The Old Runner

I've been a little wary about the prospects of running a 10k since dropping out of the last 10k I ran in Gaffney a couple months ago. A pulled hamstring in the 4th mile left me limping towards the finish line and in the 5th mile I took a shortcut to the finish line and had my first DNF (Did Not Finish) in a race that I've ever had due to injury. In the weeks since then I cut my mileage to just a little more than half of what it had been. The hamstring actually felt pretty good after a couple of weeks of rest and I've run several 5k races since then but I've been a little spooked about racing the 10k distance since that time. I decided this would be a good week to give it a try on another 10k. I'd heard about the OrthoCarolina Classic 10k for the past couple of years and thought it sounded like a good one. Linda slept in and I headed over to Charlotte by myself. I didn't know a lot of people at the race, partly due to the fact that I haven't been running

I'm not gonna lie -- I'm a fair weather runner. I like it warm and I like it dry. Most runners seem to prefer running in colder weather, maybe 30-50 degrees; for me, a perfect race temperature is closer to 70-75 degrees. And if it's raining on race day, that's my cue to just roll over and go back to sleep. By Friday night, the 50% chance of rain forecast for Saturday morning had me about 50% on the side of not racing on Saturday. The distance from Gastonia (30+ miles) and the fact that there would be very few people I knew there made it even less likely I would go. I was just about ready to skip it altogether when Bill Weimer posted this on my Facebook page... When I got to my profile page on Facebook I was reminded of the new cover photo that I had posted earlier in the day... Oops... Ouch! I figured that come Saturday morning I would either be lazy or obsessed, and since I had insinuated less than 24 hours earlier I was obsessed I figured I'd bet

At least partially because it's cheapest race you'll find anywhere ($6 registration fee if you don't want a shirt), the Great Waldensian Footrace has been held continuously in Valdese in conjunction with the Waldensian Festival for the past 38 years. This is a race that I've known about forever -- even in the days before I moved from Hickory to Gastonia 34 years ago -- but this was the first time I've run it. You can run either the 5k or the 10k -- they both start at the same time -- and both races have that same cheap registration fee. If you want a shirt (and I don't since I already have a lifetime supply) it's an extra 10 bucks ($16) to register on race day, but even that's a bargain. I'm not sure why the fee is so low. Maybe it's the same as when the race began 38 years ago and they just decided to keep it that way. Whatever the reason, it was a fun race and I'm on board now and hope to do this race every year from now on. I conside

It's kinda weird, but after pulling my right hamstring yet again (that's the fourth time, but the first time this year) and thinking I might be slowed down for two or three months, after just two weeks I ran this race and finished 10th overall in 21:34, which was about the same speed I'd been running before my injury. Let me back up just a bit since I haven't posted anything on my blog about the injury until now. The Peach Festival 10k a couple weeks ago was to have been my 222nd race. I felt fine at the start of that race but about 2 miles in I started feeling some pain in my right hamstring. I was a little concerned but figured I could finish the race (6.2 miles) and then maybe take it easy for a few days and I'd be okay. Then, all of a sudden in the 4th mile I felt the same "pop" that I felt on those three previous occasions where I pulled my hammy, and I was reduced to limping through the last couple miles of the race. I thought I'd finish the