The Old Runner

Well, that was interesting. In my zeal to run at least 20 half marathons this year, I found this one at the last minute and signed up. It was only about 100 miles away, so I could click off another half marathon with just a couple hours of driving.  I signed up right away, not bothering to read the race description. The next day (the day before the race), I found out it was a singletrack trail complete with plenty of roots, rocks, and obstacles that a roadrunner like myself is not used to running.  It was hot and muggy, with a dew point of 75, although being a warm-weather runner, I'd prefer that over 40 degrees any day. Before hitting the actual trail, the race began on a dirt road, and I could have stopped to walk but decided to try to keep running until I saw someone else walking. The green lines on the graph below represent walk breaks, so you can see that I didn't take a walk break until I was more than 2 miles into the race. By about 5 miles into the race, I was done. I w

Touted as the "Hottest Half Here," the Run the South Half Marathon lived up to its billing this year. The temperature at the beginning of the race wasn't unbearable at 77 degrees, and even the humidity wasn't 100% (it was 88% according to the weather app). I think maybe the culprit was the dew point, although I don't know what it was. I do know that I was sticky and sweaty before the race and didn't even do a warmup.  I'm not sure I've explained how I use the Jeff Galloway Run Walk Run technique. I keep my watch set to alert me every 20 seconds, so I can run 20 seconds then walk 20 seconds, and that's how I do most of my training. In races, I run however many 20-second intervals I'm comfortable with and then just walk 20 seconds in between, so I may run three 20-second intervals (1 minute) or six 20-second intervals (2 minutes) then walk 20 seconds before running again. I just go by what feels right at the time, so if I'm going downhill I m

I'm not running many 5k's these days, but this one is an exception. It's a series of four 5k races held at Kings Mountain State Park on the 3rd Friday of each month during the summer. It's a good time to meet up with some of the runners I see less often these days, and it's a lot of fun except that it's a hilly and difficult 5k and most people are slower than in most other 5k's. The course is out-and-back, and the 1st and 3rd miles are rolling and curvy hills on the road that leads into the state park. The second mile is fairly level, so that helps. Once again, I was a little over 30 minutes, finishing in 30:22, which is not terribly disappointing on this course although last year I managed to finish in under 30 minutes in each of the four races. Oh, it was 88 degrees at the start of the race, which adds to my arsenal of excuses for being slow! Race Name: Friday Food Truck 5k #2 Location: Clover, South Carolina Date: June 21, 2024 Course: Elevation by Mile:

Back during the years when I was doing my best running (2009-2017), the half marathon was my favorite race distance. During those years, I ran as many as 16 half marathons per year, and on an age-graded basis, the half marathon was my best distance. In more recent years I had trouble running long distances, so I cut the number of half marathons down and almost quit running them entirely. When my streak of 120 half marathons in a row under 2 hours ended in September 2022, I considered never running another half. It wasn't so much that finishing in over 2 hours was shameful, but I began having difficulty running the distance.  I turned 71 in February 2023 and had only run two 5k races after the previously mentioned September half marathon. Not being a cold weather runner anyway, I waited until April of 2023 to run another 5k, and by then my 5k times were slower than ever. I wasn't enjoying the races any longer, and when I began having a hard time keeping up with my younger runnin

The Parkrun is a worldwide race series held in hundreds of locations every Saturday morning at 9:00 a.m., and the Little Sugar Creek Greenway Parkrun in Charlotte is just about a 30-minute drive for me. This was the 100th race since the Parkrun started in Charlotte two years ago, and although I haven't been running it much lately I decided to give it a shot. There were 96 finishers this week, the highest number since the series began in Charlotte. This year I've been concentrating on half marathons when one is near enough to get to, and I'm not enjoying the 5k races nearly as much now that I've slowed down so much. That being said, this was a lot of fun and I got to see some folks I haven't seen in a while. If you're in the Charlotte area, or anywhere there is a Parkrun, I recommend it highly. Best of all, it's completely FREE! I was happy that I was able to keep my pace under 9 minutes (barely). As you can see from the dips on this chart, I walked 13 times

So here I am, still pickin' 'em up and puttin' 'em down, although it's kind of in slow motion these days. The last race I posted about was almost exactly two years ago. I didn't want to keep posting about my races as I slow down to a crawl, but it's nice to keep a tally of how many races I've run, and it's not so bad to see how much I've slowed down, so I'm back to doing a blog. I'm not going to write big race reports and will possibly just number the races and give my stats, although I'll make a few comments about things I found interesting about a race. There have been a few interesting changes over these past two years. Most notably, I'm now doing the Jeff Galloway Run-Walk-Run method exclusively in my running. Last year, at age 71, I found that I could no longer keep up with my younger runner friends that I trained with and almost quit running. Then I remembered that I had always said I'd go back to the Galloway method in

I'm happy to report that as of now, at least (August 2022), I'm still running and racing at the age of 70. However, I think this blog is ready for retirement so I won't be posting about any more races. I guess I should have stopped at exactly 500 just to keep it nice and even, but who knew? If you're one of the few who have been interested in this blog, for whatever reason, I appreciate it. Just so I can keep track, I'm planning on updating the " My Upcoming Races " page. If you ever take a look at that and don't see any upcoming races, most likely I'm either injured, retired from racing, or dead.  Half marathons have always been my favorite distance even though I'm not running nearly as many now, but I'll keep the " My Half Marathons " page updated as well if and when I run a half. I'll also be keeping all of my race results current at Ujena Fit Club , so if you want to see how slow I am now (or if I'm still running) you