The Old Runner

I've been a little wary about the prospects of running a 10k since dropping out of the last 10k I ran in Gaffney a couple months ago. A pulled hamstring in the 4th mile left me limping towards the finish line and in the 5th mile I took a shortcut to the finish line and had my first DNF (Did Not Finish) in a race that I've ever had due to injury. In the weeks since then I cut my mileage to just a little more than half of what it had been. The hamstring actually felt pretty good after a couple of weeks of rest and I've run several 5k races since then but I've been a little spooked about racing the 10k distance since that time. I decided this would be a good week to give it a try on another 10k. I'd heard about the OrthoCarolina Classic 10k for the past couple of years and thought it sounded like a good one. Linda slept in and I headed over to Charlotte by myself. I didn't know a lot of people at the race, partly due to the fact that I haven't been running ...

I'm not gonna lie -- I'm a fair weather runner. I like it warm and I like it dry. Most runners seem to prefer running in colder weather, maybe 30-50 degrees; for me, a perfect race temperature is closer to 70-75 degrees. And if it's raining on race day, that's my cue to just roll over and go back to sleep. By Friday night, the 50% chance of rain forecast for Saturday morning had me about 50% on the side of not racing on Saturday. The distance from Gastonia (30+ miles) and the fact that there would be very few people I knew there made it even less likely I would go. I was just about ready to skip it altogether when Bill Weimer posted this on my Facebook page... When I got to my profile page on Facebook I was reminded of the new cover photo that I had posted earlier in the day... Oops... Ouch! I figured that come Saturday morning I would either be lazy or obsessed, and since I had insinuated less than 24 hours earlier I was obsessed I figured I'd bet...

At least partially because it's cheapest race you'll find anywhere ($6 registration fee if you don't want a shirt), the Great Waldensian Footrace has been held continuously in Valdese in conjunction with the Waldensian Festival for the past 38 years. This is a race that I've known about forever -- even in the days before I moved from Hickory to Gastonia 34 years ago -- but this was the first time I've run it. You can run either the 5k or the 10k -- they both start at the same time -- and both races have that same cheap registration fee. If you want a shirt (and I don't since I already have a lifetime supply) it's an extra 10 bucks ($16) to register on race day, but even that's a bargain. I'm not sure why the fee is so low. Maybe it's the same as when the race began 38 years ago and they just decided to keep it that way. Whatever the reason, it was a fun race and I'm on board now and hope to do this race every year from now on. I conside...

It's kinda weird, but after pulling my right hamstring yet again (that's the fourth time, but the first time this year) and thinking I might be slowed down for two or three months, after just two weeks I ran this race and finished 10th overall in 21:34, which was about the same speed I'd been running before my injury. Let me back up just a bit since I haven't posted anything on my blog about the injury until now. The Peach Festival 10k a couple weeks ago was to have been my 222nd race. I felt fine at the start of that race but about 2 miles in I started feeling some pain in my right hamstring. I was a little concerned but figured I could finish the race (6.2 miles) and then maybe take it easy for a few days and I'd be okay. Then, all of a sudden in the 4th mile I felt the same "pop" that I felt on those three previous occasions where I pulled my hammy, and I was reduced to limping through the last couple miles of the race. I thought I'd finish the ...

Nice race, and we had fun. I don't have a lot of extra time to blog right now so I'll cut right to the video I made with my new PivotHead video glasses... Click Here for Race Results * Regarding photos, I think there was professional photography for the race but I haven't found a link for the pics yet. I'll add the link once I find it. My Stats: Time:  28:08 Pace:  7:02 Age Group:  2 of  8 Overall:  44 of  466 (9.4%) Average Heart Rate:  174 Maximum Heart Race:  186 Age Graded Equivalent Time :  22:26 (75.13%) *************** * RACE RATING * *************** RACE COURSE 3 - Chip Timing: (3 points if yes) 2 - Starting Mat: (2 points if yes) 2 - Water Stops: (0)none  (2)normal  (5)extras [Gu, sports drink, etc.] 1 - Course Marking:  (0)bad  (1)good 2 - Course Scenery:  (0)bad  (2)pleasant  (5)extraordinary 2 - Mile Markers: (0)poor or none  (1)normal  (2)with clocks...

We chose this week to visit my daughter and her family at their house in Connecticut so we could run the Fairfield Half Marathon. Of course, we're always excited to visit our kids and grandkids but if we can also fit a race into the visit that's an extra bonus, and this looked like a good one. Linda also ran the half marathon and did great. It was our 34th wedding anniversary and neither of us would have dreamed 34 years ago that we'd run a half marathon at this stage of our life. Hope we can do it for our 50th anniversary too, but that's a while away, and by that time maybe a 5k will be a challenge. Now in its 33rd year, this is a great event. Since 1994 Runners World has listed it among the best races in the country, and it's been host to the National Masters Championship as well as the U.S. Women's National Half Marathon Championship. For me personally, I loved the race and the beautiful course but my diet for the week leading up to the race was a disas...

This race seemed to have a lot more hills than I'm accustomed to, or maybe I just wasn't feeling great. As we stood at the starting line, the lady in charge of the timing announced that if anybody wanted to change races between the 10k and 5k, that we should just let her know when we finish so she could change her records. That's all the incentive I needed to switch from the 10k that I had signed up for to the 5k. Even running half the distance it seemed to me that it would never end, and I could only imagine how things would have ended up if I would have run the longer distance. My video glasses are falling apart but fortunately they're still working, so I managed to get my viewpoint of the race on video. I'm including a few photos here and on my Facebook page I created a public photo gallery that you should be able to view. Click here for my Facebook photo gallery . I spent the entire race chasing fellow Gaston County Runner Michael Hershman. This...