New Year's Resolution Run

For many years, it has been my habit to run on this first day of the year, even in the most extreme conditions.  From 2004 through 2020, that run was part of an annual event called the New Year’s Resolution Run hosted by the Highlands Roadrunners Club, which officially ended in 2020 (largely due to Covid).  It was surprising how many runners and walkers would show up on January 1.  One year it was so icy that a handful of us tip-toed very carefully down Main Street in the sun and back.  But at least it was a run, and at least it indicated our dedication.  Or what my sensible wife would call “Not Right in the Head.”

 I have photos that long-time friend and HRC member Bob Sutton faithfully took for every one of those years.  It is poignant to look at those photos now, all of us older, some of us gone forever.  Here is the photo from 2004.  That is Richard Tankersley, third from the left in the rear, and (perhaps) Don Paulk, second from the left, both of them dead now.  I am in the center, with daughter Katy in front of me.  And to the left of her is Morris, and Vicki and Thalley in front of him – the four of us still run on Saturdays.  But we no longer look as young. 

Here is the photo from 2020, only two months before Covid shut the whole world down and we discontinued the event.  I’m in the rear toward the left.  Brian and his dog Jaxon, kneeling on the right, still run with us on Saturdays. 

I did not take a photo this morning because I was the only one who showed up.  It was windy and cold, and I encountered only two or three others out walking and running, all of them strangers to me, visiting Highlands for the holidays.  I completed only two miles, but they were filled with gratitude, and with the memories of past Resolution Runs and all of those other runners and walkers who were Not Right in the Head.  And then I returned home and entered my mileage in my new running log.  That brings my total mileage up to 33,628. 

Siempre adelante, nunca atrás – always forward, never back.

2025 Annual Report

On December 31, runners and non-runners alike often review what they have accomplished in the past year.  Now that Martha and I are both in our seventh decade, we are focusing more and more on a healthy lifestyle for the duration, which involves not just daily exercise but a good diet, good relationships, managing stress, and many other factors.  As a wise man has said (the anthropologist Ashley Montagu, as far as I can determine), “The goal is to die young as late as possible.”  We should be more focused on a health-span rather than a life-span.

But since this is ostensibly a blog about running, I will limit 2025 to that one activity, which for me is the cornerstone of my fitness.  Like many runners, I am an obsessive record-keeper, and I maintain not only a spreadsheet of all of my races over the years (220 so far), but a daily running log.  My own running log is recorded in a weekly “At-a-Glance” diary that I started 30 years ago, in 1995.  (I ran quite a few miles before then, but I didn’t record them.)  It has become more and more difficult to find this specific ancient spiral-bound diary since most runners now keep their running logs on various devices and apps.  But I have not yet gone paperless, and I stubbornly cling to my faithful running log, in which I enter my daily mileage, a description of the running workout I completed, my daily weight, and other exercise statistics.
 

There they are, 30 running logs arranged in order on a shelf in my study.  If I want to take a trip down Memory Lane I can choose one at random and be surprised at the kinds of workouts I once completed - long runs exceeding a week of running these days, mile repeats, tempo runs, hill climbs. 

I record my mileage at the end of each week and at the end of each year.  This year I ran only 315 miles, the fewest miles I have recorded in a humble career that recorded 1,578 miles in a single year back in 2005, and a lifetime mileage of 33,626.  I had a few non-running injuries this year, but the end of the year is no time for excuses.  It’s time for looking ahead, making new resolutions, and being optimistic.  And that overall mileage number sometimes astounds me – it’s much farther than the earth’s circumference.  But as any runner can tell you, it is not very large in comparison with that of an elite distance runner. 

A line graph of the data looks like this:
 

It it is only natural that each decade has found me running fewer and fewer miles.  And I am sure that line will continue heading in the same direction.  I am older and I am also slower - a graph of my finish times would look the same.  As I have recounted in this blog in the past, I once lamented to a fellow septuagenarian runner while waiting for race results, “The older I get, the faster I was!”  His immediate reply was a good once: “Yes, but you're still the runner that you are, right now!”

So today I will write 2026 on the cover of my new running log and turn ambitiously to the first page.  I have not run since Saturday because temperatures have been in the low twenties and wind chills in the teens and single digits in Highlands.  But I will run tomorrow, one way or another, and fill in that first blank page in a brand new year.

Black Mountain Turkey Trot

What a great race the Black Mountain Turkey Trot was this morning!  The website described it accurately:

Challenge yourself on our professionally designed 5K course winding through Black Mountain's charming historic downtown and picturesque neighborhoods. Every step takes you past stunning mountain vistas and welcoming storefronts decked in holiday charm. With chip timing for accurate results, competitive runners can push for a personal best while casual participants enjoy the festive atmosphere at their own pace.

We "casual participants" drove over to Black Mountain yesterday and picked up our race packets at Pisgah Brewing, where some runners were sitting congenially around tables making their race plans over pints of beer.  The shirt is technical and very attractive.

We were told that there were 600 runners signed up and the race was sold out, which was great for what I believe is an inaugural race.  We left the brewery and drove into Black Mountain, and while Martha did some shopping, I diligently scoped out the areas designated for race-day parking and studied the course map.  Then we returned to the hotel for an early dinner at the on-site restaurant, the Woodfire Bar & Grille, where we had learned that one of the items on the menu was farfalle pasta with a light tomato sauce, fulfilling our customary pre-race dietary needs. 

As I have grown older, and now that I have run 220 races, including 20 marathons and 20 half-marathons, I have relaxed my rigid standards as a runner, including pre-race preparation.  When training for marathons, I would often not drink any kind of alcohol for several months.  In recent years, I have experimented with a relaxing glass of red wine the night before and found that it has not affected my performance at all.  Martha joined me in enjoying some excellent Biltmore cabernet sauvignon with the pasta.  Outside, the trees were beginning to shake vigorously in the cold wind, and as promised by meteorologists, the temperature began to “drop like a rock.”

By this morning, it was 29 degrees and the wind gusts were up to 25 mph, for a wind chill of 17 degrees.  

I went outside for my morning Tai Chi and, as I customarily do on race morning, and to “check conditions.”  Conditions were very cold and windy!  I knew it was going to be like this, though.  I had been watching the forecast all evening, and at 4:00 a.m. I awoke and made what in retrospect was a wise decision, which Martha willingly agreed to as well.  Have I mentioned that I have relaxed my rigid standards as a runner?  The result of that relaxation means that I will no longer run races when the wind chill is several degrees below freezing, nor in pouring rain, both of which I have done many, many times before.  Martha has described this past mental deficiency as “Not Right in the Head.”

So congratulations to the 600 runners who braved the wind chill and finished this great race!  Back in the day I would have joined you.  In fact, the race results revealed that, had Martha walked as she had planned, she would likely have taken second place in her age group (faster than 57 minutes), and had I done the same, I would certainly have taken third place, since there were only two other men in my age group.  But “would have” is not something to consider once you have made a decision.  There will be other races.

We happily went downstairs for a light breakfast in the same Woodfire Bar & Grille, which had been transformed overnight into a breakfast buffet, and then sat by the fire in the lobby drinking our coffee and exchanging Thanksgiving greetings with family and friends.  And then without any regrets whatsoever, we drove to one of our favorite restaurants, Season’s at Highland Lake Inn, and enjoyed a sumptuous Thanksgiving buffet. 

And gave thanks for all of our blessings.  The thing to take home on this holiday - perhaps my favorite holiday of the year - is not a second- or third-place trophy, but a heart of gratitude.

Glorious Days

The cool, dry days of fall have finally arrived  in Highlands after one of the rainiest summers that I remember.  Rainy days that made running difficult, that brought out more gnats and mosquitos than usual, and that on one luckless day in August resulted in my slipping and falling on our rain-slickened stone sidewalk, clutching to my chest a circular saw and a drill.  I was left with very interesting circular-saw-shaped bruises to my chest and a trip to the Urgent Care center in Franklin for an x-ray to determine whether or not I had broken any ribs.  I know something about broken ribs.

Fortunately, my ribs were badly bruised but not broken, and so the slow, gradual process of healing proceeded through August and September.  Finally, within the past two or three weeks, I have been able to resume morning pushups again!  And then in October the weather began to change, with bright blue skies and cool air - perfect running conditions.  Everywhere around me on my morning runs, the trees were simply beautiful!  My usual route was transformed.

I missed some races I had planned to run this summer, but that was all right with me.  Perhaps the forced down time was a benefit after all.  Every runner, especially an aging one, should take a complete break from running periodically, planned or unplanned, and I have felt the past two weeks better than I have in a long time.  Monday, I rambled on unaccustomed roads, taking walking breaks whenever I felt like it.  And today I did the same, even venturing down the Franklin Road and through the Will Henry Stevens bridge at the entrance to The Bascom.  I have not done that all year. 

New route, new adventures.  Temperatures have warmed to the 60s in the afternoons, and the Walhalla Road is still golden with November color.  These are the days we need to enjoy and savor because they will not last long.  November will turn to December, cold weather will come.  So I am grateful for each of these glorious days!

Azalea Festival 5-K

I have not run a race in six months, since the Octoberfest 5-K in Walhalla on October 19.  Since that race, I was in Italy in November for five weeks and did next to no running (although a great deal of walking).  And following a hard fall on February 14 that fractured three ribs, and banged up a knee in ways still to be determined by my orthopedic doctor, I went another five weeks without running.  Recovery has been slow, but I signed up for this small race in Pickens, South Carolina, a month ago because I knew I needed to have a specific goal.

It was a perfect day for a race – overcast, temperatures in the 60s, and a nice shady course beginning and ending at the Doodle Park, where there was a train depot and exhibit.  The Park is at one end of the Doodle Trail, a 7.5-mile rails-to-trails greenway between Easley and Pickens, wide, asphalt-paved, with an easy grade, built on the bed of the so-called Doodle Line.  The railroad used to run between the two cities and was named that because the freight engine could not be turned around so had to run backwards from Easley to Pickens, looking like a “doodlebug” according to a sign posted at the depot.  I learned that a “doodle” is “said to have derived from the insect-like appearance of the units, as well as the slow speeds at which they would doddle or ‘doodle’ down the tracks.”

It was an appropriate name for this old runner, running at slow speeds due to recent injury and as a result being woefully out of shape, who lined up with two hundred other runners to run a course that was surprisingly steep for the first two miles.  Instead of the Doodle Trail, we began on city streets that climbed uphill through suburban Pickens and then out into the countryside, finally turning to pick up the Doodle Trail in the final mile, the most pleasant part of the run.

I enjoyed myself, as usual, by chatting with the other runners, including two young women I was leap-frogging with who kept taking walking breaks so that I would pass them, then they would pass me..  The younger of the two said if was only her second race.  I told them it was my 220^th race.  My legs were feeling heavier and heavier, and it turned out that the first mile, mostly uphill, was my fastest.  But neither of my knees hurt, which was something of a surprise and a piece of information to relay to my orthopedic doctor when I see her next Tuesday.

I did not expect to place in my age group – first place was taken by another 76-year-old man, a short, wiry veteran who ran an amazing 26:33.  The last time I ran that fast in a 5-K was in 2013 (when he was probably running sub-20).  Still, the finish line is always a reward, and I was grateful once again merely to finish, to attain another goal, on such a beautiful morning where the azaleas were blooming and the petals of flowering trees were spread out on the trail underfoot.

Every finisher received a nice wooden award medal, and the first-place age-group winners each received something I had never seen before in a race, a potted azalea plant, which would be a lovely reminder of your victory every spring when it bloomed.  We spent the rest of the afternoon walking up and down Main Street past the many tents set up there, enjoying the Azalea Festival and its crafters and vendors, eating lunch at an upstairs window table (sandwich and a nice IPA) while watching festival-goers walking below.  The race finishers were easily identifiable by their blue shirts which loudly shouted in huge letters 5-K.  But it was a technical shirt, and I never complain about shirts or awards, having been a race director myself for many years.

There was also a good live band playing at the other end of the street in a park, which we sat and listened to for awhile.  The lead guitarist was exceptional, and a bit of a showman as well, playing with his teeth and behind his neck on some of the Stevie Ray Vaughan numbers.  The sun had come out, and we rambled back through the countryside top-down in our Mini to Clemson, where we stopped for appetizers and margaritas at Tipsy Taco before making our way back up the mountain. 

We doddling, doodling old runners like to celebrate even humble victories!

Half-Milestone

It has now been a little over four weeks since I fractured three ribs in Atlantic Beach.  Over the course of my running career of some 44 years, I have faced many setbacks, some caused by injuries such as tendonitis or pulled hamstrings, some necessitated by eye and hernia surgeries.  I think the longest I have gone without running may be last year when we were traveling in Italy, when except for one memorable three-mile run in a park in Florence upon our arrival I did not run for about six weeks.  I did walk an estimated 75 miles during that trip, though, and I resumed running pretty quickly when we returned in December.

This recovery has been different than other ones, and I have not always known what to expect from day to day.  I have never broken bones before, and I read on several sports websites that I should expect down time of four to six weeks.  But ultimately it is up to me to decide when I can begin running again, and what kind of physical activity I am capable of doing.  I have progressed from being able to sleep only in a chair at night and standing/sitting with difficulty to lifting light weights and walking up to three-and-a-half miles.  

Today was a milestone.  My plan this morning was to walk one mile in Highlands, despite a temperature of 37 degrees and a brisk northerly wind.  After I had gone a block or so, I gingerly took that first step, jogging slowly down Fifth Street, with no pain at all.  I managed to complete an estimated one-half mile in all (so I suppose it should be called a “half-milestone”), taking walking breaks on the hills and toward the end.  I came home and proudly entered “0.5 miles” in a running log that has during the past few weeks only listed walking and light weights.  And I was elated!

I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself, because like all veteran runners I have learned the lesson of “too much too soon.”  But it is a start.  First a half-mile, then a mile, then two and three miles.  So this afternoon I am spending some time on the internet looking for a 5-K race to complete this spring. 

Fractured

Valentine’s Day at Atlantic Beach this year turned out to be far different than we expected.  We had just enjoyed a four-day visit with Martha’s brother Scott, the first time we have ever had a guest with us here in the condo, and it was a good visit, sharing old family stories and introducing him to some of our favorite restaurants and places to see.  The day he arrived, we took him to Fort Macon and learned that he enjoyed local history as much as we did.  Sunday, our one sunny day, we had a chance to walk on the beach and Scott found some shells and sharks’ teeth.

That afternoon, we went to the Beaufort Historical Association’s Annual Valentine Party and visited the pretty Beaufort waterfront, then drove out to Harker’s Island to the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum.  Monday, we visited the Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores.  And on Tuesday, we took the ferry to Oriental, eating lunch at one of our favorite places, The Silos Restaurant, and then drove back for dinner at another favorite place, Amos Mosquito’s, before he left left for home on Wednesday morning.

The next day, we were anticipating a romantic Valentine’s Day dinner at another favorite restaurant, On The Rocks.  I had been feeling fine the past two weeks, increasing my mileage to 12 miles the week before Scott’s visit, and that morning I had a good workout at the Sports Center in Morehead City.  As it turned out, that would probably be the last time I would lift free weights or run for who-knows-how-long. 

We still don’t know the exact cause, but Thursday evening I began to feel nauseous.  I went to bed early, and thinking I might disturb Martha I slept in the guest bedroom recently vacated by Scott.  In no time at all, I found myself dashing to the guest bathroom and vomiting violently, and this continued throughout the night many, many times.  At one point, Martha found me on the floor barely conscious (I have since learned the word syncope), struggling to get to my feet again, and somehow amid this confusion, I must have fallen hard against the bathtub, toilet, or floor.  Martha had 911on the phone during the night, but I urged her to wait until the next day to visit the Urgent Care or the Emergency Room.  To make a long story short, Friday found me in the ER at Carteret Health Care, where they treated my nausea (which thankfully had subsided by then), and also found that I had fractured three ribs – numbers nine, ten, and eleven - in my lower back on the left side.  In addition to X-rays, they ordered a CT scan to insure no internal organs had been punctured.  I was released after five hours, and I have to say that without any exception all of the personnel, from the physicians to the nurses to the orderly who wheeled me in for the CT scan, could not have been more caring and professional.  

Martha contacted close family and friends and posted an abbreviated version on Facebook, and I was gratified for so many prayers from family and friends.  One of the most encouraging comments was from my old friend Dr. John Baumrucker, who said, “Six weeks and he will be fine.”  What a long time that seems to me!  But that time-frame is corroborated by the many articles I have read since then about rib fractures.  There is little that can be done to hasten the healing process – as one of the RNs said in the ER, the current treatment is to let the patient “just ride it out.”

So that is what I am doing:  riding it out.  I am slowly learning to accommodate to that painful area of my lower back, which has begun to display an ugly black-and-yellow bloom of a bruise.  I can stand up and sit down a little easier every day by learning to keep my back straight.  Lying down in bed is very painful, though, but thankfully my Saint of a wife, who has treated me with even more patience than usual, found a local business that rents lift recliners, which I have slept comfortably in for the past two nights.  Day by day, things are improving.  My appetite has returned, and following the advice of several physical therapists whose articles I have read, I am trying to move as much as possible, walking that fine line between pushing up to the pain (but not beyond it) and doing too much.  Baby steps.

And short-term goals.  We cancelled our reservations at On The Rocks, but I determined that we will not cancel those at The Island Grille for February 23, celebrating my 76^th birthday.  This afternoon, I walked up and down a corridor outside the small exercise room here at the condo, and then went inside and lifted five- and ten-pound weights in as many different ways as I could without causing pain.

Among the many lessons I have learned from all of this is, first and foremost, my gratitude to friends and family, my daughter (who offered to come here to help out), and especially Martha.  So, I suppose in a way it was a more rewarding Valentine’s Day than a nice dinner at On the Rocks, because I rediscovered the gratitude and forbearance and patience that are the hallmarks of a life-long love.  Thank you, Martha!  And in learning how to maneuver myself into and out of the passenger seat of our Honda, and how to sit and stand, I have a renewed appreciation for good health and fitness.  I wrote to our daughter on that first day back here in the condo:  “I have a renewed appreciation of how difficult it is to live with chronic pain, like you and Scott and Anne have for years.”  And she replied with a quote attributed to Robin Sharma:  “Good health is a crown on the head of a well person that only a sick person can see.”

Now the long struggle begins.  Will it really be as long as six weeks?  And will I “be fine?”  But as the title of this blog reminds me, I am a runner.  I have been in this place before.