The Old Runner

The Cotton Row Run marks the end of the Running Journal Grand Prix season. This is my fourth year competing in the Grand Prix and the fourth time we've traveled to Huntsville for this final race. It's been one of my favorites each year. On one hand it marks the beginning of the summer season, and since I love running in warm weather I'm always excited about that. On the other hand, for each of the four years it has marked the end of a successful season for me in the Running Journal Grand Prix. I was the Grand Masters Champion for two of those years, the 55-59 Age Group Champion one year, and this year I won the Senior Grand Masters Championship for the season. For me as a runner, winning the Running Journal has been my big goal of the year, and it's been a lot of fun but I've decided this would be my last year. Traveling to races all over the Southeastern United States gets expensive, and the older I get the less I like taking those long road trips. My wife's ...

Since it was the RRCA (Road Runners Clubs of America) state championship I decided to make the trip to Cary and give it a shot. It was a cloudy day and before the race I thought it would be good to switch to the clear lenses in my video glasses. As I was switching the lenses a small piece of plastic broke off at the top and exposed the wiring. I decided it would be best not to get it wet, so I didn't wear my glasses and don't have a video or pics for this race. I was glad to see Peter Asciutto from Vac & Dash there, and in addition to taking some photos he gave out the RRCA state championship awards (he's the RRCA State Representative). I won the Senior Grand Masters, so that's nice, but I really had a hard time with this race. There were way more hills than I expected, in addition to probably 8 or 9 miles of unpaved roads (or I guess it was the Umstead bridle trails). I'm a road guy and don't really like getting off the pavement if I can help it. I thou...

There were races all over the place this past weekend and I didn't decide which one I would run until Saturday morning. I ran the Beach Blast last year and it was a lot of fun so I decided to run it again this year. It's one of Peter Asciutto's Vac & Dash races, which are always good. With his quirky races and non-stop promotional abilities, Peter has turned the small city of Albemarle (population about 15,000) into a running mecca. I would be willing to bet there are more runners per capita in Albemarle than in any city in North Carolina, and possibly more than any community in the entire nation. As I've been doing lately, I did a video of the race and I'll include some photos as well to tell the story. Here's the video... Before the race I asked Sharon Davis about the hills (I never remember those kinds of details). She gave us a hill-by-hill account of what we could expect. "It starts out with just a little uphill incline..." ...

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...