I was in the Charlotte Convention Center standing outside the ladies restroom waiting for my wife (which is where I can usually be found) and out of the blue came the newest member of this group, Lpagd, who recognized me from my blog photo. It was great to meet him and find out that we're both banjo players. This old world's getting smaller and smaller! I did the half marathon and Lpagd did the 5k. Hope you met your goals on this one Lpagd. I was just hoping to finish in under 2 hours and surprised myself by finishing in 1:47:23! Guess all that running this winter is paying off after all! It was a great race... were any of you other folks out there?

Glad to meet you Richard, and congratulations on your great half. I'm Lynwood by the way. I think I said that, and now to everyone in the group. How cool is that to meet a fellow banjo player that runs? We've got to be a minority, even in NC. Definitely a small world. I ran the 5K in 24:56 and I am happy with the results overall, being in the 24's for the first time. My previous 5K PR was July 4th, 2008, in Matthews. 26:18 I think, so I've knocked a good bit off my time. I did not run the race the way I should have, as I lined up near the front for some crazy reason and that always does me in. I also decided to run by "perceived effort" instead of using my Garmin like I normally do. Looking at my watch at the half mile point I saw 3:15 displayed and knew I was in trouble. I slowed down some, and then this 10 year old kid came by me like I was jogging, so I figured I must have slowed too much. We crossed the first mile at 7:16. Way too fast for me, but not for him. He held that pace for the whole 5K. How fast is this kid gonna be when he's older? By the second mile I was getting into my desired pace, even if all the oxygen in Charlotte had been sucked up before I got there! I couldn't find any, and I was looking hard. On a positive note, as I was gasping for air, I saw "old-runner" go by me at the 2 mile point, smiling and looking confident. It did cross my mind that he was running the half and I was only running a 5K, but I was still happy to see him looking strong. I knew "old-runner" would have a good race. For the last mile, I was hanging on for dear life wishing it would end. I had told a co-worker I run with, who can still run a 19 minute 5K without training, that if I didn't break 25 minutes, I would not come over to discuss running again. My posted Gun Time shows 25:00 exactly, but the chip time is under by 4 seconds. I ran a 5:22 pace the last .25 to hit that, and thank goodness I did. I know he looked the time up by now and will love to hear this story. I had told him my desire to run Thunder Road at a 9:05 pace to hit the 2 hour pace, and I posted that exactly too. Maybe I should just predict a faster time? Anyway, it was a fun race even if I did manage to mess it up. Nobody cares anyway and I had a blast. I think running it correctly I could manage a better time, so I will shoot for my sub 24 in July! I've already got a speed run planned in Dilworth on Monday with a running group if anybody cares to join us. Who's in? L

Thank you. I would have yelled at you but I was struggling and probably couldn't have gotten a word out. I also didn't want to slow you down. I run with two different groups in front of Charlotte Running Company behind Outback on East Blvd. Mondays and Wednesdays at 6:30 with The Charlotte Runners Meetup Group. We run either speed work (the same course as the Greekfest 5K I think) or hills on Mondays, then Wednesday is a complicated but nice 6 mile course through Dilworth. Thursday's, I run with a leftover group from the Sharksbite series from last summer. We have a tough 4.44 mile route that the series used, and we alternate with a 6.2 variation around Freedom Park area. Good groups to run with and always open to anyone at any level. We have runners ranging from 5/6 minute paces to 10 plus. Our hardcore Thursday group averages 5 - 8 runners and we're looking to get more people to run with us. They like to start at 6:15 unless I'm joining the run and wait till 6:30 for me.

Docster... Sorry to hear that about your wife... I hope all go well with her treatments. Great to know she's getting back out and running though. It's hard for us to put ourselves in exactly that place if we haven't experienced it ourselves, but I can imagine it's a tough thing to go through, and I wish you both the best. Oh, and take care of that hammy... is that something that happened as a result of your recent Myrtle Beach Marathon? I'm training for the New Jersey Marathon on May 3rd and I'm more than a little apprehensive about it because I hear about all the injuries people get training for and running marathons. I felt fine with the half marathon the other day but I'm not certain I've got another 13.1 miles in me. My longest training run has been 13.1 miles and over the next few weeks I'm trying to build it up to 20. I guess we'll find out.