The Old Runner

Quickly becoming one of North Carolina’s most popular road races, the Hot Chocolate 10k in Asheville is a tasty mid-winter treat for runners at a time when good races are few and far between. The race is held as a fundraiser for the Isaac Dickson Elementary School, which is one of only two “Foxfire” elementary schools in the nation that specializes in creative teaching and learning methods. This year, only the third year of the race, registration had to be limited to 800 runners to keep things from getting out of hand. No doubt hundreds more would have been there if they hadn’t waited too long to register. I’m not sure if they’ll increase the size of the race in the coming years, but either way, if you’re able to make it next year be sure to register early and head to Asheville for this outstanding running celebration! About the hot chocolate… Linda and I ran this race last year and the hot chocolate distribution hit a few snags — the lines were long and there probably wasn’t enou...

Most of the races I have run have been memorable in some way. This one will be remembered as the coldest race I have ever run, with a temperature of around 20 degrees at race time. Even more memorable though, it was the first time my daughter Nicole joined me for a 5k race. If you’ve read the  early entries of the Old Runner blog , you know that Nicole provided the original inspiration for me to begin running less than two years ago. In the interim she was sidetracked from running with the arrival of our now 13-month-old lovely little granddaughter Eva. So it was a long-awaited special event for us. It was Nicole’s very first race, and I’m proud to say she finished in 2nd place in the 35-39 age group! This race had originally been scheduled for December 19, 2009, but was rescheduled for January 9, 2010, because of the icy weather we had on the original day. Linda and I had also run this race a year ago ( Race #15 ) and it was memorable for being one of the warmest races we ha...

Early in the afternoon on New Years Eve as I lay on the bed recovering from one of my numerous daily “power naps” (I feel less guilty describing them that way), in a moment of weakness/laziness I asked Linda if she’d rather just skip driving 90 miles to this race. We talked over the pros and cons for a few minutes. We had planned to run it last year and I pre-registered then and even got a prepaid hotel room, and wouldn’t you know it, we both came down with a stomach virus and were in no shape to run, so it cost me $150 or so and we never even made the trip. This year I didn’t pre-register for anything, but we both felt fine and decided the pros outweighed the cons so we headed up to Tanglewood Park for Running of the Lights. The description of the race on the web left little doubt that by missing this race you’d be missing a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It read like this: Start the New Year off on a healthy note! Join us for a night of fun and celebration that will begin w...