2018 Race Summary


2018 - 4th Quarter


2018 - 3rd Quarter


2018 - 2nd Quarter


2018 - 1st Quarter




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Race #212 - Run for the Money 5k - Gastonia, NC - 04/20/13

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It's nice to finally be settling in for some local races after all the traveling we've been doing for the past few months. This week's race was in our hometown of Gastonia, and it's the biggest local race of the year. This time around there were 1,235 finishers in the competitive 5k race and hundreds more in the 2k walk. The unique thing about this race is that in each 10-year age group the 1st place finisher gets to direct a $500 donation towards any local participating nonprofit group of their choice, and 2nd place directs $250 towards their choice. For the second year in a row I ran for Career Management Group (CMG), one of the lesser known nonprofit groups. They run Gaston Residential Services (GRS), which provides housing for handicapped adults. Linda's twin sister has been one of their clients for many years and they've done a beautiful job over the years in helping her to be as independent as possible despite being debilitated with cerebral palsy. She...
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The Finish Line

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After 15 years of having fun (mostly) at the races, it's finally time for me to hang up my running shoes. The last race I blogged about was #574, but I ran two more after that: the Ocean Isle Beach Half Marathon on October 25, 2024, and the Police Donut 5k the following week on November 2, 2024. After the half marathon, I felt generally fine, but the following week, I began having some back pain. I managed to run the Donut 5k without too much of a problem and felt pretty good despite having to eat a half dozen donuts halfway through the race. The day after the donut race, I took the day off since my back was hurting, and my right leg had also become painful. To make a long story short, over the next couple of weeks, I became unable to walk or even stand without extreme pain. I ended up seeing an orthopedic surgeon, who did an MRI that revealed a stress fracture in my right tibia, and a spine doctor, whose MRI showed a severely pinched nerve at L4. I ended up in a wheelchair for the...
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Race #110 – Santa Scramble 5k – Concord, NC – 11/20/10

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It was our third trip to the Santa Scramble in three years and was a lot of fun as usual. This was my first race since the New York City Marathon and things have been going nicely for me, as I seem to have survived with no injuries or other ill effects. I’m glad to finally be out of marathon mode, which is something altogether different than training for shorter races, and having figured out once and for all I’m not really too great at running marathons, I’m quite content to be facing nothing in the future longer than a half marathon. If you’re looking for the fastest 5k around, this one is probably the one to run, so you might want to add it to your calendar for next year. Each year it leads off the Concord Christmas parade so the course is lined with an estimated 20,000 people. About 99% of them are there to watch the parade so they’re not cheering for the runners, but still, they’re witnesses so if you have a little pride you’ll step up the running a notch just because people are w...
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Race #214 - Mount Holly Springfest 5k - Mount Holly, NC - 05/04/13

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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...
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Race #146 - Stanley Creek Massacre 10k - Stanley, NC - 10/01/11

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Y A Y !    I    W O N ! -- Sorry for the inordinate amount of horn-blowing, and I hope I didn't startle anybody, but I'm kinda giddy about the fact that I finally won a race. It's always been in the back of my mind that it would be so cool to actually be at the very front of a race. I'm a pretty fast guy for my age (59) and usually finish in the top 10-15% overall in races, and I've done pretty well in my age group, but when it comes to actually being first overall in a race, that's a position normally reserved for the very fastest and usually much younger folks. Since I only started running at the age of 56, I've never had to worry about whether or not I might actually win a race, and I've been quite content to just do well in my age group. A few times I've been fortunate enough to finish 4th or 5th overall, but there are almost always a few young guns out there who are more than happy to keep me firmly anchored in the reality of my advancing age...
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