The Old Runner

The Healthy Heart Race 5k was the only road race within about 50 miles of Charlotte today and it was good to see quite a few runners from Charlotte, Shelby, Gastonia, and other surrounding areas coming out to support the cause. Organized by two young girls who lost their fathers, Howard Wiseman and Larry Beaver, at an early age to heart disease in the past couple of years, the race was held to remember their fathers and to support the American Heart Association. Just before the awards ceremony both girls spoke a little about their fathers, and it was a good reminder for all of us that we shouldn’t take life for granted. It turned out to be a nice day for running. They used the same course as one of the races that has been established for several years in Lincolnton, winding through several neighborhoods and right through the middle of town, with runners actually running on the sidewalk. Fortunately the sidewalk was fairly wide when it needed to be, such as those times when people were

After so many races being canceled because of cold weather, it was great to be able to run two races this weekend. I was looking forward to returning to this race in Fletcher, hoping to vindicate myself after last year’s dismal 9th place age group finish. Last year’s Frostbite 5k in Fletcher was  Race #20  for me, and the last 5k that took me more than 25 minutes to finish. My time last year was 25:29; this year I managed to slice about four and a half minutes off that to finish in 21:02, first place in my age group. I do realize that at my age (I’ll be 58 next week) I might start going the other way before long, but for now I’m enjoying the increasingly better race times. I had the good fortune to talk to a couple of great senior runners after the race who had both begun running in their fifties. Jim Grodnik is now in the 70-74 age group and ran today’s 5k in 22:02… only a minute behind my young whippersnapper time. Jim said he continued to improve for ten years and ran his fastest 1

Last week our half marathon in Myrtle Beach was snowed out, and fortunately for us, so were all the rest of the races in the Carolinas, and many of those races were rescheduled for this week. There were some good races in the Charlotte area that we hated to miss, but there were a couple in Asheville that were part of the Asheville Track Club Grand Prix series. I’m trying to run at least ten of the ATC GP races this year so we headed for the mountains. As you might expect, the weather was a little cooler up in Asheville than Charlotte, but it was still in the mid to upper 50s and both races were in the afternoon during the warmest part of the day. As we approached Asheville everything was still white with the snow that has been falling for the past month in the North Carolina mountains, but by Sunday afternoon the unseasonably mild temperatures had erased most of the evidence that it was still winter. It was our first time running the Black Mountain Valentine 5k. In an area with so man

After all of the miserable winter weather we’ve been having it was great to get in a race this week. With all of the ice and snow north of Charlotte, it was nice that this one was south of the border in Rock Hill, South Carolina. The forecast was a little iffy and it was cloudy and kind of misty but the 38-degree temperature almost felt pleasant after the bone-chilling days we’ve been having lately. This is a small race but a good one. It begins at Dinkins Student Center on the campus of Winthrop University and winds its way mostly through some scenic outlying areas of the campus. It’s fairly flat other than a pretty decent hill in the last mile, but the hill peaks just about at the 3-mile mark, allowing for a nice fast finish over the last 1/10 of a mile if you have a little gas left. The T-shirts are pretty plain and the trophies are coffee mugs, so nothing exciting there, but this year’s food was really good — homemade brownies, a variety of cookies, sandwiches (pimiento cheese and