around.

From what I was told, the route was the same as several other annual races. There was a small uphill start, which always helps to get the juices flowing, and people jockeyed for position. When we reached the main road I could see about a half dozen people out ahead of me. I managed to pick a few of them off over the ensuing miles. Stephen Phillips and I stayed close during the entire race as we've been doing lately, and once more I confounded him by slowing pulling away. I mention Stephen because he and I are friends in the Gaston County Runners and we've been neck-and-neck for the past few races. Stephen keeps getting faster while I'm stuck at about the same speed I've been for the past couple years, and as I'm approaching age 60 I'll be lucky just to maintain my present speed, much less improve, so I'm hoping to keep him frustrated for as long as possible before he heads on up to the next level.

When it was over I finished 3rd overall, which was great for me since it equaled my highest finish ever from just a few weeks ago in Cherryville. Stephen was 5th overall and fellow GCR member Patrick Green surprised us by finishing 11th overall in his first 5k ever.

Click Here for Race Results

Race Rating:

5 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)

7 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)

8 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)

4 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)

5 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)

4 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)

0 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)

6 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)

7 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)

6 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)

9 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)

7 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)

10 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)

5 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)

6 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities

0-10 Other

TOTAL - 89

Race Stats:

1st Overall Male: Cody Darner (19:14)

1st Overall Female: Angie Burn (24:56)

Total Finishers: 125

My Stats:

Time: 21:27

Pace: 6:55

Age Group: 1st (Award for 3rd overall)

Overall: 3 of 125

Race #125 - JAZ Alive 5k - Bessemer City, NC - 05/14/11

2011-05-15T09:48:00.000-04:00

It took 125 races to do it, but this one will be immortalized, at least in the minds of Linda and I, as the race where we both won the Grand Masters trophies. With so few races even having a Grand Masters division these days (50 years and older), there are very few opportunities to win it, so it's very likely it's the first time and last time it'll ever happen for us.

The JAZ Alive Memorial Scholarship 5k is held each year in honor of three high school students who died in an auto accident a few years ago, and the proceeds from the race go to a scholarship fund in their memory (JAZ stands for their first names: Jonathan, Amber, and Zachary). It's the type of small-town race I've been enjoying lately with no huge crowds, parking problems, or jockeying for position at the starting line. I wasn't able to find results from previous years online and for that reason I'm not overly optimistic there will be any official results posted online for this year either. It doesn't really matter though and I knew that coming in. I would estimate there were about 100 runners in the race, give or take 25.

I wasn't aware that there were so many hills in Bessemer City, or maybe they just picked streets with hills for the route, but it seemed as though there was hardly a flat area the entire race. As we settled into the first half mile or so, the young kids fizzled out after their fast starts and I was able to count the runners ahead of me. At first there were five, but I soon overtook the two who were closest to me, and although the three ahead were slowly pulling away from me they were still close enough that I could see what was going on. Leading the race was Brad McKee, the young track coach at Ashbrook High School who recently ran cross-country for St. Andrews College. He was followed by my friend Josh Barron, who had won the Cherryville race a couple weeks ago and by Shane Wilson, the brother of Mike Wilson who is in our running club. I haven't seen Shane a lot and I didn't even know it was him until after the race at the awards, but those were the three ahead of me. It stayed that way throughout the race until the final hill, where one of the runners that I had passed at around the 1-mile mark zoomed past me up the final hill. I could see a crowd of people in the distance, maybe 200 yards away, and I hoped that was the finish line but I wasn't sure. I took a look behind me and I could tell there was nobody else nearly close enough to catch me so I decided that it would have no effect on where I finished so I stopped and walked for 10 or 15 seconds, just long enough to catch my breath and then headed for the finish line, which was much closer than I had thought (I guess I didn't need the walk break). I was happy with my 5th place finish and I could see on the list as I handed the volunteer my finish card that I had won the Grand Masters since nobody ahead was over 50 years old. Of course then, it was no surprise when they called out my name at the awards ceremony, but when they called out Linda's name as the female Grand Masters winner we were both shocked and delighted... it's definitely the stuff of which memories are made.

Note: If I can ever find the results I'll post a link to them here or possibly post the entire results.

Race Rating:

3 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
7 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)
7 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
3 -10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
5 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
0 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
4- 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
7 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
4 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
9 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
5 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
0 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
5 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities
0 - 0-10 Other

TOTAL - 73

Race Stats:

1st Overall Male: Brad McKee
1st Overall Female: Melissa Orr

My Stats (All are estimates since I don't have official results):

Time: 21:40
Age Group: 1 of ?
Overall: 5 of 100?

Race #124 - New River Half Marathon - Todd, NC - 05/07/11

2011-05-14T05:17:00.000-04:00

How do I walk thee? Let me count the ways. To say I walked a lot in this race is an understatement. I'm not sure I strung together a solid mile of running throughout the entire race. Hills are not completely unexpected when you travel into the North Carolina mountains for a race, but I've got a short memory and I could almost swear there was something to the effect of "flat and fast" on the New River Marathon website. There was quite a bit of discussion along with some of the other Gaston County Runners as we talked about how mountainous it might be. The elevation map only showed a couple of sizable hills in the first half of the race, not nearly so daunting as those in the second half, so I figured it would be a piece of cake. Uh... not so much. Although we did follow basically the same route that the full marathon course took, in order to stretch out the mileage to 13.1 we needed to veer off onto some side roads that just happened to be built on the sides of mountains, thus resulting in a roller coaster with both steep uphills and downhills like I have seldom seen.

Note: This is so not cool, but about two days after I completed this masterpiece and published it, for some reason it was inadvertently deleted from Blogger and they reverted back to my first draft, which only included the paragraph above. Life goes on, and there's no way I'm going back to rewrite it. I figure if anybody was that interested they would have read it in the first couple days before it was deleted. I'll re-do the rating and provide links to the results and photos, and put this thing out of its misery right here.

Click Here for Race Results for Marathon, Half Marathon, and 5k

Click Here for Race Photos from RMO Photography

Race Rating:

9 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
4 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)
8 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
4 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
10 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
5 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
6 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
7 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
7 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
8 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
8 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
0 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
0 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
8 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities
0-10 Other

TOTAL - 88

My Stats:

Time: 1:46:37
Pace: 8:07
Age Group (50-59): 4 of 27 (14.8%)
Overall: 43 of 432 (10%)

Race #123 - Cherry Blossom 5k - Cherryville, NC - 04/30/11

2011-05-01T14:23:00.001-04:00

This week we decided to go cherry picking at the Cherry Blossom 5k. It was a fun small-town race, surprisingly well organized, and we had eight members of the Gaston County Runners who decided to run it. The race is organized by the Cherryville branch of the YMCA but they didn't really promote it outside of Cherryville so the crowd was small, with only 72 runners in the race. Still though, it was a lot of fun, especially since 4 of the 5 top finishers were from our club.

The race was started with a deafening blast from a musket, which Cherryville is famous for. I held my breath as I ran through the smoke left by the musket firing, and we were on our way. Early in the race I took the lead, a place that I'm not only unfamiliar with but uncomfortable with as well. I stayed out front for possibly a half mile, all the while listening to the pitter patter of younger footsteps than mine and knew it was only a matter of time before people began passing me. First up was Mike Wilson, a GCR member, who shouted as he passed me that he had always wanted to see what it felt like to be in first place in a race. Just a few seconds later I was overtaken by another GCR member, Josh Barron, who eventually won the race. I watched as Josh slowly overtook Mike over the course of the next half mile or so, and about that time Stephen Phillips also caught and passed me.

Stephen and I were back and forth during the second mile and during that time a runner from Cherryville, Kevin Minton, passed us both and eventually finished in second place. Mike Wilson, who later said that he had gone out too fast, drifted back and finished behind Stephen and I. During the last half mile or so Stephen lost a little momentum and I was able to gain some ground on him, and at the end I was 3rd overall, with Stephen coming in 4th and Mike coming in 5th. GCR member Michele Hoheiser was the overall female winner in the race. All eight of our Gaston County Runners club came away with a trophy or an age group medal.

Click Here for Race Results

Race Rating:

4 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
6 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)
7 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
5 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
6 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
0 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
4 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
7 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
5 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
7 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
5 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
0 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
5 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
5 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities
0-10 Other

TOTAL - 70

Race Stats:

1st Overall Male: Josh Barron (20:01)
1st Overall Female: Michele Hoheiser (22:40)

My Stats:

Time: 21:07
Pace: 6:48
Age Group (50-59): 1 of 9
Overall: 3 of 72

Race #122 - Bunny Run 5k - Concord, NC - 04/23/11

2011-04-24T22:07:00.001-04:00

Since we first ran this race two years ago, it has more than doubled in size. This year 520 runners finished the Bunny Run 5k, the City of Concord's annual Easter race. Despite the name, which reminds me as much of an Easter egg hunt as it does a road race, it's a well organized race and is a lot of fun. The race used to be run on neighborhood streets along with a trip up the greenway, ending at the other park (I don't remember the name of it) about a mile away. That was a little bit of a problem in that when the race was over you were a mile away from your car if you parked near the starting line. This year, however, the course was changed to an out-and-back course up the greenway so that the starting line and finish line were at the same place, which resulted in not only a great improvement in parking logistics, but it eliminated all of the hills except in the final 100 yards or so at the end of the race.

As the race began I was a little concerned that we were running down that short street and getting directly onto the greenway. With more than 500 runners jockeying for position to get a spot on the greenway I wanted to be sure I beat most of the crowd there, which turns out was pretty easy considering I was able to line up near the front of the pack as we started. Going up the greenway was a little crowded but not bad since we had the entire width of the greenway, which was probably 8 or 10 feet wide. At the turn-around point, of course, it became two-way traffic so we only had 4 or 5 feet instead of 8 or 10 feet. Although most of the runners still coming up the greenway were staying on the right side, there were still quite a few spots where runners were taking up the almost the entire width of the greenway, and once or twice I had to go off the paved area just to avoid running into somebody coming the other way. Next year I hope they'll put up a few "Keep Right" signs along the way.

As far as I could tell though, everything worked out well and there were no major mishaps along the route. There were a few issues with timing. Steve Staley mentioned that both of his daughters were listed as 8 years old (one is a few years older). Linda and I were positive we had the numbers they had given us but somehow our names were switched around so the results showed her running 20:56 and me running 33:29. She was kinda happy about that but I was a little miffed. We went to the timing tent though and they were able to fix it right away, much to Linda's chagrin.

The race T-shirts were really great, at least if you want an Easter-themed shirt. Nice tech material and beautiful artwork. The awards were outstanding as well, with the overall winners receiving beautiful trophies and age group winners receiving attractive oval-shaped resin plaques that are among the nicest awards I've won in all my races.

Click Here for Race Results

Race Rating:

7 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
9 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)
7 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
4 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
9 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
0 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
6 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
7 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
7 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
5 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
0 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
6 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities
0-10 Other

TOTAL - 87

Race Stats:

1st Overall Male: Kevin Ballantine (17:50)
1st Overall Female: Cheryl Todd (20:31)

My Stats:

Time: 20:56
Pace: 6:45
Age Group: 1 of 9
Overall: 22 of 520 (4.2%)

Race #121 - Marti Estes 5k - Mooresville, NC - 04/09/11

2011-04-10T12:00:00.000-04:00

This week at the last moment Linda and I decided to run the Marti Estes 5k in Mooresville. Our friend Michele Hoheiser, who was 1st overall female last year, said it was a lot of fun so we decided to meet up and run it.

Marti Estes was an avid runner, kindergarten teacher, committed Christian, and faithful member of First Presbyterian Church in Mooresville. Marti passed away prematurely in 2005 and the church holds this fundraising race in her honor each year. This year's race had 624 registered runners and walkers and raised $22,500 for three charities in Mooresville. The race began at First Presbyterian Church and after winding its way through town ended at the First Baptist Church several blocks away.

The race was enjoyable but the start was a mess, with lots of younger kids lining up at the start and flailing around for the first half mile or so of the race. It amazes me how most kids seldom run in a straight line. I don't really mind, but it can get a little dangerous out there. I was behind one grownup who was tripped up in the mayhem and took a hard fall to the pavement. Luckily he wasn't hurt badly and was able to continue in the race, but I talked to him briefly after the race and one of his knees was a mess. I kind of enjoy getting out there and mixing it up with the young'uns, but it was a relief to finally get past the pandemonium.

When we came to a clear area I could count the runners ahead of me and I was in about 15th place at a half mile or so into the race. For a while I tried counting people as they passed me or I passed them just so I'd know where I was at in the race, but I lost the count and decided not to worry about it. It was a pleasant surprise at the end of the race when I found out I had finished in fifth place overall, which is the highest I've ever finished in a race. I finished fifth in two other races, but those were both much smaller races with maybe 100 runners, whereas this race had 515 finishers Okay, there were quite a few walkers; nevertheless, it was fun to finish that far up in the pack.

Click Here for Race Results

Race Rating:

8 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
6 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)
7 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
6 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
5 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
0 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
4 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
7 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
7 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
8 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
0 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
4 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities
0-10 Other

TOTAL - 80

Race Stats:

1st Overall Male: Joshua Readling (18:04)
1st Overall Female: Shelley Rainey (21:32)

My Stats:

Time: 20:56
Pace: 6:46
Age Group: 1 of 9
Overall: 5 of 515 (top 1%)

Race #120 - Knoxville Half Marathon - Knoxville, TN - 04/03/11

2011-04-04T14:04:00.000-04:00

This was my 21st half marathon, and surely my most memorable. I met my 23-year-old grandson, Ryan Joelee Kennedy, for the first time. I know what you're thinking, so before you get out pencil and paper and start figuring out how I'm old enough to have a 23-year-old grandson, suffice it to say that it's definitely mathematically possible. Ryan contacted my now 43-year-old son Everette just a few months ago and informed him that he (Ryan) was his son, in much the same that Everette had called me up when he was 23 years old, and that's when we met for the first time. The whole story has more twists and turns than a barrel full of snakes, so I'll leave it at that for now, and if you'd like more details you'll need to wait for the TV movie.

The initial plan was for all three of us -- Everette, Ryan, and me -- to get together and run the half marathon. Everette's training never quite get off the ground, and since he would have had to fly all the way across the country from Las Vegas just to cheer us on, he dropped out, but Ryan and I decided we'd stick with the plan.

We met at the Crowne Plaza on Saturday night and we had a great time just getting to know Ryan and of course making plans for the race. Linda and I were amazed at how much Ryan's looks and mannerisms were similar to different family members even though he had never met any of us. When I asked him if he was ready for half marathon I was more than a little surprised that he hadn't spent much time training for it at all. He said he ran seven miles once a couple months ago, and last week he went out one day and ran "about five miles." I was a little worried about his prospects in a half marathon.

Having said that, Ryan's a great natural athlete. He was a 1st team All State wide receiver and had more catches than anybody in the state of Tennessee in his senior year of high school, and he was a starter for four years on the baseball team at King College (Division II) in Bristol, Tennessee, and batted .370 last year as a senior.

All of that athleticism of course makes me proud, but running a half marathon is an entirely different animal and I was a little afraid that he might crash and burn along the way. My intention at the outset, as always, was for us to just run at our own speed and then meet up at the finish line. The more I thought about it though, it made sense for us to just stick together in the race and run together. I told him that if he felt like it and could zoom on up ahead, to just take off and wait for me at the finish line. Otherwise I'd go his pace for the entire race, and that's what we did. We actually started off pretty well, hitting the 5k mark in about 24 minutes. By the time we hit the 10k mark we had run almost as far as his longest run ever, and we hit 10k at about 52 minutes. Several times along the way he tried to get me to run on ahead if I wanted to, but I was determined to stay with him. I looked at my watch when we crossed the 9-mile mark and we were at 1:15. I told him we had 45 minutes to run the final 4 miles and finish under 2 hours and that became our goal. I'm pretty sure those last four miles for him felt about like the last four miles of the couple of full marathons I've run -- agonizing -- but we managed to finish together in just under 2 hours at 1:59:08. I was a little afraid he might never want to run again, but just before bedtime on the night of the race I got a note from him on Facebook saying he's already got another race scheduled for next week -- this time a 5k. I have a feeling this is the beginning of a long running career for Ryan, and with some actual training he'll soon be running circles around me and quite a few others.

Click Here for Half Marathon Results

Click Here for Full Marathon Results

Click Here for Race Photos from Action Sports International

Race Rating:

7 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
7 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)
8 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
9 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
7 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
5 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
6 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
7 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
7 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
8 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
5 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
5 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities
0-10 Other

TOTAL - 99

My Stats:

Time: 1:59:08
Pace: 9:05
Age Group: ?
Overall: 657 of 2,272 (28.9%)

Charlotte Running Club 100 x 5k Relay -- New World Record! - March 26-27, 2011

2011-03-28T07:07:00.000-04:00

It was a privilege to run my share (12.5 laps) as the 19th leg of the World Record setting 100 x 5k relay with the Charlotte Running Club this weekend. I think the Charlotte Observer got most of it right except for the ages of the participants being from 14 to 56 years old... there was one 59-year-old out there too (that would be me).

You can read the Observer story here...

Runners chase Guinness World Record - CharlotteObserver.com

Our combined time of 30 hours, 56 minutes, and 49 seconds beat the old record set by the Florida Striders a few months ago by over 6 hours.

The almost constant rain didn't make things any easier but runners are seldom deterred by getting wet. Congratulations to all who participated as runners, organizers, and volunteers!

Race #119 - Germantown Half Marathon - Memphis, TN - 03/20/11

2011-03-21T20:38:00.001-04:00

It's not every day that I drive 600 miles one way to run a half marathon, but this is not only a great race to run but it's also a major race in the Running Journal Grand Prix, and for the past couple of years that's been a big focus of my race season. At the age of 59 I'm most likely not going to make the next Olympics, and this provides me with some extra incentive to train harder than I might otherwise. Next year I'll be changing age groups in the middle of this Grand Prix series so I won't be competing in it then since my points would be split between two different age groups.

Linda and I are truly pioneers when it comes to traveling by car. Or at least we travel like pioneers, making almost as many stops and moving about the same speed as a mule-drawn Conestoga wagon. We finally made it though, mules intact, and were treated to great racing weather. For me, that's about 60 degrees at the start and upper 60s by the finish of the race, which is a little warm for most runners but ideal by my standards. This was the same race last year that provided the most miserable weather I've ever encountered in a race, with a temperature of about 50 degrees and pouring rain at the beginning of the race, and a drop in temperature to about 40 degrees and more wind and rain right to the finish. The background photo I've been using for the Old-Runner blog is my finish photo from last year's race, always there to remind of how miserable it was.

I won't try to give a play-by-play recap of my race. After a bad cold (or possibly the flu) last week's race was a disaster. I felt a lot better this week before the race but never ran more than 4 miles so I was a little unsure of my stamina. Sure enough, I felt like I was out of steam after about the 8-mile mark and started taking walk breaks in the final miles. I don't really look at my pace as I'm racing but I could see by the clocks posted at each mile I was doing okay. Although my pace slowed in those final miles, it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it might be and I ended up with a time of 1:36:38, second in my age group, and a time I was really happy about considering the way I felt in the last few miles of the race.

Click Here for Race Results

Click Here for Race Website (including Race Photos)

Race Rating:

9 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
8 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)
7 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
8 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
6 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
6 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
5 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
6 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
7 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
7 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
5 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
5 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
5 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
6 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities
0 - 0-10 Other

TOTAL - 100

Race Stats:

1st Overall Male: Micah Tirop (1:08:28)
1st Overall Female: Meggan Franks (1:23:40)

My Stats:

Time: 1:36:38
Pace: 7:23
Age Group: 2 of 27
Overall: 82 of 1460

Race #118 - Gate River Run - Jacksonville, FL - 03/12/11

2011-03-13T17:20:00.003-04:00

The Gate River Run is the largest 15k race in the United States. It's the national 15k championship and there's $80,000 in prize money for American runners, so it attracts some of the best runners in the country.

Personally, I'm really partial to smaller races with no more than a couple thousand people. It's nice for there to be enough people to create some excitement, but I don't care for the traffic jams getting to the race expo, the logistics of how to get to and from the huge races, hundreds of people running shoulder-to-shoulder throughout the race, and of course, it's nice to have a chance to place in the top 3 in my age group, which is never going to happen in a race of this magnitude.

So with my preference for small races, you may be wondering why I would drive 400 miles to run in a huge race, especially with so many good smaller local races on the same weekend. The reason is that I'm participating in the Running Journal Grand Prix, and the Gate River Run is one of the ten races in the series. In each race, only the top 8 runners from the Southeast United States in each age group get points, and I knew from the results of previous years that there was no chance that I would be in the top 8. However, in this year's Grand Prix if you run the Gate River Run, the Myrtle Beach Half Marathon, and the Germantown Half Marathon (you have to run all three races) you get double points for the race where you collected the most points. I finished 4th at Myrtle Beach and received 65 points, so if that's my best one of the three I would get an additional 65 points. Last year I came in 1st in my age group at Germantown and got an extra 100 points.

The week leading up to this race was a rough one for me. Last Sunday I started feeling the effects of a cold (or possibly the flu). By Tuesday I felt pretty bad, and on Wednesday I felt completely awful -- coughing, sneezing, congestion, runny nose, and a lot of other tasty stuff. I thought about completely canceling the Florida trip but decided that since we'd already paid the race registration and for the hotel, we may as well just go down and see how I felt. I considered just "running through" slowly since I wouldn't get any points anyway, but on Saturday morning I felt well enough to give it a go.

As soon as the race started I felt like I was in trouble. For the first two miles the congestion in my sinus system clogged me up and kept me rattling like an old jalopy. I'd try to cough it up, but never could clear everything out enough to breathe freely. Then in about the third mile the breathing cleared up, but then I got a nagging pain in my stomach that hurt with every step (Linda reminded me later that it could have been the Burger King Whopper I had for dinner the night before). That lasted about three miles, and by then I was about halfway through the race. For the last half of the race I actually felt okay except I didn't feel like I had much energy, so I found myself just kind of hanging on until the end. I had heard in advance about Hart Bridge, better known as The Green Monster, which crosses the St. John's River and is the route for the last couple miles of the race. It's about 3/4 of a mile up, which is thankfully compensated for when you get to run down the other side, where the race finishes. It's a great downhill finish but I was done in before I ever reached the bridge. In the end, I was satisfied with a time of 1:10:04 (7:30 pace), which was 25th of 437 in my age group and I was 990th overall out of 14,972 finishers. Oh, and I beat Bill Rodgers by 49 seconds. I know, Boston Billy's not what he used to be, but neither am I.

Click Here for Race Results

Click Here for Race Website

Race Rating:

9 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
9 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)
8 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
8 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
9 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
6 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
5 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
6 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
7 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
9 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
5 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
9 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
0 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
8 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities
0-10 Other

TOTAL - 108*

* It's really hard to say anything bad about the race and thus the high rating. It's difficult to compare a race like this with the small local races with a few hundred runners.

Race Stats:

1st Overall Male: Mo Trafeh (42:58)
1st Overall Female: Jennifer Rhines (49:31)

My Stats:

Time: 1:10:04
Pace: 7:30
Age Group: 25 of 437 (5.7%)
Overall: 990 of 14,972 (6.6%)

Race #117 - Get Your Rear in Gear 5k - Charlotte, NC - 03/05/11

2011-03-05T14:48:00.001-05:00

Today was a big running day for the Hefner family. Not only did Linda run her first race after a layoff of a couple months due to knee pain, but our 30-year-old son Dave ran his first 5k race ever. It was the first time Dave had even been to one of our races. Yep, it took 117 races before he managed to make it out to see his parents' weekly near-death experience. One of my main reasons for becoming a runner was to inspire our kids and grandkids to become more health-conscious, and Linda and I are both elated that Dave's getting an idea of why we've become so enamored with running and racing... it's fun!

This was only the 2nd year of the Get Your Rear in Gear 5k in Charlotte, and with 1,400 finishers in the race this year it looks like it's one of the fastest growing races in town. The hills weren't terrible but there were quite a few ups and downs throughout the race. I lined up near the front and talked with Steve Staley, who always gives me a hard time whether we're racing or just talking. I spotted Theoden Janes about 10 feet away and he gave me a here-we-go-again smile. In our past four races together we've finished within 10 seconds of each other, and today was no exception.

There were just a couple of small problems with the race. First, there was no starting mat, so if you were one of the last thousand or so runners to cross the starting line you were already probably a minute or two behind and there's no way to get a chip time if there's not a starting mat. That's no big deal for some people, but I talked to a few who were a little bummed that they started so far back. The other problem was that there were no mile markers in the race. Linda wasn't wearing a watch and didn't know where she was in the race, and I'm sure she wasn't alone, so the mile markers are appreciated by many people.

After I finished I ran back to meet Dave, who just recently began running and was doing a 2 minute run and 1 minute walk throughout the race. It worked well for him and he finished with a smile on his face, which is what really counts.

I finished 24th overall and managed to win my age group thanks to Louis Anderson, who's also in my age group, winning 2nd Masters and bumping me up to 1st. Steve Staley finished 2nd in our age group despite stopping to tie his son's shoe (10-year-old Drew) during the race. That might have been a break for me since he only finished about a minute behind me. The Lord of the Shoestrings was with me today!

I didn't see the overall awards but the age group awards were great. Each of the age group winners received a nice medal as well as a gift card to Omega Sports ($30 for 1st place, $20 for 2nd place, and $10 for 3rd place).

Click Here for Race Results

Race Rating

8 - 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
9 - 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)
8 - 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
7 - 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
8 - 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average) >> Nice tech shirts!
4 - 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
0 - 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No) (I might be wrong)
6 - 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
7 - 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
6 - 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
7 - 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average) FREE parking at hospital
8 - 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 - 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
0 - 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
4 - 1-10 Bathroom Facilities (Long porta-potty lines before race)
0-10 Other

TOTAL - 92

Race Stats:

1st Overall Male: Paul Mainwaring (16:16)
1st Overall Female: Leslie Dutton (20:51)

My Stats:

Time: 20:44
Pace: 6:41
Age Group: 1 of 28
Overall: 24 of 1400 (1.7%)

Richard, Dave, and Linda

Dave's kids Jonas and Marley -- it was Marley's first race, but she's only six weeks old.

Dave and the folks he works with at The Rehab Center in Charlotte.

We now return to our regularly scheduled program...

2011-03-04T21:39:00.003-05:00

So here we go again. Good thing I'm more dedicated to running than I am to blogging. The Wordpress blog imploded under the weight of my grand idea to aggregate all of the other running blogs and it is now gone, and I've spent the last couple days moving each of my race reports back to the Blogger blog that I first began with.

I considered just letting the whole thing die a much deserved death with dignity, but I figure since I've come this far I may as well just keep on going and see where it all ends -- possibly with a career-ending injury or a heart attack just after crossing the finish line, or maybe there will be a more pleasant outcome such as running my 1000th race when I'm 90 years old (that's the one I'm hoping for). It's actually been kind of fun, as I moved each race report to the new blog, to reminisce a little about each race. There have been a lot of great experiences and I've been amazed at how many people have told me they've enjoyed the Old Runner blog, so I'd like to keep it going for as long as I can.

I'll fill in some more info for those races in January and February 2011 (listed below) that I just have minimal information on. I probably won't write nearly as much as I have in the past, but will at least try to share some of the fun or unusual aspects of races.

Race #116 – Myrtle Beach Half Marathon – Myrtle Beach, SC – 02/19/11

2011-02-19T19:10:00.000-05:00

Time: 1:34:21 (Pace 7:12)
Age Group – 4 of 79 (5.1%)
Overall – 118 of 3115 (3.8%)
Summary - Map - Results

Race #115 – Cupid’s Cup 5k – Charlotte, NC – 02/12/11

2011-02-12T19:09:00.000-05:00

Time: 20:12 (Pace 6:31)
Age Group – 1 of 18 (5.6%)
Overall – 67 of 1125 (6%)
Summary - Map - Results

Race #114 – Winter Flight 8k – Salisbury, NC – 01/29/11

2011-01-29T19:08:00.000-05:00

Time: 34:21 (Pace 6:55)
Age Group – 3 of 13 (23.1%)
Overall – 46 of 260 (17.7%)
Summary - Map - Results

Race #113 – Resolution Run Half Marathon – Travelers Rest, SC – 01/08/11

2011-01-08T19:07:00.000-05:00

Time: 1:45:46 (Pace 8:04)
Age Group – 1 of 2
Overall – 41 of 161
Summary – Map – Results

Race #112 – Thunder Road Half Marathon – Charlotte, NC – 12/11/10

2010-12-11T19:06:00.000-05:00

As of about 4 o’clock Friday afternoon I was still not planning on running this race. Since I hadn’t registered in advance, the registration fee at the expo was 90 bucks, and I thought it might be wise to save the $90 and just run on the treadmill instead for free. There was excitement in the air on Facebook though and it seemed like everybody in town was running, so at about 4:30 Friday afternoon I talked Linda into letting me sign up and run the half marathon.

I was a little bummed that when I signed up and paid my $90 I was informed that I wouldn’t get a T-shirt because they were out of half marathon shirts. I know I was late to register but I had read on the website that the half marathon was limited to 7,000 runners, and since there were only a little more than 3,000 runners who finished the race I’d think they would have had enough T-shirts to go around. No problem though. It wasn’t a great shirt anyway and the most important thing was that I was able to run the race.

My time of 1:41:20 (chip time) was a little disappointing, but realistically it was probably about right for the way I’m running lately. I was about 3 minutes faster last month in Myrtle Beach but of course there were no hills there.

Over the next few months I’m planning on running fewer races since I have a hard time dealing with cold weather, although I’m tentatively planning to run the Charleston Half Marathon in January and the Myrtle Beach Half Marathon in February, and maybe do a few small 5k races along the way.

Click Here for Thunder Road Website (includes links to results and photos)

Race Rating:

10 – 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
5 – 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)
7 – 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
5 – 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
5 – 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 – 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
5 – 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
6 – 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
7 – 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
7 – 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
2 – 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
8 – 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 – 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
5 – 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
4 – 1-10 Bathroom Facilities (not enough porta-potties)
0-10 Other

TOTAL – 90

My Stats:

Time: 1:41:20
Pace: 7:45
Age Group: 4 of 54 (7.4%)
Overall: 259 of 3226 (8%)

Race #111 – Southpark Turkey Trot – Charlotte, NC – 11/25/10

2010-11-25T19:04:00.000-05:00

The 22nd annual Charlotte Southpark Turkey Trot had 4300 finishers in the 8k race on Thanksgiving day. Add to that those involved with the 5k walk, the 1-mile fun run, and the tot trot, and this is easily one of Charlotte’s largest road racing events of the year, second only to Thunder Road.

This is the 4th race in the 10-race season of the Running Journal Grand Prix series and is one of the three RJ Grand Prix races in North Carolina, with the others being the Charlotte RaceFest 10k and the Asheville Citizen-Times Half Marathon. The other races in the series are in South Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, and Florida, so it’s nice to try to pick up some points without leaving the area. Linda and I enjoyed traveling around to most of the different races last year and are planning to run most of the remaining races this year as well. Last year I felt great, never had even a hint of an injury, and knew no fear. This year is a different story. I’m generally not running as well, probably due to a variety of factors. I’m older, of course, but that probably has very little to do with it. I suspect it has more to do with gaining back 5 pounds that I had originally shed during my serious weight loss regimen and lack of serious training. Whatever the reason, I was glad I didn’t travel far in my quest for Grand Prix points since I finished 6th in my age group and only the top 8 runners in each age group score points — 100 for 1st place down to 10 for 8th place — so I came away with a somewhat meager 30 points.

When I turned on the weather report at around 6 a.m. I thought they said it would be cloudy but the rain would hold off until the afternoon, although when I retrieved the newspapers from the driveway just before we left I felt a couple drops of rain. I went back in the house and looked at the hour-by-hour forecast and it was calling for only a 10% chance of rain. Never quite sure what that means (Will it rain 10% of the time, or in 10% of the area, or 10% as hard as a real downpour?), I decided to take along the running rain jacket I won at RaceFest last year just in case. As it turns out, it was raining 100% all the way to Charlotte and a light rain was still falling when we arrived. I have an aversion to being cold or wet, so I decided to run the race wearing the jacket over what most runners would already consider too much clothing (an Under Armour Cold Gear shirt under another short-sleeved shirt). Of course I was too hot after the first couple miles and I ended up carrying the jacket the last three miles of the race. You’d think I would have figured that out by my 111th race. Maybe next time.

This is generally a well organized race with plenty of volunteers, and with the throngs of runners that show up each year it’s definitely a popular event. Bojangles is one of the sponsors, and I like being able to go into the huge Bojangles restaurant both before and after the race to get coffee and a biscuit or whatever (Note to self: that Bo-Berry Biscuit you ate at 8:30 a.m. probably didn’t make you any faster.). It’s always nice to see our Charlotte running friends, but realistically, we see a lot more people we know in the smaller races in Charlotte that don’t attract nearly as many people who run just one race a year.

There are two major things I dislike about this race though…

1). The Porta-Potty situation is crappy (no pun intended). With thousands of people vying for a seat on the potty they need to be plentiful, but that’s not the case. I’m not sure how many there were, but there weren’t nearly enough because the lines were way too long. I stood in line for about 10 minutes but was still nowhere near the bathroom door when I decided to cut my losses and hold it until after the race. To put it in perspective, I ran the New York City Marathon three weeks ago, a race roughly ten times the size, and there were virtually no Porta-Potty lines at all. I’m not saying that the Turkey Trot needs as many Porta-Potties as the NYC Marathon, but they do need enough to accommodate at least 5,000 people adequately, and that’s a lot more than they had.

2). This race has the most crowded starting line of any race I have ever seen. What’s up with that? Last year I was near the front of the start and was packed in so tightly that I could have died and my body would have remained standing until the starting gun went off. This year after leaving the Porta-Potty line about ten minutes before the race began I finally nudged my way into the crowd maybe 20-30 yards in back of the starting line, where it was a little less crowded. I don’t mind so much being back a little if I’m late to the starting line (which I was) but it was plain to see that half the people in front of me were a variety of slow runners, walkers, little kids, and what have you, that I had to spend the first half mile or so dodging and working my way around. I love to see everybody running, young and old, big and small, fast and slow, but most races with thousands of runners use some type of a corral system that allows the faster runners to start up front, followed by people of similar speeds. After 22 years you would think they would do that here; instead, it’s a free-for-all when the race starts, making it one of the most exasperating racing starts that I’ve been a part of.

But I digress. After all, it’s Thanksgiving, and I guess I should just be happy and thankful that I’m able to run. Sorry if any of that sounded cranky. Happy Thanksgiving!

Click Here for Race Results

Click Here for Race Photos at Carolina Snapshot

Race Rating:

9 – 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
6 – 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)
6 – 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
5 – 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
6 – 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
6 – 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
5 – 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
6 – 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
7 – 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
5 – 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
8 – 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
6 – 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 – 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
0 – 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
3 – 1-10 Bathroom Facilities
0 – 0-10 Other

TOTAL – 88

Race Stats:

1st Overall Male: Bert Rodriguez (24:50)
1st Overall Female: Alice Rogers (28:34)

My Stats:

Time: 35:46
Pace: 7:12
Age Group: 6 of 94 (6.4%)
Overall: 251 of 4300 (5.8%)

Race #110 – Santa Scramble 5k – Concord, NC – 11/20/10

2010-11-20T19:02:00.000-05:00

It was our third trip to the Santa Scramble in three years and was a lot of fun as usual. This was my first race since the New York City Marathon and things have been going nicely for me, as I seem to have survived with no injuries or other ill effects. I’m glad to finally be out of marathon mode, which is something altogether different than training for shorter races, and having figured out once and for all I’m not really too great at running marathons, I’m quite content to be facing nothing in the future longer than a half marathon.

If you’re looking for the fastest 5k around, this one is probably the one to run, so you might want to add it to your calendar for next year. Each year it leads off the Concord Christmas parade so the course is lined with an estimated 20,000 people. About 99% of them are there to watch the parade so they’re not cheering for the runners, but still, they’re witnesses so if you have a little pride you’ll step up the running a notch just because people are watching. The race course itself couldn’t be better really. The first two miles are virtually flat, with just a few small undulations in the terrain but probably not more than 1 or 2% either up or down. Most of the third mile, though, where most of us would be slowing down, is a perfect downhill cruise that allows you to pick ‘em up and put ‘em down much more quickly to the finish line. There’s actually a slight uphill for maybe the last two-tenths of a mile but by then most runners have sliced some valuable seconds off of their normal 5k times.

For me this race was my fastest 5k of 2010 at 20:09, and my fastest since my PR here at the same race last year at 19:51. I was really happy with my time because I’ve been a little off track on my shorter races since my marathon training began. It was also the first race that I’ve run without the knee braces that I’ve worn since my knee injury several months ago. I was happy — and a little bit lucky — to finish in 1st place in the 55-59 age group. Bob Nelson, who’s my age, won the Grand Masters with a time of 19:43 (I think), which bumped me up to first. It was Bob’s first Santa Scramble, and of course he was there on my recommendation that it was the fastest 5k around. Ever since I outran Bob in a couple of races last year he’s been using me as a whipping boy, which I don’t mind too much since we’re friends. And speaking of friends, good buddy Bill Weimer finished in 2nd place in our age group. Bill’s making a lot of progress and by next year Bob and I might be chasing him to the finish line!

In the Battle of the Bloggers, I was happy to see Theoden Janes maybe 100 feet ahead of me on the big downhill in the last mile of the race. I was slowly catching up with him, then got within 10-20 feet and settled in behind him for a few moments. I really didn’t want to antagonize him by passing him up, invoking his wrath, which happens more times than I like to think about when I pass somebody who’s 20 or 30 years younger than me. But I figured, what the heck, all he can do is pass me back, which I fully expected before we hit the finish line. By the time we hit the final short incline I was still ahead of him and I wasn’t sure how far back he was. I gave the final stretch all the steam I had left, hitting my highest-ever heart rate at 186. I had the added incentive of trying to catch the 4th overall female but I finished a couple steps behind her. As you can see from the photo, Theoden was just behind me but I was glad to hold him off one more time. It’s been one of the few times I’ve finished ahead of him in a race, and sadly for me, it’s destined to be one of the last times since I’m getting a little older and a little slower, and he’s getting quicker all the time and is still young enough to have a lot of good running years ahead of him.

I do love this race and it’s one of my favorites of the year, but there is one thing in particular they should change. There were no electronic timing chips this year or last year. Back in 2008 I remember they used D-tags, which were brand new technology back then and were great. I guess they went back to doing everything manually since it’s cheaper, but a race this size that’s growing in popularity really needs to get with the program and have one of the good timing companies such as Queen City Timing or Lee Timing or one of the others to take over this major responsibility. Yes, it’s more expensive but add it on to the entry fee if that’s the case. There were quite a few timing mixups (my wife Linda was one of them) and it took forever to get to the awards after the race.

I’m not sure when and where we’ll find the final results of the race since it was timed manually, but hopefully the results will show up online somewhere soon and I’ll provide a link then. Maybe when the results are final there will be a link on the race website…

Click here to visit the Santa Scramble website

Click here to visit the Santa Scramble page on All Sport Central (for Official Results)

Note: I had trouble accessing the results page on All Sports Central. Bill Weimer sent me the results that had been emailed to him and I am including them at the bottom of this page. They’re not formatted but are at least readable.

Race Rating:

8 – 1-10 Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
8 – 1-10 Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)
6 – 1-10 Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
6 – 1-10 Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
7 – 1-10 T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 – 4/6 Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
0 – 0/5 Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
4 – 4/6 Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
7 – 3/7 Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
9 – 1-10 Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
3 – 1-10 Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average) (Point-to-Point course)
5 – 1-10 Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average) (more if you watch the parade!)
10 – 0-10 Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
5 – 0/5 Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
5 – 1-10 Bathroom Facilities
0-10 Other

TOTAL – 87

My Stats:

Time: 20:09
Pace: 6:30
Age Group: 1 of ?
Overall: 50 of ?

2010 Santa Scramble 5k
Official Results
Concord NC

Overall Male Mike Begay 16.04
Overall Female Michelle Haselton 18.15

Overall Masters Male Bill Shires 16.41
Overall Masters Female Dianne Allen 22.04

Overall Grand Masters Male Bob Nelson 19.47
Overall Grand Masters Male Kathy Seavers 24.32

8 & Under – Male Overall Time
1. Jennings Bruggeling 179 26.17
2. Colin Kirila 199 26.54
3. Michael Cici 269 28.54
4. Gabe Blackwelder 343 32.12
5. Max Hedrick 363 33.14
6. Austin Hoadley 392 34.45
7. Miles Monte 399 35.26
8. Thomas Danner 506 43.11
9. Matthew Danner 521 45.44

8 & under Female Overall Time
1. Bethany Sigmon 272 29.01
2. Ritchie Lauren 380 34.23
3. Mary Morrison 370 33.26
4. Erin Poteat 387 34.25
5. Grave Micolucci 423 36.13
6. Anastasia Badami 431 36.59
7. Grace Fongemy 453 38.13
8. Annabelle Sturdivant 456 38.23
9. Kendra Wyatt 476 39.52
10. Maya Haynes 502 42.46
11. Kristie Panner 512 44.42

9-10 Male Overall Time
1. Spencer Littlefield 90 22.34
2. Trave Beaver 116 23.48
3. Nolan Bruggeling 119 23.54
4. Landon Trott 136 24.19
5. Lance Cagle 153 25.11
6. Carson Trott 168 25.57
7. Ray Beaver 170 25.58
8. Jeron Plummer 194 26.50
9. Nathan Stancil 218 27.34
10. Camron Trott 227 27.51
11. Noah Clark 228 27.52
12. Dylan Smith 350 32.30
13. Ethan Mauldin 373 33.50
14. Jake Perry 389 34.30
15. Destny Adams 454 38.20

9-10 Female Overall Time
1. Greta Gruber 94 22.51
2. Nicolette Vallat 101 23.22
3. Riley Borras 140 24.38
4. Emma Bier 141 24.39
5. Kaitlyn Kanas 159 25.24
6. Britney Hutchinson 163 25.31
7. Chloe Brown 174 26.05
8. Laura Kelly 197 26.53
9. Georgie Rowe 213 27.20
10. Lauren Rector 222 27.40
11. Willow Scott 223 27.41
12. Jade McMillan 238 28.10
13. Maggie Mundt 240 28.12
14. Kendal Fisher 251 28.31
15. Briana Colangelo 252 28.37
16. Macie Lape 264 28.48
17. Blair Workman 267 28.53
18. Elena Jacoby 271 28.55
19. Ashley Sipe 279 29.12
20. Allison Abel 290 29.43
21. Rachel Caron 291 29.43
22. Keara Haynes 305 30.43
23. Gracie Cone 306 30.43
24. Ashlyn Getway 313 30.51
25. Kara Spinks 329 31.39
26. Mary Morrison 347 32.22
27. Genesis Addai 354 32.38
28. Brae Woods 362 33.14
29. Anna Morrison 369 33.25
30. Angela Martinez 375 34.02
31. Bethany Halton 377 34.10
32. Macey Jones 384 34.24
33. Chloe Robinson 386 34.25
34. Danyelle Vernon 390 34.32
35. Shealee Layvett 405 35.39
36. Bailey Ames 408 35.52
37. Abigail Rohrer 409 35.52
38. Georgia Marlette 420 36.04
39. Morgan Lontz 433 37.08
40. Lauren Simineau 436 37.27
41. Deanna Morgan 439 37.43
42. Destiny Budd 441 37.44
43. Gracie Brown 443 37.51
44. Katie Teuschler 459 38.30
45. Hannah Lacivita 460 38.31
46. Adrianna Guarino 461 38.32
47. Alison Parker 486 40.45
48. Kylayah Hammond 488 41.40
49. Angel Faircloth 494 42.03
50. Cynthia Shoe 495 42.07
51. Ellen Berger 496 42.15
52. Lilly Griffin 497 42.21
53. Savannah Cooper 500 42.44
54. Tatyana Mutua 501 42.46

11-12 Male Overall Time
1. Phillip Pilkington 79 22.08
2. Danny Dilks 83 22.20
3. Brian McKinsey 132 24.15
4. Josh Cathey 157 25.22
5. Daniel O’Kelley 250 28.30
6. Samuel Storie 406 35.48
7. Chase Rheuark 410 35.53
8. Mark Panner 505 42.57
9. Drew Shearin 519 45.24

11-12 Female Overall Time
1. Lexi Rohrer 151 25.05
2. Laura Mundt 173 26.04
3. Abigail Gribble 177 26.14
4. Emily Yelanich 230 27.56
5. April Hatterman 302 30.35
6. Christine Hatterman 330 31.39
7. Abigail Doby 349 32.29
8. Alexa Scott 395 34.48
9. Marasi Addai 467 39.30

13-14 Male Overall Time
1. Chris Bradley 15 18.05
2. Gil Gilreath 24 18.21
3. Andrew Garcia 33 19.03
4. Matthew Panner 38 19.18
5. Chris Rupp 42 19.33
6. Nick Carmeci 47 19.56
7. Evan Mozingo 55 20.50
8. Kelly Corson 65 21.12
9. Sam Rupp 68 21.36
10. Archie Barron 113 23.40
11. Lorenzo Delgado 182 26.21
12. Kevin Hines 204 27.04
13. Braeden Bruggeling 239 28.11

13-14 Male Overall Time
1. Briana Landis 104 23.26
2. Kate Beckman 112 23.38
3. Molly Farris 150 25.06
4. Aaliyah Jackson 158 25.24
5. Tessa Golden 196 26.52
6. Morgan Love 253 28.38

15-19 Male Overall Time
1. Casey Buddenbaum 2 16.25
2. Michel Dilks 3 16.39
3. Jose Navarrette 4 16.40
4. Nick Rupp 6 16.50
5. Austin Rohrer 7 16.53
6. Brian Davis 11 17.44
7. Christopher Smith 13 17.54
8. Sean Daly 30 18.35
9. Casey Aldridge 35 19.10
10. Max Chandler 37 19.16
11. Sebastian Yow 44 19.35
12. Matthew Peeler 56 20.51
13. Parker Welch 62 21.02
14. Alex Johnson 72 21.51
15. Joshua Roughton 121 24.06
16. Hanes Bier 142 24.39
17. Stephen Jones 425 36.15

15-19 Female Overall Time
1. Bristol Weekly 100 23.19
2. Brittany Phillippi 165 25.37
3. Meagan Johnson 188 26.30
4. Makenna Lewis 206 27.08
5. Emily Pepler 217 27.33
6. Ansley Dodson 224 27.48
7. Jordan Byrd 226 27.51
8. Joelle Agena 261 28.44
9. Madison Sapp 295 30.01
10. Bryana Sapp 428 36.46

20-24 Male Overall Time
1. James Manuel 10 17.28
2. David Parisi 18 18.15
3. Matt Jaskot 27 18.30
4. Jay Dysart 195 26.51

20-24 Female Overall Time
1. Kelly Levie 31 18.40
2. Alayna Levie 36 19.15
3. Amy Lenk 126 24.11
4. Dawn Cheney 146 24.59
5. Kaitlyn Mullis 181 26.19
6. Rachel Wisehart 234 28.02
7. Jacqueline Blair 242 28.52
8. Carrianne Rushing 266 28.52
9. Elyse Roseman 297 30.15
10. Kimberly Roseman 298 30.17
11. Jean Merlino 322 31.13
12. Allison Cook 324 31.20
13. Ashley Clark 474 39.46
14. Annie Carroll 489 41.41

25-29 Male Overall Time
1. Ben Yow 16 18.08
2. Thomas Eggar 20 18.16
3. Blair Merlino 25 18.27
4. Bob Allensworth 29 18.32
5. David Flynn 54 20.45
6. Michael Oktavec 123 24.08
7. Travis Bush 131 24.14
8. Drake Johnson 193 26.49
9. Matthew Mills 211 27.16
10. Theo Chunn 245 28.20
11. Mark Lape 262 28.45
12. Adam Poteat 388 34.26
13. Jacob Lane 444 37.52

25-29 Female Overall Time
1. Boriana Bakaltchena 26 18.29
2. Lauren Tilton 49 20.09
3. Emily Scmitt 74 21.55
4. Julia Wiseman 82 22.17
5. Jessica Rushing 108 23.31
6. Kelli Holmes 122 24.08
7. Jamie McCoy 191 26.46
8. Jennifer Krell 208 27.10
9. Carla Knox 209 27.14
10. Darian Houser 235 28.03
11. Lindsay Walborn 237 28.08
12. Jessica Sabin 255 28.39
13. Sue Sminchak 258 28.42
14. Lauren Lape 265 28.52
15. Mary Fay 274 29.03
16. Diane Paulsen 289 29.39
17. Kristin Bush 323 31.17
18. Stephanie Widenhouse 382 34.23
19. Chelsea Coty 421 36.05
20. Jillian Daney 435 37.23
21. Melissa Lane 440 37.43
22. Maggie Stephens 463 38.39
23. Rebecca Hunter 529 53.16

30-34 Male Overall Time
1. William Isenhour 23 18.20
2. Jim Crotts 32 18.52
3. Israel Moore 40 19.31
4. Joshua Foster 76 22.00
5. Tom Glennon 80 22.11
6. Barry Baucom 111 23.37
7. William Green 130 24.14
8. Jacob Usues 185 26.25
9. Steve Wolcott 216 27.27
10. Rusty Plummer 320 31.05
11. Chris Mauldin 374 34.00

30-34 Female Overall Time
1. Melissa Orr 69 21.40
2. Heather McKenzie 89 22.32
3. Melissa Stanly 106 23.28
4. Noelle Donovan 117 23.49
5. Lean Boits 161 25.25
6. Kristin Sinclair 187 26.28
7. Gloria Simpson 210 27.14
8. Susan Smith 212 27.18
9. Nikki WIlcott 215 27.26
10. Sarah Jones 292 29.50
11. Chastity Mullinax 309 30.46
12. Jessica Garmon 310 30.46
13. Melissa VonCannon 314 30.52
14. Bridget Fowler 316 30.59
15. Nicole Lisk 325 31.25
16. Taylor Connor 337 32.03
17. Valerie Perry 367 33.24
18. Shannon Klutzz 379 34.22
19. Jennifer Lumley 416 36.01
20. Deanna Freeman 430 36.49
21. Kearston Kuddie 452 38.13
22. Kristen Steele 462 38.37
23. Brooke Petrea 457 38.24
24. Sarah Libby 492 41.54
25. Nina Honeycutt 493 41.54
26. Tara Farrell 510 43.59
27. Shelby Davis 513 44.45
28. Elizabeth Dane 520 45.32
29. Pamela Ragan 525 46.04

35-39 Male Overall Time
1. Chris Harkey 12 17.46
2. Dennis Livesay 16 18.08
3. Mike Slaney 28 18.31
4. Roosevelt Lucas 41 19.31
5. Theodan Janes 51 20.12
6. Brian Landis 53 21.35
7. Tom Sinclair 67 21.35
8. Joel Johns 81 22.15
9. Chris Elliott 86 22.24
10. Chad Weston 110 23.36
11. Curtis McClamrock 118 23.52
12. Grady Henderson 124 24.09
13. Jon McKinsey 133 24.15
14. Phil Carlton 137 24.29
15. Ed Masterdon 156 25.21
16. Kirk Hassen Fritz 162 25.30
17. David Trott 175 26.06
18. Todd Lontz 202 27.03
19. David Corl 203 27.56
20. Charles Pruitt 231 27.56
21. Chris Taylor 248 28.28
22. Robert Griffin 276 29.03
23. Derek Leonard 288 29.39
24. Brian Sipe 296 30.11

35-39 Female Overall Time
1. Lori Harkey 57 20.52
2. Lisa Preslar 66 21.26
3. Angie Pilkington 84 22.22
4. Crystal Karriker 85 22.22
5. Mandie Condie 114 23.46
6. Joy Dry 184 26.24
7. Lori Beaver 207 27.09
8. Tessa Burchett 219 27.35
9. Jill Trott 229 27.52
10. Sara Leonard 232 28.00
11. Mary Russell 236 28.05
12. Leigh Cici 270 28.55
13. Amy Kelly 275 29.03
14. Stephanie Jackey 277 29.06
15. Kimberly Heatherman 280 29.14
16. Bobbi Jo McKercher 286 29.33
17. Jessica Pesce 299 30.22
18. Bethany LeBedz 307 30.45
19. Brooke Francis 312 30.50
20. Cindy Carlton 315 30.56
21. Jenny Lontz 326 31.29
22. Tara Bickerstaff 336 32.02
23. Becky Daquila 339 32.07
24. Santan Ballard 341 32.08
25. Carolee Barbee 355 32.38
26. Laura Skuertz 356 32.44
27. Jennifer White 357 32.49
28. Christa Kemp 358 32.49
29. Anne Morrison 371 33.30
30. Kelly Meade 385 34.24
31. Marcie Beard 391 34.44
32. Lisa Perry 418 36.03
33. Kristina Wilson 426 36.43
34. Colleen Bodami 432 37.07
35. Kim Woods 434 37.22
36. Michelle Bode 473 39.45
37. Kim Parker 487 40.48
38. Lori Rice 490 41.66
39. Trish Scardina 498 42.31
40. Amy Shoe 514 44.50

40-44 Male Overall Time
1. Robert Heck 17 18.12
2. Allen Alfaro 21 18.19
3. Jeff Littlefield 39 19.27
4. Jose Aguayo 48 19.57
5. Scott Campbell 52 20.18
6. David Greene 128 24.12
7. John Beckman 155 25.17
8. Jason Peetz 176 26.16
9. Kevin Laws 186 26.27
10. Mark Haynes 189 26.36
11. Shane Marshall 225 27.50
12. Chris Furr 257 28.40
13. Eric Laws 287 29.37
14. Michael Hatterman 331 31.51
15. Dale Irvin 366 33.22
16. Robert Bova 402 35.31
17. Martin Storie 412 35.54
18. Scott Ingold 427 36.46
19. Todd Danner 507 43.11
20. Mickey Payne 511 44.11

40-44 Female Overall Time
1. Joan Dodson 95 22.52
2. Kathi Landis 166 25.40
3. Molly Aiken 171 26.02
4. Delette Brown 190 26.38
5. Steph Kirila 200 26.54
6. Lorri Roughton 233 28.00
7. Deanna Brewer 246 28.26
8. Shannon Colangelo 254 28.38
9. Leann Miller 282 29.19
10. Tracey Johnson 293 29.51
11. Susan Hattermann 303 30.41
12. Karen Comer 318 31.03
13. Jennifer Byrd 319 31.03
14. Jennifer Gadd 328 31.30
15. Angela Krol 338 32.06
16. Peggy Dickey 344 32.14
17. Terri Pruitt 348 32.28
18. Cheryl Rape 357 32.49
19. Jennifer Pinion 365 33.21
20. Lisa Laws 368 33.24
21. Jen Hedrick 372 33.40
22. Krista Berger 417 36.03
23. Pauline Ross 499 42.31
24. Tamara Ingold 524 46.03

45-49 Male Overall Time
1. Milton Matheny 8 17.11
2. Vicente Hernandez 14 18.00
3. Gene Summey 22 18.20
4. Mitchell Rippy 34 19.08
5. Garry Farris 45 19.39
6. Rickey Lilly 58 20.53
7. Milton Thompson 60 20.56
8. Stephen Coates 75 21.58
9. Randy Graham 87 22.25
10. Lynwood Padgett 88 22.27
11. Stu Condie 102 23.23
12. Kevin Kruse 103 23.24
13. Richard Steinert 105 23.27
14. David Weekly 107 23.30
15. Mark Roughton 145 24.41
16. Steve Wise 154 25.16
17. Mark Tueschler 169 25.58
18. Todd Gribble 178 26.15
19. Chris Eason 205 27.07
20. Rob Mundt 241 28.14
21. Pedro Perez 243 28.18
22. Tim Sigmon 273 29.02
23. Tony Evans 285 29.25
24. Dave Oman 294 30.00
25. Scott Brown 317 31.00
26. Eddie Deaton 333 31.55
27. Christopher Smith 335 31.58
28. Carl Gadd 364 33.15
29. Robert Carruth 438 37.39

45-49 Female Overall Time
1. Angie Burns 98 23.08
2. Michelle Boone 99 23.14
3. Joan Baumann 127 24.11
4. Vicki Brady 259 28.43
5. Beth Simpson 281 29.15
6. Janet Rushing 332 31.53
7. Alice Smith 334 31.56
8. Linda Hefner 352 32.32
9. Karen Linton 353 32.32
10. Susan Babb 360 33.01
11. Quinn Dionne 400 35.27
12. Beth Pinto 401 35.28
13. Linda McConnell 422 36.06
14. Alice Burn 429 36.47
15. Kathy Sierneth 503 42.48
16. Toni DiMenna 516 45.00
17. Amy Beaver 523 46.02

50-54 Male Overall Time
1. Brenneman Thompson 59 20.54
2. Rob Colgi 61 21.00
3. Dave Calvert 64 21.11
4. Mark Summers 70 21.43
5. Fermin Abarco 71 21.44
6. Ritchie Hearn 120 23.59
7. Billy Mills 143 24.39
8. Carl Buddenbaum 152 25.10
9. Steve Bradley 172 26.03
10. Steve Bruggeling 214 27.21
11. Marvin Tyson 491 41.49

50-54 Female Overall Time
1. Karen Hagy 160 25.25
2. Becky Strahler 167 25.42
3. Laura Kerr 201 27.00
4. Cathy Wirz 220 27.38
5. Betty Gobble 247 28.27
6. Sherry Dyer 283 29.24
7. Wendy Harbinson 284 29.25
8. Susan Schneider 342 32.09
9. Robin Hemsley 345 32.15
10. Donna Chandler 528 53.15

55-59 Male Overall Time
1. Richard Hefner 50 20.09
2. Bill Weimer 93 22.50
3. Thom Lally 361 33.12
4. James Polk 381 34.23
5. Fred DiMenna 515 44.57

55-59 Female Overall Time
1. Maureen Bierman 164 25.36

60-64 Male Overall Time
1. Bubba Anthony 63 21.07
2. Jerry Sofley 73 21.54
3. John Kapp 109 23.31
4. Watson Jernigan 198 26.54
5. James Parks 244 28.20
6. Bill Nix 415 36.01

60-64 Female Overall Time
1. Jane Fraytet 509 43.48
2. Stephanie Cude 518 45.19
3. Char Soloman 526 53.16

65-69 Male Overall Time
1. Larry Seavers 125 24.10

70 – Over Male Overall Time
1. Dave Heck 465 38.48

70 – Over Female Overall Time
1. Margaret Hagerty 527 53.14