Twilight 5-K

The Twilight 5-K is perhaps our most enjoyable race of the year.  It takes place on our home course here in Highlands - what we used to call the "Patty Cake" route - which is now a USATF certified 5-K course.  We should thank Race Director Derek Taylor and the Highlands Rotary for that; he has turned this event into a well-attended first-class race.  This year, participation was 362, and it was a real joy to see Pine Street filled up with so many runners at the start.

The threat of rain had diminished throughout the day, and conditions were ideal - overcast with a slight breeze.  Many of us wore white hats like the signature hat our friend Jim Askew used to wear:

Jim was a humble man, but I think he would have approved of remembering him in this way.  Mary Jo was there, and I think it made her aware once again of how well-loved this man was among all of us.  And I thought about him throughout the race.  At one point, over on Leonard Street, I passed a young boy running with his Mom and Dad, and he was clearly beginning to falter.  "My legs hurt!" he whined.  I thought to myself, "My legs hurt, too!"  But then I thought, "What would Jim do?"  He would have said something encouraging and picked up the pace.  And that's what I did.

It was good news, too, that Martha was able to run this race, the first time she has been able to do so.  It seems that for some reason whenever August has come around, she has been injured, and this year was no exception; she has been suffering from a pinched nerve in her hip, and only after completing a two-mile run on Thursday did she decide she could run.  But not only did she finish, she took first place in her age group, seven minutes ahead of the second place woman in a group of ten.

I was surprised by a third place award in my own age group of seven, but even more proud that I was able to pick up my pace in the final mile; it seems that these days, although my overall pace is glacially slow compared to past years, I run stronger and faster the farther I go.  And my knee did not hurt at all.  On the contrary, running a 5-K like this seems to "blow out the carbon," as we used to say; everything feels smooth and strong the next day.

But what a good feeling it is to run here on this Home Course, where we run every day, in the same place where we run intervals and mile repeats.  All along the way, familiar faces greeted us at the traffic stations, and friends calling out encouragement to us along the way.  And then it is such a joy to watch our fellow runners finish - Will, with his injured knee, and his wife Gina; Karen, proud that she did not walk a single step; Glenda, glad that she decided to walk the hills and finished well anyway; Fred, finishing in exactly the time he had predicted; Sam, and Brian, and Vicki, and Debbie, and Christine, many of us wearing those floppy white hats all the way to the finish.  Just like Jim would have done. 

And most amazing of all, Davis had persuaded a group of First Responders to complete the course wearing 60 pounds of gear.  There's Diana Cox McPhail standing with the same men who saved the Ravenel house from burning down.

It is a community event, and it is a community that I am proud to be a part of when we see so many volunteers coming together, so many willing participants - not just our running friends but children, and families, and walkers - in this celebration of fitness and health.