2019 Race Summary

2019 (1st Half of Year)



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Race #519 - Goat Island Games 5k - Cramerton, NC - 05/07/22

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Like last year, this race was again too long by around 0.15 miles. The new 5-mile race was also long by about a quarter of a mile. In addition, there were 5-year age groups, which is good, but they stopped at age 60, which is not so good. Even worse, when they gave out the awards for the 5k they gave awards for the 60-64 age group instead of 60-and-over, so anybody 65 or over was just completely ignored. I was actually 3rd among the 60-and-over runners, but 3rd place was awarded to a 62-year-old who was behind me. This happened for both male and female runners in the 5k, although in the 5-miler they were included. At 70 years old, I think there should be 5-year age groups up to 80-and-over. Does anybody ever wonder how much harder it is for a 70-year-old to run a race than it is for a 20-year-old? Fifty years makes quite a bit of difference. Despite those complaints, I still like the race. It's close to home and Goat Island is a great place for a 5k race. There was also a professio...
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Race #564 - RAD Half Marathon - Asheville NC - 06/09/24

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Back during the years when I was doing my best running (2009-2017), the half marathon was my favorite race distance. During those years, I ran as many as 16 half marathons per year, and on an age-graded basis, the half marathon was my best distance. In more recent years I had trouble running long distances, so I cut the number of half marathons down and almost quit running them entirely. When my streak of 120 half marathons in a row under 2 hours ended in September 2022, I considered never running another half. It wasn't so much that finishing in over 2 hours was shameful, but I began having difficulty running the distance.  I turned 71 in February 2023 and had only run two 5k races after the previously mentioned September half marathon. Not being a cold weather runner anyway, I waited until April of 2023 to run another 5k, and by then my 5k times were slower than ever. I wasn't enjoying the races any longer, and when I began having a hard time keeping up with my younger runnin...
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Race #206 - Kings Mountain Gateway 5k - Kings Mountain, NC - 03/02/13

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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 ...
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Race #143 - Midnight Flight 10k - Anderson, SC - 09/02/11

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This was my third straight year of running the Midnight Flight 10k, the first race in the Running Journal Grand Prix. After running a disappointing time of 47:07 in last year's race I hoped to redeem myself by running under 45 minutes this year. Things worked out well for me and I chopped about 4 minutes off last year's time, finishing in 43:09 (with a chip time of 43:04), finishing in 1st place in the 55-59 age group. It was a little sad not having some of the Charlotte area guys there who I've run the RJ Grand Prix with over the past two seasons, but a couple of other Charlotte runners are there this year -- Butch Holt and Louis Messina -- so we've still got some representation from the area. I'll be switching age groups on February 27, 2012, before the end of the current season, so the only points I'll get will be in races before that date. I told Linda last year that I wouldn't run this series this year, but since I'll still be eligible for point...
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Race #567 - Koala Bottle Harbison Half Marathon - Columbia, SC - 07/07/24

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Well, that was interesting. In my zeal to run at least 20 half marathons this year, I found this one at the last minute and signed up. It was only about 100 miles away, so I could click off another half marathon with just a couple hours of driving.  I signed up right away, not bothering to read the race description. The next day (the day before the race), I found out it was a singletrack trail complete with plenty of roots, rocks, and obstacles that a roadrunner like myself is not used to running.  It was hot and muggy, with a dew point of 75, although being a warm-weather runner, I'd prefer that over 40 degrees any day. Before hitting the actual trail, the race began on a dirt road, and I could have stopped to walk but decided to try to keep running until I saw someone else walking. The green lines on the graph below represent walk breaks, so you can see that I didn't take a walk break until I was more than 2 miles into the race. By about 5 miles into the race, I was done. I ...
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