The Old Runner

With all the traveling to races that we’ve been doing lately, it was nice to just be able to stay home and go to a local race this weekend. Pickin’s were slim in the Charlotte area, but when I found out there was a race in Hickory I was happy to head up to my old hometown for a run. Actually, this was a 5k race and a 10k race, but very few people ran the 10k. Linda and I had both planned on the 10k but when we found out there were only about 20 people running 10k we thought it might be more prudent to go with the 5k crowd. I use the term “crowd” loosely because there were only 56 finishers in the 5k race, so with only 20 finishers in the 10k the total number of runners was only 76. I’m happy either way though, large or small, because each has its advantages and disadvantages. I do think the directors of this race would probably make life easier for everybody if in the future they would just make it a 5k and do away with the 10k. The courses for the 5k and 10k seemed to be kind of inte...

The weather couldn’t have been more beautiful as our plane touched down in sunny Memphis on Friday morning. We were able to check in to our hotel early and went for a memorable 5-mile run along the Mississippi River.  On Saturday the temperature climbed up into the lower 70s and we spent the day mostly just enjoying our long weekend in Memphis, basking in the beautiful spring sunshine and anticipating the upcoming race on Sunday morning. Despite the beautiful weather on Friday and Saturday though, the weather outlook for Sunday wasn’t quite as positive. The same storm that was dumping snow on Oklahoma and Texas was heading our way, with almost no chance that it could miss us. Sure enough, the rain began early Sunday morning and while the temperature starting out at around 50 degrees, by the end of the race it was closer to 40 degrees with the wind howling and the rain coming down in buckets. For a good portion of the first part of the race the wind and rain came from behind, but w...

Anytime I travel halfway across the country for a race, it’s a big one for me. This weekend I decided to skip Charlotte’s Corporate Cup Half Marathon (which I hated to miss, by the way) to run the Little Rock Half Marathon instead. It’s a race that normally wouldn’t have been on my radar at all, but this year it was added as the 7th race of the  9-race schedule of the Running Journal Grand Prix  (you may remember the 10th race in the RJ Grand Prix — the Myrtle Beach Half Marathon — was canceled recently because of snow). Doing well in The Running Journal Grand Prix has become one of  my main goals  for the year.  Only the top 8 finishers in each age group in a race get points, so it’s very possible to come home empty-handed after traveling to some faraway races. For the last couple months I’ve been working on heart rate monitoring in my training and also in my races. According to the formula that holds true for about 80% of the population (205 minus one-half yo...