Race #154 - Elf Stampede 5k - Spindale, NC - 11/26/11

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 -- several from Shelby and Bobby Aswell from Cornelius, who never misses a race if there's one to be had.

I was glad that my Garmin came back to life after about 24 hours of window shopping for a new one. Apparently my Garmin Forerunner 110, a watch I love to hate, will live to see another day. If it ever dies, and surely it will, I hope to replace it with another Garmin Forerunner 305, a much better watch in my opinion although apparently the red-headed stepchild of the Garmin Forerunner line.

As the race started I was glad I didn't have to guess at things like I did in the last race without my watch. After all of the Thanksgiving eating I've done over the past week I'm a little on the sluggish side although I was happy with finishing in under 21 minutes, at a time of 20:50. There was one pretty big hill about halfway through then a few ups and downs in the last mile, but not bad. I was behind Bobby Aswell pushing his daughter in a stroller for almost the entire race (he's fast and without the stroller he's so far ahead of me I can't see him). About a tenth of a mile from the finish the first overall female, Mandy Huffman, zoomed past me and beat me by a couple seconds, but gentleman that I am, I hardly ever try to bust a gut to beat a girl... not that I could have caught her anyway.

Linda and I both won our respective age groups, and the age group awards, while nothing fancy, were at least different: Christmas ornaments with the race details (gold for 1st place, white for 2nd place, and red for 3rd place). The post race food wasn't bad, especially the tons of homemade brownies. People kept grabbing them and they kept bringing out huge trays of them. I ate 3 or 4 myself, which didn't help my diet a lot, but it's the season to indulge.

Click Here for Race Results

Race Rating:

7 - 1-10  Website (Information, results, registration, photo links, etc.)
5 - 1-10  Awards (Quality of medals, trophies, etc.) (1 to 10)
7 - 1-10  Awards Presentation (PA system, winning times, etc.) (1 to 10)
7 - 1-10  Food for Race Participants (1 to 10)
5 - 1-10  T-Shirts (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
4 - 4/6   Part of Race Series (Grand Prix, etc.) (6=Yes and 4=No)
0 - 0/5   Professional Photography (5=Yes and 0=No)
4 - 4/6   Chip Timing (6=Yes and 4=No)
3 - 3/7   Certified Course (by USA Track & Field) (7=Yes and 3=No)
6 - 1-10  Course (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
6 - 1-10  Parking (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
5 - 1-10  Entertainment (1 to 10 with 5 being average)
10 - 0-10  Age Groups (10 if 5-year groups; 0 if 10-year groups)
5 - 0/5   Indoor Shelter from Elements (0 if none; 5 if provided)
4 - 1-10  Bathroom Facilities
0 - 0-10  Other

TOTAL - 78

Race Stats:

1st Overall Male:  Jonathan Thacker (17:04)
1st Overall Female: Mandy Huffman (20:47)
Total Finishers:  150

My Stats:

Time:  20:49
Pace:  6:43
Age Group:  1 of  7
Overall:  15 of 150


Comments

  1. AmyCNovember 30, 2011 at 8:06 PM

    Kudos to you for all your running successes. Your blog is definitely inspiring!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Recent Popular Posts

Race #254 - Brooklyn Half Marathon - Brooklyn, NY - 05/17/14

Image
Wow... Just when I thought my best running days were over, this one has me thinking that maybe there are still a few all-time Personal Records waiting to be set with these old legs. Over the past month I've added about 10 extra miles per week to my training regimen and I think that made the difference. I had been running 10-12 miles for a long run each week, but I've bumped it up to 15, 16, and 17 miles over the past three weeks as I begin training for my first full marathon in four years, which will be coming up in September. I'm feeling great right now so I thought I'd do okay, but I was shocked when I found out my chip time was 1:32:13, only 16 seconds slower than my all-time PR that I ran three years ago, the fall of 2011, when I ran all of my all-time PR's. I didn't win my age group but I didn't expect to since New York City is one of the most competitive racing communities in the world. My goal was to finish in the top 10 in my age group and I fini...
Read more

Race #232 - Grover Pumpkin Run 5k - Grover, NC - 10/26/13

Image
This was possibly the least organized race I've ever run. If all races were like this I'd probably revert back to being a mall walker. I arrived in Grover having read in the directions that the race was on "Main Street." Okay, that sounds simple enough since Grover is just a small town. Since the race was being held in conjunction with the Grover Pumpkin Festival I thought it would be easy to spot, and sure enough, there were hundreds of people gathered for the Pumpkin Festival, and it was nice. Lots of good-smelling food (although I was trying to watch my diet), great entertainment with a band on stage that sounded surprisingly good I thought, and lots of people, many dressed in Halloween costumes. I found the nearest parking space I could find, which was probably at least a quarter mile from the action, and walked up to find the race registration area. I walked completely to the other side of the festival without seeing anything, so I asked three guys who were...
Read more

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

Image
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...
Read more

Race #274 - Myrtle Beach Mini Marathon - Myrtle Beach, SC - 10/19/14

Image
For my running group, the Gaston County Runners (GCR), this has become our biggest event of the year. It was the fifth year of the Myrtle Beach Mini Marathon and I've run four of them. I'm not sure about the year I didn't run, but for all four years that I've been there the weather has been perfect. The last five miles or so is straight down Ocean Boulevard, with a turn onto the new boardwalk to the finish line at the site of the old Myrtle Beach Pavilion. It's one of the best finishes of any race I've been a part of and I look forward to it every year. This is a pretty big race with more than 3,000 finishers in the half marathon, and this year the GCR had seven runners who finished in the top 3 in their respective age groups. For the third straight year I managed to win the 60-64 age group, this year with a time of 1:35:44. I'm happy with that time although it was on a flat course and was about 30 seconds slower than last week's Hokie Half Marathon,...
Read more

Race #214 - Mount Holly Springfest 5k - Mount Holly, NC - 05/04/13

Image
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...
Read more