The Old Runner

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...

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 t...

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 w...

I have to admit, the Big Apple took a bite out of me. Really though, it had little to do with the city itself — it was great — but there’s no 26.2-mile stretch on the planet that appeals to me if I have to run the entire length of it. To those who know me well, that’s no surprise because for the past few months I’ve had a case of Marathoners Remorse. As I built my mileage up from 40 to 50 miles per week (too quickly of course) I started getting some small, nagging injuries. The worst one was what the physical therapist called “a weak quadriceps muscle in combination with a tight IT band,” which was resulting in my knee getting off track as I landed with my right foot. Exercises and stretching have gotten that pretty much under control but I wore a brace right up until this marathon mostly as a precaution. Then there have been problems with toes and shin and calves, and before I lose everybody to a major snoozefest I’ll just say that all of that made me decide in advance to be happy wi...

Arrive early and expect delays. It’s the airport after all, and sure enough, if you didn’t arrive early for the Runway 5k this year you very well may have missed the delays, and possibly even the entire race. The official starting time was supposed to be 8:00 a.m., but as 2,000+ runners crowded near the starting line at about 8:02 an announcement was made that the race would be delayed by 15 minutes. A little after 8:15 another announcement was made that there would be another 10-minute delay. Finally, at 8:28 a.m. the race began. It wasn’t a huge problem for us. As we arrived at the race site at 6:45 there was already a long line of cars ahead of us. It was slow going, but we managed to make it to a parking space in only about 15 minutes. Apparently though, with each minute the traffic backup grew longer and longer, and I read one comment on Facebook saying that they arrived at the turn-off from Billy Graham Parkway at 7:15 and weren’t able to get parked until 8:45, and by then of co...