The Old Runner

It was a battle of monumental proportions; at least that’s how it seemed as I tried to pry Linda out of bed at 5 o’clock in the morning in the frigid 22-degree weather. My apologies to the Northerners who are laughing at us for thinking that’s cold, but in the Carolinas it’s pretty chilly. I’m a life-long cold weather hater but after missing a couple of races this winter because of it being too cold I decided that’s not happening again if I can help it. The 29th annual Alyce T. Guettler Hunger Run started at the Dinkins Student Center on the campus of Winthrop University and the student center provided a nice warm place for everybody to gather and meet with other runners as we waited. The awards ceremony afterwards was inside the student center as well, and it turns out the weather was really a non-issue. The sun was shining when the race started and the temperatures seemed to warm up nicely, although I was wearing so many clothes I wasn’t sure whether it was cold or hot. The course

After 15 races in 15 weeks we went on hiatus over the winter and missed about 5 consecutive weeks. So now the road racing season seems to be getting started again and I’m pumped. Having begun running this past September, I haven’t really experienced running in warm weather and I’m looking forward to it. The Hot Chocolate 10k didn’t provide a lot of warm weather but there was hot chocolate and coffee at the end of the race, and the temperature in the low 40s at race time was actually a little warmer than normal, I believe, for an Asheville morning in January. This was my very first 10k race and I was hoping to finish in 55 to 60 minutes so I was pleasantly surprised that I managed to crack 50 minutes and finish at 49:38 (yay!). I didn’t place but was 7th of 20 in my age group (55-59) and 132nd overall out of 630 runners, so I’m happy with that. The race is promoted as “Asheville’s Flattest 10k,” which might not be saying much since Asheville is in the middle of the mountains and the r