The Old Runner

This is always a fun and well-organized race in Concord that draws runners from a wide area. The weather report on Friday night called for rain so I had decided not to go, but when I woke up Saturday morning it was dry and the forecast had changed so I decided to lace 'em up, which was a good decision. I'm in that awkward stage of transitioning from being a pretty fast guy to a pretty slow guy, but slow is better than nothing at all. Race Name:  Bunny Run 5k Location:  Concord, North Carolina Date:  April 16, 2022 Race Rating:  79 Top 10 (Male): Top 10 (Female): Course: Graph of My Run: The gray area shows how my heart rate rose to right around 160 from the low 140s at the beginning of the race. The blue line represents my pace, which was pretty awful, and those major dips to the bottom are times that I walked... 12 if you're counting, and most of that was in the last 2 miles. Maybe that's just the way it's gonna go for me in my old age, but I'd like to eliminat...

This race has shrunk in size over the years, possibly because of Covid. Ten years ago in 2012, when the race was called "Run for the Money," there were 1,315 runners in the 5k, not counting the walkers who outnumbered the runners. This year there were only 372 runners, but it's still probably the biggest running event of the year in Gaston County. The purpose of the race is to raise money for local nonprofits, and the top two runners in each age division can allocate funds to the nonprofit of their choice. My choice was Gaston Residential Services.  Notably, the venue has moved from the center of downtown to the new Gastonia Honey Hunters baseball stadium a few blocks away. It's a beautiful stadium and I think it was a good move. The course is different but on some of the same streets, and I'm not sure who designed the course but I think there are way too many turns on it, but that's just my opinion. I didn't run well, but I never do these days, although I...

This was my first race since turning 70 in February and also my first race of the year. I hope if anybody is reading this that you'll forgive me for not doing a full write-up on the race. I'm not sure how many races I'll do going forward. I'd like to keep it up, but honestly, I'm not running great, even for a 70-year-old, so it's hard to get motivated for racing and even more so for writing blogs. I do want a record of my races though so I'll at least try to fill in the stats for the races I run. Oh, and if something really interesting happens I'll try to include something about that. Race Name:  Bear Foot 5k Location:  Bostic, North Carolina (Sunshine Elementary School) Date:  March 19, 2022 Race Rating:  104 Top 10 Overall: Course: Predominantly uphill going out and downhill coming back on an out-and-back course. Elevation: Weather at Start: Pace: You can see by the dips in this chart that I walked 11 times. Ouch. That's something I'd like to i...