The Old Runner

There weren't a lot of races around the Charlotte area this weekend, so I was excited when I found the Coon Dog Day 5k in Saluda, North Carolina. This sounded like it should be a lot of fun and it definitely met our expectations. This was the 48th annual Coon Dog Day celebration and I think the 5k race has been a part of the festivities for much of that time. Parking was a little bit of an issue but it was handled nicely by the volunteers. The race started and finished about a half mile from the parking lot so we walked to the starting line, but that's not too big of a deal of you're coming out to run a road race anyway. I liked the course but it was a challenging one. The first mile of the race was almost entirely uphill, followed by rolling hills in the second mile and, mercifully, a nice downhill finish in the last mile. I'm now in my fourth week of Weight Watchers and I'm not positive what my "official" weight is (my official weekly weigh-in is o...

The Bethel community just outside Waynesville provided the setting for the popular 2003 movie, “Cold Mountain,” and it’s hard to imagine a more beautiful area for a race in the autumn. This was the 17th year that the Bethel Half Marathon was held on the second Saturday in October. Unlike road races that are held in larger cities such as Asheville or Charlotte, this race depends on the support of the local non-running community to serve as volunteers, and they do an amazing job. As soon as we arrived at around 7:30, about an hour before the start of the race, just outside the door to the middle school gym there was already a table set up with a variety of homemade sweets such as brownies, hot coffee, and more. The race route was manned by not only the local residents but also by several different volunteer fire departments and EMT services as well as six motorcyclists who traveled back and forth along the course looking for anybody who needed assistance. At the end of the race there wa...

I guess I should have read my review of last year’s race before heading off to Asheville. For some reason I forgot how many hills there were in Asheville and how steep they are.  One thing I did know in advance though was that I’m not running quite as well as I was a year ago. My current knee problems really aren’t all that bad but I’ve been having to change my training so I’m doing less running and it’s been obvious in races over the past few months. Last year I was 2nd in my age group with a time of 1:39:55. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect this year but I felt like I’d be lucky to finish in 1:45.  My assumptions were correct and this year’s time was 1:43:15. I was a little disappointed to finish 4th in my age group but I rationalized that since there were 43 in my age group I was still in the top 10%, so I really don’t feel too bad about it. The emcee announced at the beginning of the awards that today’s race was the largest race ever held in Asheville, with a total of a...

In my quest to run eight races in the current season of the Asheville Track Club Grand Prix series, I pried Granny out of the bed at 4 o’clock this morning and off we headed for Weaverville, just North of Asheville. I told her the race began at 8:30. It actually began at 8:00 but I wanted to add a little emergency padding just in case. We made it with an hour to spare and she got all righteously indignant and promised to start checking the starting times, but she never does, and lucky for me she also doesn’t read my blog. The natives assured us that there weren’t many hills to contend with, but as we approached the vicinity of North Buncombe High School, where the race would start and finish, we were reminded not to trust the judgment of those who travel day in and day out in an area where every paved surface reminds those of us from the Piedmont of the Thunder Road roller coaster. It really wasn’t as bad as we thought it might be though. Every uphill had a corresponding downhill (fun...

Wow… Race #80… a milestone of sorts, or at least a number divisible by 10. This was my second time around the hills and valleys of the Black Mountain Greenway Challenge 10k. The hills are brutal pretty much anywhere in the Asheville area, but it kind of makes the hills down in the Piedmont a lot easier to run when we get back home.  In last year’s race ( Race #26 ) my time was 49:47 and I walked a total of 10 times using the Galloway method. I’ve learned a little since then and am in better shape than I was a year ago so I expected to run a little faster this year. The Galloway method has been replaced by heart rate monitoring, so now instead of checking my pace throughout the race I try to run at about 92% of my Maximum Heart Rate. Nothing terribly scientific about the 92%, but after experimenting for a few months that just seems to be where my body feels most comfortable.  Something I’ve noticed in my last couple of races is that I’m gravitating towards a little higher hear...

After so many races being canceled because of cold weather, it was great to be able to run two races this weekend. I was looking forward to returning to this race in Fletcher, hoping to vindicate myself after last year’s dismal 9th place age group finish. Last year’s Frostbite 5k in Fletcher was  Race #20  for me, and the last 5k that took me more than 25 minutes to finish. My time last year was 25:29; this year I managed to slice about four and a half minutes off that to finish in 21:02, first place in my age group. I do realize that at my age (I’ll be 58 next week) I might start going the other way before long, but for now I’m enjoying the increasingly better race times. I had the good fortune to talk to a couple of great senior runners after the race who had both begun running in their fifties. Jim Grodnik is now in the 70-74 age group and ran today’s 5k in 22:02… only a minute behind my young whippersnapper time. Jim said he continued to improve for ten years and ran his ...

Last week our half marathon in Myrtle Beach was snowed out, and fortunately for us, so were all the rest of the races in the Carolinas, and many of those races were rescheduled for this week. There were some good races in the Charlotte area that we hated to miss, but there were a couple in Asheville that were part of the Asheville Track Club Grand Prix series. I’m trying to run at least ten of the ATC GP races this year so we headed for the mountains. As you might expect, the weather was a little cooler up in Asheville than Charlotte, but it was still in the mid to upper 50s and both races were in the afternoon during the warmest part of the day. As we approached Asheville everything was still white with the snow that has been falling for the past month in the North Carolina mountains, but by Sunday afternoon the unseasonably mild temperatures had erased most of the evidence that it was still winter. It was our first time running the Black Mountain Valentine 5k. In an area with so man...