The Old Runner

What better way to celebrate your 33rd wedding anniversary than by running a road race! I woke up bright and early this morning, dug out a wedding photo that I hadn't seen in years, and fired up the scanner so I could broadcast to the Facebook world that it was exactly 33 years ago today that Linda and I first tied the knot. We had actually gotten married in Gaffney, South Carolina, two days before on June 21st because of a mixup on getting our marriage license in North Carolina, but since nothing I could do or say would convince Linda that we were married until we had our actual wedding in the church two days later, we now consider the 23rd the official date. She's kind of old-fashioned like that. This was the fourth time we've run the Summer Breeze in the past four years. It's got a great atmosphere with the race beginning and ending in Freedom Park, and it's always good to see our Charlotte running friends, especially those who run the Run for Your Life Gra...

We had a good time at this new race set in Cannon Village in Kannapolis just a block from the North Carolina Research Campus. After running through the research campus we raced along the Kannapolis greenway for much of the race before circling back around to Cannon Village. The race was sponsored by the NC Music Hall of Fame and proceeds were to support this nonprofit that honors musicians and songwriters of all genres who are from North Carolina. This was the first race in what they plan on making an annual event, and I think it went well except for a couple of minor snafus mostly having to do with the awards. The awards were excellent -- and unique -- but unfortunately they combined both male and female runners into the same categories, and to top it off there were 10-year age groups. By their reaction to the disappointment with the awards I believe it was more of an oversight instead of trying to penny-pinch and save a few bucks on awards. I think that not being runners themselv...

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...

Over the past three years this race has kind of become my homecoming race. It's the premier road race in the city where I grew up, and even though it's like a roller coaster with all of the ups and downs and one of the most difficult races I run, I still love running it and look forward to it every year. Of course it helps that my old high school friend Bob Duckworth is the head of Cheerwine in Hickory, one of the big sponsors of the race, and he's been gracious to share one of the free sponsorship entries with me each year (we're talking about wearing Cheerwine shirts next year, which would be great). But aside from that, I'd be happy to pay my own way if I needed to and it would still be one of my favorites. Running through the streets where I grew up many years ago, past the houses where friends once lived (and some still live), and on streets where I once walked, or hung out, or drove, but never ran, I somehow have this great sense of thankfulness that here I ...