Mills River Brewing 5-K

We have always liked Mills River, a rural area that we often drive through between Brevard and Asheville.  Aside from its scenic beauty, it also boasts five breweries within a mile or two of one another – Sierra Nevada, Burning Blush, Bold Rock, Appalachian Mountain, and Mills River Brewery – and we had learned there was a 5-K race at the last-named establishment.  Beautiful scenery (that we remembered as being relatively flat), a 10:00 a.m. start time, and a brewery with free beer at the finish – what more could a runner ask for?  The upbeat website promised a fun time for all:

Join us for an exhilarating day of fitness and fun at the Mills River Brewery annual 5-K Race and Family Fun Run!  Whether you’re a seasoned runner aiming for a new personal record or a family looking for a lively and healthy way to spend the day together, this event is perfect for all ages and abilities.  Set in a beautiful, community-friendly location, our 5K race offers a well-marked, scenic course suitable for competitive runners, while the Family Fun Run provides a relaxed and joyful atmosphere for families and children to jog, walk, or even skip their way to the finish line.  Enjoy a day filled with energy, laughter, and the spirit of community as we come together to celebrate fitness, family, and fun!

Martha was not sure she wanted to run this race due to an injured hamstring, and when we arrived and she had walked a few steps, she confirmed that it would be a mistake.  It was a perfect Spring day for a race, overcast, temperatures in the 60s, and as expected there were many children and dogs in attendance. 

I lined up with about 200 other runners on a gravel road adjacent to a large grass field, and when the race started I was relieved when we quickly turned onto paved roads – I do not do well on uneven terrain.  The route climbed uphill (my memory of “relative” flatness had been faulty), turned right, climbed uphill some more, and then turned right and continued to climb, about a mile of uphill running in all, before turning and going back downhill.  When I checked my Garmin watch after the race, I discovered that the course had 142 feet of ascent compared to 148 feet of ascent at our last race in Easley (see previous post). 

The course was a beautiful one, though, with brilliant freshly-mowed grass all around and azaleas and dogwoods blooming.  A light, misty rain came and went, cooling us off just when it was needed, and I enjoyed the fragrance of the flowering trees and grass.  And I really can’t complain about hills – I run them all the time in Highlands.  But I was a little put off by the last half-mile, which was a long loop around those large grass fields.

At least the grass had been recently mowed, and here and there someone had marked holes with an “X” in white paint.  Most of the runners (except for we “seasoned” and “competitive” runners) were walking at that point, as if out for a morning stroll.  I was happy with my time of 44:22, a little faster than my last race, and proud that I did not stop to walk the steeper hills as many others did.

I didn’t see anyone exactly skipping their way to the finish line, but it was a fun family event, with plenty of small children participating in the Fun Run.  One little boy in the restroom afterward asked me earnestly, “Did you do the Fun Run?”  I guess I didn’t looked seasoned or competitive at that point. “No, I ran the other race.  How did you do?” I asked him.  “I didn’t stop once!” he proudly announced.  “Good for you,” I said.  “You’ll be running the big race next year!”

The Brewery had plenty of picnic tables scattered out behind the building under tall trees, and we settled down with a very good IPA and waited for the awards, where I learned that I had taken third place in the 70-79 age group.  It was indeed a fun, family event.  And another good race - No. 216!

Pint Station 5-K

We signed up for the Pint Station 5-K in Easley SC a long time ago; it’s always good to have a race on the horizon.  The start time was 10:00 a.m. and it was only a 90-minute drive from Highlands, so it only required us to set the alarm for 5:00 to prepare.  That may seem early, but I can remember setting the alarm for 4:00 and even 3:00 for big races with 7:00 starts.  10:00 a.m. is a civilized hour.

Easley is a pretty little city which we have visited only a couple of times in the past, mostly to eat lunch at The Shuckin' Shack Oyster Bar, part of a small chain of restaurants, one of which we used to enjoy in Morehead City before they closed.  The plan was to run the race and then enjoy seafood and beer afterward, and it sounded like an excellent plan.  We arrived in plenty of time to pick up our race packets at the Pint Station, a tap room just down the street from the restaurant, and warm up a little before the start.  I found a nice park nearby with a gazebo and a fountain, the perfect place for pre-race Tai Chi.

For some reason, I had formed the impression that this race would be flat.  There is a railroad that runs parallel to Main Street (and railroad lines are invariably flat), and visiting here in the past we had not noticed many hills.  We could not have been more wrong, we soon learned.  Nearly 500 runners, many dressed in festive green St. Patrick’s Day attire, started off on Main Street, ran just a block or so, and then abruptly turned down a steep hill.  From that low point, the course turned right, then right again, to finish on Main Street, and at every turn we seemed to climb uphill.  I kept thinking, at some point we are bound to start going downhill to the finish, but through some mysterious quirk of physics it never did.  To make things more difficult, the last mile or so was on sidewalks, and the last quarter mile was on crowded sidewalks thronged with onlookers in front of the Shuckin' Shack and the Pint Station.

Martha had been walking on the treadmill in Atlantic Beach but had not logged many miles out on the roads as often as she would have liked.  To add insult to injury (or perhaps injury to insult), just a block from the finish line a small dog on the end of a long leash held by a careless woman ran out in front of her and tripped her, and she fell hard on the street.  She was helped up by a volunteer and finished anyway, but I am sure it affected her finish time.  Readers of this blog can see her bloodied knees in the photos if they look closely.  Nevertheless, and despite her protestations before the race that she might walk the entire course instead of running, she finished in a time of 38:33, first place in her age group.  I finished in 44:59 and waited at the finish for her to cross the line until I spotted her across the street and realized she had already finished.  At the award ceremony, I was surprised to learn that I, too, had taken first place in my age group.  Sometimes all you have to do is show up.

Older runners like ourselves have to wait a long time at the awards ceremony, especially in a race with five-year age groups (I was in the second to last age group, right before the 80 and over).  First, second, and third place podiums had been set up, which I have seldom seen in a 5-K race, and Martha gamely climbed to the highest podium for her award and photo.  As for myself, I waved, smiled, and remained standing behind a podium that seemed insurmountable to me.

It had been a beautiful day for a race:  clear blue skies, no wind at all, and a temperature of 60 degrees, which climbed into the seventies by the afternoon.  We enjoyed lunch at the Shuckin Shack as planned, along with a good IPA, and then walked around much of the afternoon to help our hill-battered legs recover.  Many others were doing the same, recognizable by their bright green race shirts, long-sleeved cotton with a picture of (naturally) a leprechaun on the front, Easley is a place we will visit again to enjoy its downtown parks, shops, and restaurants, and perhaps we might even try to complete this race next year when we are both in better condition, and hopefully will not be tripped by little dogs.

Roads, Trails, Hills, Beach, Kites, and Dolphins

Our time at Atlantic Beach came to an end, and after an unusually rainy and windy winter, warmer spring-like weather finally arrived.  We planned to leave on Sunday morning, and the forecast was for rain most of the day on Saturday – a good time to finish packing – so we considered Friday our last day to enjoy all of the things we love about this area.  Even though I had run two miles and gone to the Sports Center to work out with weights the previous day, I awoke early and was able to witness a beautiful sunrise only partially blocked by eastern clouds.  I decided to go for a final run before the 500-mile drive back to Highlands.  

I ran to the Fort Macon Picnic Area, then back on the trail through the maritime forest, then through the Sea Dreams residential area up and down steep hills, and finally out onto the beach – road-running, trail-running, hill-running, and beach-running.  Martha was on the beach just starting out for a walk to the Oceanana Pier and back, and we walked together for awhile, watching several kites being launched on the beach.

Then Martha said, “Look, dolphins!” and pointed out to the ocean, where we could see the dorsal fins of several bottlenose dolphins breaking the surface – our first dolphin sighting since we had arrived.

It has been a good Sabbatical this year – as much outdoor activity as the weather permitted, plenty of books read, and some poetry completed for my upcoming book.  We bid farewell to the unceasing sound of the surf every night, and look forward now to the silence of nights in Clear Creek valley and the pleasure of seeing friends and loved ones again.

Seventy-Five Years Old

Turning forty was memorable; the thing I remember most about it was asking Martha to promise not to place an embarrassing photo of me as a young boy in the local newspaper with the caption, “Lordy lordy, look who’s forty,” which was a popular thing to do at the time in Highlands.  Fifty was an even more significant milestone, and so was sixty.  I remember my sixtieth because Martha organized a surprise birthday party for me (and it really was a surprise) at Sapphire Mountain Brewing Company, attended by many of our friends.  It also marked my retirement from the Town of Highlands and the beginning of a short but rewarding second career as a Real Estate Broker for both of us.

Seventy-five was even more of a significant landmark – three-quarters of a century! – and we celebrated it quietly here in Atlantic Beach, just the two of us.  500 miles is a long way to ask someone, even a close friend, to drive for a birthday, and I was happy to spend it here, rather than in Highlands in cold February weather.  In fact, I have celebrated eight or nine birthdays here, often pursuing very special adventures.  One year we took the ferry to Cape Lookout, for example, and wandered across the sand dunes until we found the herd of wild horses that live there.  And one year we drove to Duck and had a nostalgic visit to a place where we used to spend a lot of time.

I try to spend my birthdays doing a little bit of everything that I enjoy the most, so of course running was at the top of the list for Highlands Roadrunner, and I had planned on a long run for this morning.  But the weather was not cooperating, so I re-scheduled the long run for Saturday and went to the Sport Center to lift weights instead.  On the way, I passed a brave young woman running on the sidewalk on Bridges Street wearing a light rain jacket and splashing through puddles, and I wondered if I was just becoming too much of a wimp with age:  I used to do that! I thought.  Miraculously, the rain had let up almost completely when I arrived at the Sport Center, so I parked, put on my hat, and started running in the neighborhood, up and down streets.  It was only a mile but it was a run on the occasion of my seventy-fifth birthday, and it even started raining again toward the end so that I was cold and wet and exhilarated and happy.

When I returned, I played my keyboard for awhile and worked on some poetry.  Running, exercise, music, poetry – a good way to celebrate a milestone.  And, while most people would think it the most boring thing to do on such an occasion as this, I asked Martha if she would play a game of Scrabble with me (but only on the condition that she not deliberately lose).  She did lose, just barely, and not (I think) deliberately but because of unlucky letters.  We were just in time for a glass of rosé prosecco that we had saved from our New Year’s Eve dinner at Shelton Vineyards (see post of December 31) nearly two months ago.  There were some thoughtful gifts from Martha – running socks, and a very unusual and special gift, $75 worth of dahlia tubers, which will be delivered this spring.  And then we drove the short distance to our favorite restaurant out here, Amos Mosquito, where we had celebrated Valentine’s Day last week. 

Fresh tuna, scallops, and shrimp – delicious!  And for dessert, we enjoyed a complimentary birthday treat, an Amos Mosquito specialty:  ‘Smores, with marshmallows roasted over our own "campfire" (adult supervision required).

My long run the next morning – seven miles – was a bit of a struggle (not many carbs in tuna or marshmallows), but very satisfying to complete on the first day of being a seventy-five-year-old runner.  That run brought my annual mileage thus far in 2024 (of course) to 75 miles. 

Martha had posted on the whiteboard early in the week:   Happy Birthday – seventy-five years young and still going strong.  And then she asked me if I felt like I was seventy-five years old, and I told her I did not.  There has been a gradual decline, of course, in race times and distances, which a record-keeping runner like myself cannot fail to notice.  But as I have said before in this blog, I am not the runner I once was; I am the runner I am right now!  And I am thankful for it.

Cocoa 5-K

We have a history with the Cocoa 5-K, a race held in conjunction with the annual Carolina Chocolate Festival in Morehead City.  The Festival, which according to its website “welcomes Chocolate Lovers From Everywhere,” is now in its 21^st year,” and we attended it once several years ago.  Crowds of Chocolate Lovers pack into the Civic Center to view and sample elaborate chocolate creations from 50 vendors, and there is even a pudding-eating contest, where competitors slurp up as much chocolate pudding as they can while their hands are tied behind their backs.  I threatened to enter the contest this year but Martha did not take the threat seriously.

The race has always taken second place to the Festival.  It starts at 8:00 a.m., early enough, we always joke, for runners to finish up and get the hell out of the way for the real event.  And it can be an amateurish event, too, organized by volunteers and non-runners.  One year the race director took the results home with him while finishers huddled in a tent after the race sipping hot chocolate, and we had to look up the results on the internet.  The logo which appears on the race T-shirt every year features a frightened chocolate bar with a corner chewed away as if pursued by predatory Chocolate Lovers From Everywhere.

 I have an uninterrupted five-year streak from our first visit here in 2016 through 2020, which was the year the Covid pandemic arrived and temporarily put an end to road races (and crowds packed into civic centers).  My blog for 2020 reminded me that I had finished in a time of 33:31, and that I had been singled out, slightly to my embarrassment, for being the only runner in the 70-79 age group. 

The weather is often bitterly cold and windy for this race and the course can be difficult.  The first half-mile (and the last) has always been on narrow, treacherous sidewalks with some sharp curves before finally turning onto Evans Street, a pleasant residential street with pretty houses lining the shores of Bogue Sound, circling a traffic cone, and returning.  There was a very nice 5-K in nearby Havelock for a year or two, and the Crystal Coast 5-K, 10-K, and half marathon in Morehead City for several years, but both were discontinued after Covid.  And the flat and fast Run for Autism 5-K in Beaufort that we completed in early March last year has been moved to later in the month.  So this is the only game in Town, and while Martha was not quite ready for a race, I was feeling confident and wanted to make this my first race of 2024. 

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that, according to the entry form, there was a new course, and it turned out to be an improvement over those narrow sidewalks.  There was a sharp northerly wind on Saturday morning, but it was a cloudless day and the temperature was 42 degrees, and I showed up in plenty of time to warm up.  The new course circled the Civic Center on a wide concrete Greenway along Bogue Sound and then through some parking lots, finally coming directly onto Evans Street.  It was a typical small 5-K fund-raiser, with lots of families, strollers, and friendly volunteers along the course.  

Just after the one-mile mark, I saw something I don’t think I have ever seen in a race before:  a young girl did a perfect somersault while running.  “She’s really a gymnast, not a runner!” said her Mom when I commented on it.  Shortly after that, a young woman came flying by, already having circled the traffic cone and heading for the finish line.  It was a long time before a young man came along in second place, and then one by one I watched young, fit runners (the kind I used to be) meet me before I turned and met the even slower runners stretched out behind me.  One couple passed me toward the finish and told me after the race, “You were our pace-setter!”  I told them I was glad to be able to help someone.  My Garmin watch confirmed that the course was indeed 3.10 miles, and it matched the time on the finish line clock of  40:56, faster than I had anticipated.

For a small race (about a hundred runners), the post-race food was pretty impressive – yogurt, bananas, rice-krispie treats, donuts, freshly-made waffles, and of course hot chocolate.  I was surprised when a little after 9:00 a.m., the race director came into the lobby with a clipboard and began the award ceremony; many slower runners and walkers were still on the course, I was sure.  The winner, that very fast young woman, took first place overall in an amazing time of 17:05, a pace of exactly 5:30 per mile and almost Olympic caliber.  The second overall, a young man, finished in 22 minutes and some change, more than five minutes behind her, which is very unusual.  Another young man in his teens was recognized for first place in a youth category of some kind, and then . . . that was it.  There were no more awards at all.  I asked the race director if times would be posted on-line, and he told me no, they would not, because it was only a Fun Run.  In past years, finish times had always been posted, even that year when the race director took the results home with him.

I have to admit I was a little disappointed, not so much at missing the opportunity to wear a cheap medal around my neck, or to receive with embarrassment scattered applause for an old guy completing a race, but to see how I compared to other runners close to me in age.  Martha was surprised when I returned a little before 9:30 a.m.  I noticed later when I went on-line that this was the first year results were not posted, and that the event was now being billed not as a “5-K Run” but as a “5-K Fun Run and Walk.”

Still, it was satisfying (and "Fun") to complete another race – No. 216, according to my running log – and to enjoy that simple pleasure that comes from simply running fast with other competitors, a time when I feel completely alive and present and grateful, and crossing another finish line for the first time in 2024.  We celebrated with good beer and sandwiches at Tight Lines Pub & Brewing Company in Morehead City, and later in the afternoon drove to Beaufort to see an interesting movie about African-American brewers at the Beaufort Picture Show, a tiny theater located in a storage shed next to Mill Whistle Brewery, where we sampled another good beer.  Watching a film about brewing - and running a race - can make a man thirsty!

This morning, I was glad when the alarm did not go off at 5:00 a.m. as it had on Saturday.  Instead, I awoke well-rested to the sound of a Carolina wren and a Northern cardinal outside the windows, and went out to the dune-top deck on another gorgeous morning to witness another sunrise.   

Gratitude

We have visited Beaufort three times since we arrived.  It is one of our favorite little towns and is only a short 20-minute drive.  I usually take the same photos:  the vintage-looking sign on the side of a building on Turner Street, the marina on Taylor’s Creek where there are always some beautiful boats quietly anchored, and the Old  Burying Ground, ca. 1731, where you can find graves dating back to both the Revolutionary and Civil Wars.

Our first visit to Beaufort this year was nine days ago, when we attended a lecture at the N. C. Maritime Museum, a wonderful little museum containing artifacts from the 18^th century ship Queen Anne's Revenge, the flagship of Edward Teach - better known by his nickname Blackbeard.  Also on display, suspended high above the other exhibits, is the skeleton of Echo, a 33-foot sperm whale that came ashore on Cape Lookout in 2004, as well as its preserved heart - a unique experience, touching a whale's heart!  The lecture was a sad story, based on his diaries,  about an unlucky farmer who lived just after the Civil War and attempted to eke out a living farming not far from Beaufort, but was not very successful at the endeavor. 

We had lunch afterward and spent some time walking around Beaufort, and that’s when I found myself once again visiting the Old Burying Ground a couple of blocks away on Ann Street.  It is a beautiful place, quiet and shady beneath huge live oak trees, and among the graves are that of a British soldier from the 1700s buried standing up (at attention for his King) and the mass grave of several victims of the shipwreck of the Crissie Wright in 1886, still remembered in the local expression, “cold as the night the Crissie Wright came ashore,” when they say Bogue Sound froze over solid.

A poem I wrote two years ago, when we had an ice-storm here in January, was inspired by the story and was a semi-finalist in the James Applewhite Poetry Competition.

 The Crissie Wright

An ice storm at this beach is as rare
As snow on daffodils:  a sudden stroke,
The spikes of the yuccas sheathed,
Fixed in scabbards of clear ice,
The heavy pampas grass bowing low,
The red cedars bright with ice-knots.

Rain overnight stopped in its tracks
With a shudder, like that night in 1886 –
Single digits, so cold that Bogue Sound
Froze over in deadlocked denial –
The night the Crissie Wright came ashore,
All hands lost save one, a ship’s cook.

And why did he alone deserve to live?
Trembling in his bright icy salvation
While his shipmates, one by one, were
Lowered into a common grave in the
Old Burying Ground under the live oaks,
Slipping and sliding on frozen ground.

This lowly cook from below deck –
Could he ever forget the dazzling ice
Clinging to broken spars, dangling rigging,
Or those swept overboard and lost forever
In the cold waters just off Beaufort?
Could he ever stop shivering?

A local favorite is the grave of the girl buried in a barrel of rum.  The young girl begged her parents to travel with her father to London, and her mother gave her permission only on condition that her daughter would be returned to their home in Beaufort.  Alas, she died on the voyage, and rather than commit her body to a burial at sea, he persuaded the captain to put her body in a barrel of rum and returned to Beaufort for burial.  Visitors to this day leave stuffed animals and other toys as gifts on her grave in memory for her and for good luck.  

As one especially spooky local account adds:

There are those who say that the figure of a young girl can be seen running and playing between the graves in the Old Burying Grounds at night. They say that the tributes left on the young girl’s grave are often moved about the graveyard at night, often found sitting balanced on top of other gravestones or in places they couldn’t have moved to by just the wind.

I suppose every graveyard has a ghost or two, and the Old Burying Ground does seem especially spooky on a gray, overcast day.  I would not want to spend the night there.

The next night, we returned to Beaufort for another event we have attended for many years, the annual Clam Chowder Cook-off, a fund-raiser for the museum.  Four guest clam chowder cooks and four cornbread bakers compete in the event at the Watercraft Center, a ship-building workshop across from the museum.  As usual, the chowders were delicious, and once again the event was sold out.

This week, we attended another lecture at the museum, this time one of the more interesting ones we have ever heard presented by a man who was a knowledgeable and passionate expert on whales.  I learned more about whales than I had ever known before.  We were saddened to learn about whales that had been killed, and were washed up on area beaches, because they had ingested balloons and plastic buckets.  After the program, we had a delicious lunch two blocks away at the Beaufort Grocery Company, a place we had been meaning to try for lunch - we had attended wine tasting dinners there over the years but never lunch. 

And so our Sabbatical continues.  The pile of books we brought with us has grown after a visit to the Carteret County Library in Beaufort.  The weather has gotten warmer this week, and my own running has gone well, with interval training and increasing weekly mileage, and I think I am ready for the Cocoa 5-K next Saturday.  Martha has started back running, too, and both of us continue to practice Yoga, once a week for me and twice a week for Martha.  We have seen three movies and a play, and are going to New Bern tomorrow to see another play – The Color Purple.   And of course, there is seafood, local seafood like the perfect pan-seared scallops sourced from Blue Ocean seafood market that Martha prepared this week.

And there is always the continuous presence of the ocean, and the sunrise and the sunset, with their elemental power and beauty.  Yesterday morning during Tai Chi I took a time lapse of the glorious sunrise breaking free from morning clouds and ascending into the sky to the east.  At the same time, the full moon was setting to the west, and high tide was roaring in front of me to the south.   

Our Yoga teacher Ann-Marie talked to us today in her practice not only about Sun Salutations (which I knew about) but also Moon Salutations and Sea Salutations.  I felt that I had saluted all three through my Tai Chi yesterday.  She also talked to us about gratitude, and that is the single word I wrote on our kitchen whiteboard when we returned.

Gratitude.  Life is good!