The Old Runner

For this year only, the OrthoCarolina 10k/5k Classic was moved from its normal location at the main OrthoCarolina location in Uptown Charlotte to the South Park Mall area. With a 15k on my schedule for next week and a half marathon in four weeks, I decided to just run the 5k option this time around. The Good I managed to barely squeak in under 25 minutes at 24:56. These days that's my goal.  Plenty of free parking at the South Park Mall location. Course wasn't flat but there weren't any huge hills. Professional photography pics were nice. Nice size race with 316 finishers in the 10k and 251 in the 5k. Big enough for plenty of age group competition and small enough that you don't get lost in the crowd. Shirt is nice and I actually got one despite signing up late. The Bad As nice as the pro photos were, they were also too expensive at $20 for a single photo or $50 for all of your photos.  Race Name:  OrthoCarolina 10k/5k Classic Location:  Charlotte, North Carolina Dat...

I've always had a touch of triskaidekaphobia , so when a memory popped up on Facebook this week saying it was the 13th anniversary of my first race, I cringed just a little bit. It didn't help when I did the math to see how many races I was averaging per year. When I divided my total races (507) by 13 I came up with exactly 39, which is 13 x 3. I'm happy to have averaged 39 races a year over the past 13 years, but I'm not really comfortable here so I'm looking forward to my next race before something bad happens. I didn't encounter any bad luck during the race, and it was actually one of my best 5k efforts of the year and was only the second time this year that I ran an entire race without walking. What Was Good A perfect race to commemorate the 9/11 World Trade Center attack that was exactly 20 years ago on this date, as the race was dedicated to the military and supported by the Stop Soldier Suicide organization. One of the flattest 5k courses I've run thi...

Every so often I get lazy and would rather do anything other than writing a blog entry. If that ever happens, you'll be able to tell because I'll either just completely dump the blog (I've done it twice over the years) or I'll just do some bullet points because that's easier than actual writing, but it does give a pretty good idea about the race. So here ya go. The Good It's one of Charlotte's biggest races of the year. It's the only race that allows you to run on the I-277 loop around Charlotte. Great finishers medal for all runners. Five-year age groups. Packet pickup/race expo is a pretty big event in itself if that appeals to you. The Bad The number of runners shrunk by about 1200 this year as opposed to pre-Covid (around 2800 runners this year and about 4000 in 2019). Maybe the drop was entirely due to the pandemic, or maybe there was just less interest for those who have already been there and done that. No packet pickup on race morning. Camp North...

Good race except it was about two-tenths of a mile too long, resulting in an extra minute or two of slower race times. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Big Ben Kassel, the overall winner, had it at 3.35 miles on his Garmin. Mine showed 3.24 miles, and I heard other varying distances from other runners. Either way, it wasn't my best showing even if it had been the correct distance, but not so terrible as my time of 27:45 might indicate. Aside from the distance discrepancy, there were lots of good things. The course scenery is above average, and Goat Island Park is a beautiful park along the South Fork River with playgrounds for kids, a fishing pier, and other amenities. The race was just one part of a day filled with different activities and contests (disc golf tournament, cornhole tournament, fishing tournament, ping pong competition, etc.) as well as live music. The race had a lot of uphill in the first half, going up to the high school, and quite a bit of downhill ...