Welcome to my runner’s blog!

The world certainly doesn’t need another blog — running or otherwise — and I don’t need yet another distraction from getting my work done. Having said that, after having become a “runner” just a couple months ago at the age of 56 I’ve had some great experiences that I don’t want to just forget, and hopefully I can provide a little inspiration for some others who would like to be more active but think they’re too old to get started.

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Race #158 - Mount Mourne Christmas Elf 5k - Mooresville, NC - 12/24/11

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I had heard a lot about this race from others who have run it in the past and the reviews were always good, so we headed over to the Mooresville area to experience it for ourselves. It actually exceeded our expectations, being just about a perfect race except for a glitch in putting down the cones or marking the course or something (I never figured out what exactly). The result was that the race was quite a bit longer than a 5k. According to several other people I talked to, they all had Garmin measurements of between 3.38 and 3.40 miles although personally my Garmin measured only 3.25. I don't check distances as I'm running, but I usually have a pretty good feel for how fast I'm running and I felt like I might have been somewhere between about 20:45 and 21:00, so as I approached the finish line and saw the clock at 22 minutes I was surprised. My final time of 22:39 still won my age group (55-59) and everybody else seemed to think they would have been about 2 minutes fast...
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Race #180 - China Grove Main Street Challenge 5k - China Grove, NC - 06/08/12

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I only run a handful of nighttime races each year and they're normally not my favorites because I have a hard time with my diet during the day leading up to an evening race, but it's hard not to like this Friday night extravaganza that features great entertainment, delicious food (pizza, watermelon, Cheerwine, etc.), fast runners, a flat course, and a small town that goes all out to create a first class event. It's the fourth time I've run the China Grove 5k and since it's flat and the course hasn't changed at all it provides a good benchmark for how I'm doing each year. Over those four years my times have varied by less than a minute, with a slowest time of 21:51 in 2009 to a fastest time of 20:57 in 2010. In last year's race I was disappointed with my time of 21:44 and it sent me into a frenzy of dieting and deciding to run every day. I'm happy to report that as of this race I managed to run the entire year without taking a day off and aver...
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Race #83 – CPCC Skyline Run 5k – Charlotte NC – 04/24/10

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As the 2nd race in the 10-race Run For Your Life Grand Prix series, the Skyline 5k attracts some of the most competitive runners in the area. Because of some conflicts in timing on my race schedule I won’t be competing in the RFYL Grand Prix this year, which is kind of sucky but that’s life I guess. I’ll hope to get in on the fun next year. Nevertheless, I’m still planning on running about half of this year’s Charlotte GP races and try to at least make a little bit of noise in my age group when I’m there. As always, it was good to see the Charlotte runners we know both before and after the race. There was a light rain falling as we drove over the Charlotte but by the time the race started it had stopped raining and the rain held off until well after the race was over. After Linda and I picked up our numbers and T-shirts we took our stuff back to the car then went back to join the race crowd. I told Linda I was heading up to the start (I like to nudge my way up close to the front) and ...
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Race #214 - Mount Holly Springfest 5k - Mount Holly, NC - 05/04/13

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For the first time since last July I ran a 5k in under 21 minutes (20:58) so I was happy to know I still had a sub-21 in me at the age of 61. This race is just a few miles from my home and one of the few Gaston County races I had never run. It's a smallish race with 156 finishers this year, but there are a lot of good things about races this size: parking nearby, not losing your friends, a more casual starting line, etc. As I've been doing lately, I'll go light on the talking and let the photos tell the story since I wore my video glasses. Below is the video, followed by a few of the 100+ pictures I took. You can see all of the photos on my Facebook page. Click here for my Facebook gallery of this race. It was frigid for a race in May, when we expect springtime temperature. Bill refused to leave his car to warm up before the race. This was the first race I've been in with Dianne Allen in a while. She's coming back strong after an injury kep...
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Race #574 - Rocktoberfest Half Marathon - Rock Hill, SC - 10/12/24

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Earlier this year, I decided it would be fun to run 26 half marathons for the year, one every two weeks. I had started the year off recovering from hernia surgery last November 30th, which was followed by six weeks with a Foley catheter. Two weeks after the catheter was removed I ran my first half marathon and felt great just to be somewhat back to normal. At 72, I'm slower than ever, so I felt the need to challenge myself to stay motivated, and I thought it would be fun to at least try to run more half marathons than I've ever run previously in a year. In 2015, I ran 16 half marathons, the most I'd run in any year. This was my 16th for 2024, and I'm registered for two more, so I should surpass my previous record, but the goal of 26 has recently hit a snag. Hurricane Helene devastated the North Carolina mountains, where my next two half-marathons were scheduled. We're not in the mountains but are close enough that the hurricane affected us, and on the morning my Dav...
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