Braveheart 5-K

The Bravehearrt 5-K has been held in Franklin in conjunction with the Annual Scottish Festival for a number of years.  It is aptly named because it is not for the faint-hearted.  “Race through the streets of Franklin, NC and feel like William Wallace (AKA Braveheart) battling the English,” says the race website.  “If you like a challenge, you will love this course.”  We do like a challenge, and this was not the first time we drove to Franklin to battle the locally famous hills. 

I think this was the nicest morning we have ever had for this race, though.  After several sweltering days (by Highlands standards), a cold front moved in Friday night and by the next morning temperatures were in the low 60s.  We arrived in plenty of time to pick up our race packet and to mingle with the bravehearted participants, which included some young men wearing blue face-paint like Mel Gibson in the 1995 movie of the same name.  Quite a few men wearing Scottish kilts were in attendance, including local bagpiper Michael Waters, as well as some of the participants in the race.  But despite the cooler temperatures, a woolen kilt would have been a wee bit warm by the top of that first hill.

It has only been a week since our last race, the Waynesville Main Street Mile, but that had only been a mile after all and most of it downhill.  I have been suffering from a little plantar fasciitis and resultant heel pain and applied the entire arsenal of remedies against it all week – ibuprofen, massage, and relentless stretching.  I felt pretty good standing at the starting line just outside the Scottish Tartans Museum after a brief warm-up, back and forth on Main Street a few times.  We watched the under-tens finish the Rob Roy Fun Run first and then lined up at the start, where a prayer was offered followed by Michael Waters playing “Scotland the Brave” on the pipes, which was very moving.  And then we were off, running slightly uphill on Main Street and then turning right on Harrison and climbing up an even steeper incline, which had already reduced some of the participants to walking.  Martha was already out of sight after the first half-mile, every bit of which was uphill.  I realized that would make for a nice fast finish since the course was out-and-back. 

The course leveled off and then turned left abruptly at the corner of the Sunset restaurant and descended the long, notorious Bidwell Street hill for almost a mile, then right on West Main for a bit, circled a traffic cone, and returned to the base of  that long hill to begin climbing.  An enthusiastic woman was just behind me most of the way, calling out encouragement even to the walkers straggling at the back of the race, “You’re doing great!  Everybody else chose to stay home this morning, but you came out here!”  We chatted a little as we ran and I looked her up after the race, when she told me that it helped her as much as the others to be so upbeat.  I try to be upbeat and crack jokes during races, too, and I have noticed the same thing.  Laughter buoys up everyone around us, and makes a difficult run so much easier to bear. 

I was determined not to stop – my only goal for this race, really – and except for a few steps to grab some water handed to me by some young boy scouts and girl scouts on Bidwell Street, I met that goal.  But that hill forced at least half the runners I saw to a walk, including one bravehearted little seven-year-old girl who had stopped and looked as if she might start to cry.  Her kilted dad turned and came to her and she hugged him.  “You’re doing great!” I told her.  “And the last half-mile is all downhill!”  She had, after all, opted to run the Braveheart with her dad, rather than the 10-and-under Fun Run which she might have won outright.  Up and up we climbed, and then finally we topped that last hill and realized it was all downhill, a cool breeze suddenly in our faces, and shady trees, and we turned east on Main Street where we could see distant mountains on the horizon and hear the sound of bagpipes at the finish.  It was there that the seven-year-old and her dad passed me.  “I knew you’d beat me!” I said, and then I saw Martha standing on Main Street applauding me.  Another finish line crossed!

After recovering a little, stretching, and downing a bottle of water handed to me by the Race Director when I crossed the finish, we enjoyed wandering around chatting with the other finishers.  It is always special to have completed a race of any distance, and especially a tough one like this, an exhilaration combined with a peaceful, calm satisfaction.  Martha had hoped to break 32 minutes and was happy with her time of 30:47, which earned her a second place trophy.  Had the age groups not been ten years, she would have taken first place.

My watch told me that I had finished in 43:37, one of my slowest 5-K times to date, but I was proud of not stopping to walk and also glad that my troublesome heel and knee felt just fine.  We waited longer than usual for the awards because apparently there were some technical issues with the timing.  Despite the timing chip on the back of my race bib, my name did not appear in the results, although I know I crossed the finish line.  No matter:  I knew that I had not placed in my ten-year age group, in which a very fit 75-year-old had taken first place in 32:16.  It did affect some of the other results, though.  The encouraging woman I had met during the race, who had definitely finished behind me, turned out to be 77 years old, yet the results had her finishing in an impossible time of  28:40 for first place, which undoubtedly took a trophy away from the real 70-79-year-olds who had beaten her.  

Because of the delay in the awards, we did not wait for the ceremony to finish.  They had started with the older age groups and were working their way backwards to the younger and the overall finishers, and so we also missed the very moving ceremony at the very end (which we had seen in previous years) in which the overall male and female finishers are presented with the beautiful, engraved William Wallace sword, kneeling (which I would not have been capable of doing), and being “knighted” by Sir Daniel Williamson of the Scottish Tartans Museum & Heritage Center, lightly and reverently touching them on each shoulder.  I have never seen a finer finish trophy and seldom seen a more moving awards ceremony.

It was a good day once again.  I realize that it is with those same words that I conclude nearly every one of these blog posts about our races.  This was race No. 205 for me, and most of the last hundred or so have been with Martha, who is maintaining a high level of performance in her mid-sixties.  Competition keeps our running focused, and going to races are events that we often turn into mini-vacations.  But even small, local races like this are worthy of celebration, and we headed back home through Walnut Creek, Norton, and Cashiers in our Mini Cooper, where we enjoyed cold beer and salmon BLTs at Whiteside Brewing, our thirst and our hunger sharpened even more this day by running Braveheartedly.

Main Street Mile

After a hiatus of several years, in part because of Covid, one of our favorite races returned this year – the Waynesville Main Street Mile.  The distance is a popular one because it attracts the very young (some of the runners were only four years old this year), the not-so-fit, and also the fit runner accustomed to longer distances who wants to see exactly how fast a mile can be completed, and a slightly downhill mile at that.  We fall into the last category, and we ran this race in 2010, 2011, and 2015.  That first year, way back a dozen years ago when I had attained the peak of my modest fitness as a runner and before the decline of recent years, I surprised myself by running the race in 6:48.  In 2015, Martha and I both threw caution to the winds and ran this race on a Friday night and then the tough five-mile Maggie Valley Moonlight Run the very next night.

An evening race, the Main Street Mile has staggered start times, first the very youngest, then the women (6:50 p.m.), then the older youth, and then the men (7:30 p.m.) the 40-minute difference in starting time making the logistics of pre-race eating and drinking a little difficult.  We remained in Highlands until after lunch, and were both restless.  I drove to Town and looked at some of the exotic cars parked near Kelsey-Hutchinson Park for the Highlands Motoring Festival, focusing mostly on Porches this year but also featuring Ferraris, Jaguars, and some classic Austin Healeys.

It was a little disappointing that there were no local participants at all that I could see, even though there are many car enthusiasts who live in Highlands.  Martha’s Dad had placed his classic A-model and T-model Fords in the show in past years, as well as a very unusual King Midget, and we wondered if he would have been admitted to a show featuring cars that I would not have been surprised were valued in the six- or seven-figure cost range.  It is a trend that we see more and more in Highlands, unfortunately, events that seem to be increasingly focused on the very wealthy.

We had a pleasant drive over to Waynesville in our Mini Cooper (none of them in the show, either) and checked into the Waynesville Inn &Golf Club, currently being renovated and, alas, lacking a dining room where we have enjoyed memorable breakfasts in the past.  The golf course, too, was under construction, but our room had already been renovated and was very nice.

It was a good day for an evening race, temperatures in the mid-70s and a slight breeze.  One year I remember it had been 90 degrees at the start.  After we checked in and picked up our race packets, and while we were waiting for our respective races to start, some of our friends arrived.  Long-time running friend Morris Williams, now 77 years old but still very fast, drove over for the race, as well as Derek Taylor, Race Director for the Highlands Twilight 5-K (I had told him about this race as soon as it had been announced), and Mayor of Highlands Pat Taylor.  It is always nice to compete with friends, although I realized I had little chance of keeping up with any of them.  Derek also brought with him a 13-year-old, Timothy McDowell, who shows much promise and in fact had the fastest time of us all.

The starting line for the race is a mile up Main Street, so the warm-up is a run or run-walk that distance.  A little after 6:30, some of the youngest runners began finishing their heat on Main Street, by-standers cheering the loudest for the very youngest.  One little four-year-old girl was so distracted by the cheering that she went over and starting talking to people.  “I’m running a race!” she seemed to be saying, and her Dad finally had to scoop her up and carry her toward the finish line still a quarter-mile away.

Martha made her way up to the start long before I did, and although I did not see her finish, I was waiting at about the three-quarter mile mark to watch her run by.  She was running very strong and was toward the front of the women, ahead of several younger women.  She had run a time trial in Highlands a week ago and completed a similar mile in 9:03, so she was hoping to break nine minutes, and it looked like she was definitely on track to meet that goal. 

I started jogging up to the start line then, and was able to watch and cheer for the older youth, including young Timothy, who ended up finishing third overall in a blazing 5:11 finish time.  This young man has a future ahead of him as a competitive runner.  There were perhaps 30 men in our heat, and as always it is fun chatting with complete strangers connected by the bond of running.  One man who said he had just turned sixty noticed my Boston Marathon singlet and pointed out his shirt, which depicted a signpost for Hereford and Boylston Streets in Boston, and said he hoped to qualify this year.  I told him that was how old I was when I qualified, way back in 2009, which seemed a long, long time ago tonight.

The race started, and nearly all the other runners in my heat quickly left me behind except for a few run-walkers behind me.  That is a little disturbing to a runner’s ego, I must admit, because we all have an ego however much racing humbles us over the course of a career – there is always somebody faster – and there are usually quite a few overweight, unfit, or younger runners behind me.  But I felt strong, and when I later saw a photo captured on Facebook, I looked strong.  In the end I knew I could not have run any better than my finished time of 10:39.  As Tennyson said,

“Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days,
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are.”

Martha was at the finish chatting with the others from Highlands, and I discovered that she had finished in 8:13, second in her age group, and much faster than expected.  Were it not for the injustice of ten-year age groups, she would have taken first place (a sixty-year-old took that award).  She has been training hard, is in great racing shape, and she far exceeded her goal, so it was good to celebrate with her at the finish celebrations farther down Main Street, featuring pizza and several varieties of good draft beer.

We returned to our motel and sat in rocking chairs on our deck for awhile watching the nearly-full moon, gauzy in the sky over the golf course, grateful for good health and fitness.

While all of the other Highlands runners had returned that night, we have learned to enjoy these races as mini-vacations.  We got up early Sunday morning and found a good place for breakfast, the nearby Beach Mountain Diner, where we were able to sit outside.  Proudly wearing our race shirts.

One of the pleasures of completing a race is often the breakfast the next morning, most of all after a marathon or half-marathon, but just as delicious after a one-mile race!  We took the long way back to Highlands, up Highway 276 to the Blue Ridge Parkway, where we tarried for awhile in rocking chairs at the Pisgah Inn, a place dear to our hearts.  Over four decades ago we came up here for dinner on our honeymoon, and it has not changed very much over the years.