2019 Race Summary

2019 (1st Half of Year)



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Race #467 -- Apple Festival 8k -- Hendersonville, NC -- 08/31/19

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This is my fourth year in a row to run this great 8k in the mountain town of Hendersonville. It's always well managed, and while the course does feel a little hilly, the elevation map says it's really not all that bad. I've won my age group all four times I've run it, but keeping me humble is George Luke, who's now 79 years old and has beaten me 3 of those 4 years, this time by about a minute. He's a phenomenal runner and holds multiple South Carolina state records. It'll be interesting to see how he does next year at 80 years old. I'd love to see him demolish some of the 80+ records. I'm writing this on Thursday following the race and the site says photos will be coming soon so I'm counting on that in my race rating. They always have some great photos taken by the local camera club and I talked for several minutes to two of the photographers whom I'd met before, so I might come back and update this post with a photo or two after the pics...
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Race #107 – Myrtle Beach Mini Marathon – Myrtle Beach, SC – 10/24/10

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I wasn’t quite sure what to expect of the inaugural running of the Myrtle Beach Mini Marathon. If the website and all of the promotion were any indication of this half marathon event, it would be great for sure, but you really can’t tell from just a website what you’re getting yourself into. Since the New York City Marathon is just two weeks away for me, this was a taper week that called for a long run of 12 miles, so it fit nicely into my plans. Linda was interested in it as well, and trained to run this as her second half marathon. We decided to wait and see how the weather forecast was shaping up before we committed ourselves, and by about Tuesday it was looking like it might be a beautiful beach weekend, so we went ahead and registered a couple of days before the pre-registration cutoff in order to save $20 each on the registration fee. There was no race-day registration and the last day you could register for this Sunday half was Saturday at the expo. The full registration fee of...
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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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Race #233 - Spooky Sprint 5k - Salisbury, NC - 10/27/13

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After the debacle at Saturday's race in Grover, I was looking forward to what I felt sure would be a much better race in Salisbury on Sunday afternoon. I had been looking forward to the Spooky Sprint 5k, partly because it would most likely be warmer than most other late October races since it was an afternoon race, and partly because it's one of those rare races that actually has a Senior Grand Masters division. If you're unfamiliar with the Masters categories, the Senior Grand Masters includes runners who are 60 or older, the Grand Masters are runners who are 50 and older, and the Masters are runners who are 40 and older. In some areas of the country those divisions are included most of the time in their races, but in this area they are rare. Some races in our region include a Masters category, and every once in a while there will be a Grand Masters, but I've seldom seen a Senior Grand Masters in this region except in the RRCA state championship races. Going into...
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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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