The Old Runner

For the past couple years on this date I had run the half marathon in Travelers Rest, South Carolina, but this year since I've decided to cut back on the half marathons I opted instead for the Race for the Grasshopper, a well established 5k (I think it was the 30th year) held at the Cowpens National Battlefield, which is not too far from Gaffney. What struck me more than anything about this race was how many great runners there were who were over 50 years old. The Upstate of South Carolina has a reputation of having some amazing runners and a bunch of them were there. I did manage to end up in 1st place in the 60-64 age group at 21:23 (my best 5k time since last July), but only because 64-year-old David Spark came in 2nd in the Grand Masters with a time of 20:44 and I was bumped up. Even more remarkable than that were the times of 53-year-old Susi Smith (20:20), 57-year-old Dian Ford (20:33), and 72-year-old George Luke (21:17). It's not terribly surprising since all th...

It was 25 degrees when I woke up at 4 a.m. and I had no intention of racing since cold weather and I don't get along. Then about 5:30 I noticed that the full "Prefontaine" movie was on YouTube. "Nice way to spend a cold Saturday morning," I thought to myself. Well, that didn't last long. A full 7 minutes and 29 seconds into the movie I was all pumped up, so I put on my running clothes and headed out the door. This was the inaugural 5k memorial race dedicated to Joe Davis, who lost a battle with drug addiction a few years ago. The race was managed by Start2Finish, the same people who did a great job with the Huntersville Half Marathon recently. There were 474 pre-registered runners, which is quite a big local 5k, especially for this time of year. Of course a lot of people didn't show up but there were still around 400 finishers. I wore two Under Armour Cold Gear shirts with a singlet on top as well as tights (usual for me in the winter) and my lig...

One of my New Year's resolutions is to stop wasting so much time writing my blog, so don't be surprised if I keep it short. I do want to keep documenting my races and anybody interested is welcome to see how I did, but even I don't want to read (or think) about all of the minor details. This race and the full marathon were added on to the Freedom Park Ultra 24-hour race, which is the main attraction. After finishing the Huntersville Half Marathon in December in 1:42:00 I wanted to fit another half marathon in and see if I could get back under 1:40, which I managed to do -- barely -- with a time of 1:38:58. It was just 3 seconds slower than in this same race last year though so I'm happy with my time. I'm hoping I can stay under 1:40 for a while longer. I was also glad to see that my splits were much more even than I usually run, with my fastest mile (#3) being 7:11 and my slowest mile (#11) being 7:55. The race is on the 1-mile walking track next to Freedo...

When I ran that first 5k a little over four years ago back in September 2008, I really didn't have any aspirations other than just being able to finish that particular race, but by the time I reached the finish line I was hooked. I didn't have any idea what the future held but I wanted to see if I could keep it up for a while and see how things worked out. Things have worked out better than I could have imagined at that time. I still don't know what the future holds. All I can do is run one race at a time and hope that there's at least one more race left to run. I've got a quote posted in my office that I read often that says, "You're never too old to start, and it's always too soon to stop." The Mount Mourne Volunteer Fire Department Elf 5k is a race that I avoided for a couple years. It just didn't sound like it would be that great although some of my friends touted it as a favorite. I finally gave it a try last year and it was great, and...

We couldn't have asked for better weather for a December half marathon. This was the second year it was held and I missed it last year because it was held on the same week we were in Hawaii. I signed up a couple months in advance at a bargain price, and I was pleasantly surprised by how well the race seemed to be organized. The only real issue I heard from runners is that there are a few places in the race where we're running on some narrow roads where the traffic was fairly heavy. I noticed those areas myself but didn't have any problems with it, although it did cross my mind that it wouldn't take much for a disaster to occur. One runner told me that a driver came up in back of him and started blowing his horn. Other than that, everything was great and it's a race I'll look forward to running again in the future. I thought the course was great except for those high traffic areas, with most of it being through up-scale quiet neighborhoods with wide streets. T...

Oops... It's been five days since the Turkey Trot and it keeps slipping my mind that I'm supposed to write a blog entry about it. I'm preoccupied with other things and I'm not really in blog mode but, as usual, I figure I can write a little something for at least as long as I can keep running. There's no big news and I'm slower than I was last year, finishing this year's Turkey Trot about a minute and a half slower than last year (35:02 this year as opposed to 33:13 last year, which is my 8k PR). I knew going in that I'd be slower. I guess I shouldn't be terribly disappointed since I finished 2nd out of 50 runners in the 60-64 age group and 232nd overall out of 4,233 runners, which is in the top 6% overall. For some reason over the past month I seem to have one foot in the grave and the other one on a banana peel and things haven't gotten any better. Since I've run 198 races now I'd really like to finish out 2012 with exactly two mo...

This is the only race I've never missed -- five straight years now beginning in 2008 just a couple months after I began running. For every one of the first four years it was my fastest 5k race of the year. Although I haven't been in exactly miserable shape, I knew I wasn't in great shape and there was little chance that I could beat the 20:31 time I ran early in 2012 at the Cupid's Cup 5k in Charlotte, and even less chance of being in the neighborhood of last year's Santa Scramble time of 19:42. I actually thought about just skipping the Santa Scramble this year since I'm planning on running the Turkey Trot this coming Thursday, but I figured I might as well see how far I've fallen in the past year. Turns out I've fallen quite a bit, with this year's time of 21:14 being 1:32 slower than just a year ago and my second slowest Santa Scramble time ever, with the 2008 race being the only one slower, and I had only been running for a couple months at t...