The Old Runner

Last year I pushed two grandkids in a stroller in this race and really enjoyed it, but I was looking forward to just running it all by myself this time around to see how I'm doing physically. My past few races have been slower and my 5k times have gradually climbed up over 22 minutes. I'm not really surprised since I'll be 63 in February, but I'd still like to hold off the inevitable for as long as possible. It turned out fine and I was able to sneak back under 22 minutes with a chip time of 21:42, winning first place in the 60-64 age group. This is a race I really like. The food is great, the course is pretty flat, the awards are fantastic (I won not only a nice medal but also a $50 Belk gift card), and both the pre- and post-race activities are held in the Wells Fargo Atrium in uptown Charlotte, which is one of the best wintertime race venues a runner could hope for. Linda and I parked in the adjoining parking deck and since she's still recovering from her rec...

It was my slowest 5k ever, but all for a good cause. According to organizer and Charlotte Running Club president Bill Shires, the world record for the most people tethered together for a 5k race was 116. That was a record Bill was confident we could break and he spent several months planning a strategy and gathering people to run. There wasn't a time requirement but it was imperative that everybody stayed tied together until every runner crossed the finish line. With the great organization and pre-planning we easily broke the record with 178 runners crossing the finish line. We were all tethered together with a system of bungee cords that was well thought out, and the biggest challenge was being sure that nobody tripped or  came loose from the tether system. Any disconnection at all by any runner would have disqualified us. Of course, the speed was dictated by the slowest runner. I was in the front row and everybody up there was wishing we could go a little faster, but there ...

My friend and age group competitor Ralph Shore is a regular year-round at road races, but he's especially noticeable in the Christmas races! In only its second year the ChristmasTown 5k in McAdenville has become one of Gaston County's biggest races, with more than 1,100 registered runners and 900+ finishers. Each December more than 600,000 visitors come to see the hundreds of thousands Christmas lights in this small town just outside of Charlotte. This tradition that began in 1956 has made McAdenville one of the most visited Christmas destinations in the country. The lights don't officially come on until December 1st, but this year on November 29th the streets were closed to traffic and the lights were turned on just for this race. It started and finished at a small park just off Main Street. Because of the number of runners and the fairly small street where the start/finish line was located, the runners were separated into five different waves of about 200 runners ...

This was my sixth time to run the Santa Scramble, one of my favorite 5k races of the year. It's the first entry in the Concord Christmas Parade so there's plenty of excitement along the way and enough people watching to keep you running your best. The weather was great again this year and my best guess would be that there were probably at least 10,000 people along the course. For the most part they weren't there for the race but instead were there for the marching bands, baton twirlers, and the appearance of Santa Claus, but there's still a lot more encouragement as you run than there would be if they weren't there. The best part of the Santa Scramble is the last mile, where there's a half mile of downhill running just before the finish. With the first couple of miles being mostly flat (with maybe just barely a little bit of an upward incline in places) it's the fastest 5k race I know of in the Charlotte area and mostly every year I've run it it'...

A funny thing happened recently when I wasn't looking. I forgot to renew the name "old-runner.com" and for some reason it was snatched up by someone who thought it would be a great name, so I no longer own it. Okay, I'm not married to the name, and actually I was a little tired of telling people there was a hyphen between the words "old" and "runner" when they asked for the address of my blog. After a little brainstorming I decided to stay fairly close to the original name and since it was available I decided on getting "theoldrunner.com" (or it's okay to capitalize the first letter of each word, like "TheOldRunner.com" to get to the blog. It's still just a Blogspot blog with the address being redirected to the blog, but if you're interested you can now get to this blog using a little easier-to-remember address. And yes, I know I'm not THE Old Runner... there's a bunch of us. But for now I've license...

Thunder Road is North Carolina's biggest racing event, now in its tenth year. More than 5,000 runners participated in the three races (full marathon, half marathon, and 5k). This was my first half marathon back in 2008, only three months after I had begun running, and when I finished that year I swore I'd never run another half marathon. Since then I've run about 70 more so I changed my mind and the half marathon has become my favorite distance. I ran the Thunder Road half in 2008, 2009, and 2010 but for one reason or another skipped the next three years before returning this year to run it again. It actually seemed like an entirely different race than in those earlier years. The expo was in the same location -- the Charlotte Convention Center -- but the race started and finished just outside the BB&T Ballpark, home of the Charlotte Knights, with the post-race activities in the adjacent Romare Bearden Park, a perfect race venue. Thunder Road has a big city race at...

I was planning to run the 10-miler at one of my favorite Gaston County races but after missing the previous weekend's races because of having a cold I decided to not overdo it and run the 5k instead. That was probably a good decision, although not as good of a decision as avoiding racing altogether and taking another recovery week as I managed to run my slowest 5k of 2014 at 22:56. I'd like to blame it on the hills but it was actually pretty flat except for a short stretch a quarter of a mile or so down Spencer Mountain and back up. There were some bright spots, most notably professional quality photographs taken by Matthew Gregory (I think he's part owner of the running store in Belmont but I'm not positive). Either way, he's apparently got a great DSLR camera and knows how to use it and took fantastic hi-res photos and posted them on Flickr for free. That's a huge perk for a race, especially since race photographers tend to charge outrageous prices for the...

In the second of two races on the weekend just before Halloween, I revisited the Spooky Sprint 5k, a fun 5k that starts at Catawba College in Salisbury and finishes on the school track. It's Rowan Rotary's big fundraising event of the year and they do an outstanding job with it. A lot of runners come out all dressed up for Halloween and there's a great kids fun run that's part of the festivities. It's one of the few races I know of in North Carolina that actually has Senior Grand Masters (ages 60+) awards in addition to Grand Masters (ages 50+) and Masters (40+) and most likely because of that there are a lot of older runners who participate. Last year and again this year I was fortunate to win Masters, so I'm sending out a big thank you to all the 40+ runners faster than me who didn't show up! The temperatures in late October at 2:30 in the afternoon (race time) would normally be in the mid-60s, but this was a near-record-breaking day with the thermomet...

With lots of longer races on the schedule for this fall I decided to take this particular weekend to run a couple of 5k's -- one on Saturday and one on Sunday. Since I tend to be fairly miserable anytime the temperature dips below 60 degrees, the 5:30 p.m. starting time of the Jack O Lantern Jaunt worked out perfectly for me on this mild autumn day. It's a nice small race held on the grounds Frank Liske Park in Concord, a beautiful 238-acre park that was once part of the working farm of Stonewall Jackson Training School, a boys reformatory built in the early 1900s. It's the first time I've run a race here and it's a special place for me because I was a member of that group of incorrigible boys who called Jackson Training School home for at least part of my youth. While The Beatles were producing their greatest music, Elvis was marrying Priscilla, and tens of thousands of people marched on Washington to protest the Vietnam war, I spent the greater part of 1967 lear...

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,...

The 40% chance of rain turned into 100% and the rain didn't let up until sometime later in the day. There was at least one bright spot: I won the 60-64 age group with a time of 1:35:20 and was also the first Senior Grandmaster to finish (age 60 or older) so that gives me first place in my division in the Running Journal Grand Prix after two races. Other than that the race was a complete washout for me. I think it would have been a beautiful course and a fantastic race on a clear day, but with the pouring rain throughout almost all of the race I was just glad when it was over. Pros: Scenic course if the weather had cooperated. A few hills but not nearly as bad as I expected for a race in a mountainous area. Well organized race with 300+ volunteers that did a great job under the circumstances. "No Frills" option allowed you to save some money by not getting a shirt. There was an additional "finisher shirt" given at the finish line. When somebody offered...