The Old Runner

This was our third trip to Memphis for the Germantown Half Marathon, and every time we go Linda swears she'll never do it again. We love the race, but the 600-mile drive one way (or the expensive flight) makes her a little crazy. As for me, I'm like Chevy Chase in the movie "Vacation" -- half the fun is just getting there! Honestly, as much as I like the race I probably wouldn't go either if not for the bonus points in the Running Journal Grand Prix (RJGP). For me, the RJGP races are my big races of the year. They're all great races -- a mixture of big and medium size races throughout the Southeast -- and the top eight runners in each age group get points (100, 85, 70, etc.). For the last couple years you could earn bonus points for running three races that are close together in time (February 16th to March 17th) but far apart in distance, so some travel would be involved for anybody who runs all three. The three races are the Myrtle Beach Half Marathon,

We decided to take two days for our drive out to Memphis for Sunday's Germantown Half Marathon, driving around 400 miles on Friday then the other 200 miles on Saturday. To keep my running streak going (I think it was day #645) I planned on getting up at 5:00 a.m. and running a mile on the treadmill then getting Linda up and finishing the drive early so we could spend some time sightseeing in Memphis. As I was running on the treadmill at 5 o'clock on Saturday morning I thought about all the people who were getting ready for a Saturday morning race. It occurred to me that there might be a race nearby so after I finished my obligatory 1-mile run and went back to the room and looked up the Tennessee races on runningintheusa.com . I fired up Google Maps and started looking for one nearby and found one that was a straight shot up the highway only about 15 minutes away. I didn't know if it was large or small but that didn't really matter. Linda was still in bed but was

The Gate River Run is the largest 15k in the United States and USA Track & Field's National Championship. This year's race had 15,569 finishers, and if you count the 5k and kids runs there are around 25,000 total participants, so it's a huge race. I knew from past results that I couldn't place in the top 3 in my age group but hoped I could make it to the top 10. I ended up finishing in 1:06:39, which was 8th out of 294 in the 60-64 age group and in the top 5% of finishers overall, and I collected one of the coveted "Top 10% Finisher" hats that they give to the first 10% of the runners at the finish line. Since I recorded most of the race with my video sunglasses, I'll let the pictures tell the story. The only big disappointment concerning the race was that the battery in my glasses conked out just past the 8th mile of the race so I wasn't able to record the spectacular race down the bridge and to the finish line. It's maybe the best finis

It's kind of gratifying that I finished this race as 2nd Overall Male (and 3rd Overall since the 1st place female beat me) and I won a big, beautiful trophy, but it's a little troubling that it was my slowest 5k since June 2009. There's no doubt it's a tough 5k -- maybe the most difficult 5k I've ever run, thanks to two long hills, including one that people refer to as "Cardio Hill." On the other hand, maybe it just seemed hard to me and the hills weren't as bad as I imagined. By the time I hit the first hill less than a mile into the race I was already huffing and puffing. I knew that I had started out a little faster than I wanted to because of the way the race goes down the street at the beginning and hangs a left and everybody falls into single file until we hit the greenway. Somebody warned me ahead of time that you could get into trouble if you ended up behind some slow people so I wanted to get a good spot. If you watch the video you'll