The Old Runner

It's a rare occasion lately when we've been able to run more than one race in a week, but running the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day left Saturday wide open for another race if we could find one. As you can imagine, the options are limited on Thanksgiving weekend, but we were pleased to find this race, now in its second year, in Spindale, North Carolina. It's about a 50-mile drive for us, but I don't really mind a little drive on Saturday morning. The website said registration ended at 8 a.m. and the fun run for kids started then, followed by the 5k at 9 a.m. That's a long wait in the freezing weather and we spent most of the time until about 20 minutes before the race staying warm in the car. One of the nice things about small races is that most of the time you can park up close and see what's going on. We watched the kids fun run -- at least the start and finish -- as people began warming up for the main event. There were a handful of people we knew there...

This was our third year in a row to run the Southpark Turkey Trot. It's part of the Running Journal Grand Prix. If not for that, I'd probably run one of the smaller races on Thanksgiving morning. It's way too crowded, parking is a little bit of a headache, there are never enough porta potties, and the starting line is a mess. For some reason unknown to me though, it's probably the second most popular race of the year in Charlotte after Thunder Road. This year there were 4,831 finishers in the 8k alone, and a huge number in the 5k as well although I'm not sure how many. I heard that the site said they had a total of 8,500 registered runners. There are about 20 porta-potties and the lines are so long that if you want to start the race on time you better be able to just hold it in until after the race. With around 5,000 runners in the 8k you'd think there would be some kind of corral system at the start of the race, but nope, it's every man, woman, and ch...

The Santa Scramble has the distinction of being the first race that Linda and I have run for four straight years, partly because we've only been running for a little over three years, but it's one of those races we look forward to every year because it's one of the most fun, and also because it's arguably the fastest 5k in the Charlotte area. Just as in the previous three years, today's race was once again my fastest 5k of the year, an all-time Personal Record of 19:42, being only the second time I've run a 5k in under 20 minutes, with the first time being my race here in 2009 when I ran 19:51. And just for the record, Linda ran her all-time 5k PR here today as well! ***** Note: I originally posted my time in this race as 19:40 (the clock actually read 19:39 as I crossed the finish line). However, when the official results were posted it said that my time was 19:42, so I've made adjustments to my original post. ***** I've been doing my best runni...

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...