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 #212 - Run for the Money 5k - Gastonia, NC - 04/20/13

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It's nice to finally be settling in for some local races after all the traveling we've been doing for the past few months. This week's race was in our hometown of Gastonia, and it's the biggest local race of the year. This time around there were 1,235 finishers in the competitive 5k race and hundreds more in the 2k walk. The unique thing about this race is that in each 10-year age group the 1st place finisher gets to direct a $500 donation towards any local participating nonprofit group of their choice, and 2nd place directs $250 towards their choice. For the second year in a row I ran for Career Management Group (CMG), one of the lesser known nonprofit groups. They run Gaston Residential Services (GRS), which provides housing for handicapped adults. Linda's twin sister has been one of their clients for many years and they've done a beautiful job over the years in helping her to be as independent as possible despite being debilitated with cerebral palsy. She
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Race #174 - New River Half Marathon - Todd, NC - 05/05/12

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Being a glutton for punishment, I was elated to hear the alarm go off at 3 a.m. Saturday morning. It wasn't so much the early wake-up time -- I try to get up a 4 a.m. every morning anyway. The day's punishment that I eagerly anticipated was the 13.1 miles of hills at the New River Half Marathon. I ran this race last year and it was my slowest half marathon of the year out of 13 that I ran. I remembered that there were hills but I don't think I appreciated the magnitude of the hills. There are a couple of 300-foot climbs as well as a couple of 100-foot climbs, and since I do very little hill training the results are just about what you would expect. I've always been a proponent of the run/walk method and used to incorporate regular walk breaks in every race. Over the past couple years I've mostly stopped doing that, instead trying to run the entire race without any walk breaks, at least most of the time. This race is an exception to the rule though. Last year I wal
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Race #151 - Vulcan Run 10k - Birmingham, AL - 11/05/11

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It was an up and down week for a lot of runners this week -- they were either up in New York for the NYC Marathon or down in Georgia for the Savannah Marathon. We decided to take the road less traveled and headed over to the Vulcan Run 10k in Birmingham, Alabama, the third of ten races in the Running Journal Grand Prix series. This was our second trip to the Vulcan Run, and again we stayed at The Tutwiler Hotel , a beautiful and historic hotel built in 1914 that has been converted to a Hampton Inn. The Tutwiler is just 2 blocks from the starting line and 1 block from the finish line and is the perfect place to stay for this race. Their free breakfast is served from 6 to 10 a.m. so I had some oatmeal and orange juice before the race, then after the race I came in and took a shower and changed clothes and met Linda as she crossed the finish line, then we both went back and after she cleaned up we had some more breakfast then headed over to the awards ceremony and big after-race party a
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Race #110 – Santa Scramble 5k – Concord, NC – 11/20/10

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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
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Race #136 - The Scream! Half Marathon - Jonas Ridge, NC - 07/16/11

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The T-shirt says, The Scream! Half Marathon is "13.1 Miles of Pure Hill!" That's not entirely true. While there are probably 8 or 9 miles of downhill that will make your quads and calves scream with delight (or possibly horror), there's enough uphill to bring you back to reality. For me, every time we hit the small uphill sections they almost felt like huge mountains after getting used to all the downhill, but enough people passed me on those hills that I thought I might be in the minority. There's no doubt that the huge downhill sections helped a lot of people run their fastest half marathon time ever. I cut about a minute off my Personal Record from the 2010 Little Rock Half Marathon with a time of 1:32:11, which was 1st in the 55-59 age group and 24th overall. Honestly, I was just a little disappointed with my time since I've been running well lately and had dropped 10 pounds over the previous four weeks. I felt like there was a good chance for me to run
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