The Dalmatian Dash Returns -- Sort Of

One of my favorite races in the area used to be the 8k Dalmatian Dash around the Brier Creek Golf Club. (Anytime you can mix running and golf, I'm interested.) The Dalmatian Dash was a lot of fun because they always had cute t-shirts, it benefited a great cause (the Fallen Firefighters Fund, hence the Dalmatian) and there was usually good turnout both of runners and spectators -- plus, I enjoyed running on the cart path on holes 13 through 17 (well, except for that hill on 17).

Unfortunately, the Dalmatian Dash ceased after the 2006 running -- probably because Brier Creek was filling out and didn't need the publicity anymore. However, next month we'll be returning to the Dalmatian course, this time for the new Law Enforcement Shootout 8k Challenge. They have added a team competition for law enforcement organizations and the military. In connection with Veterans' Day weekend, the race will now benefit the USO. No word yet on how the t-shirts will measure up to previous years, but it should be fun returning to run around and through the golf course.

Raleigh's Magnificent Mile

Don't have the time, patience or ability to train (or spectate) for a 5k? Then the Raleigh Magnificent Mile might be the race for you! Today's race was also the RRCA North Carolina State Championship for the mile distance, so that extra prize money helped bring out a top-notch field for the race. As somebody mentioned last year, it is pretty humbling and exciting to be standing the starting chute while the elites just a few steps away are introduced to the crowd. (Of course, I wouldn't be that close to them for the rest of the race!)

I joked that you know you're a runner when you wear one of those fancy timing watches in a mile-long race -- so you can hit all your walk breaks, right? :-) But there was no kidding about the speed in today's race. The men's winner burned up the course around the Capitol and back and forth on Hillsborough Street in a fast 4 minutes and 13 seconds (a new course record), and the women's winner ran a 5:15. They treated a sizeable crowd of spectators to close, fast races and were rewarded with decent prize money.

For those of us who weren't competing for cash, it was still a lot of fun. I knocked about eight seconds off last year's time and finished with a decent 8:46. The race was again a great success, with more than 500 people taking part and more than $42,000 being raised for the Spastic Paraplegia Foundation.

Fords Colony 10k

A lot of folks might not guess that walking when you play golf can be pretty good endurance exercise; a lot of golf course layouts are well over 4 miles in length and when you throw landscaping and home lots into the layout, it can be much higher. And since I'm a big fan of both running and golf, a chance to run a 10k around a golf course layout was a natural. That's why I was in Rocky Mount, NC today for the Ford's Colony 10k race.

This inaugural event was put on by the Rocky Mount Endurance Club and I hope it will become an annual race. If it's true that this was the RMEC's first time organizing a race, congrats to them for getting so many things right on the first try! 113 folks finished the 10k and 131 completed the 5k. Because of the number of runners and the narrow sections of the golf cart path, the runners were staggered into three separate starting groups -- faster 10k folks, slower 10k folks (me) and 5k folks. The 5k leaders caught up with me about seven minutes into the race, as we neared the green of hole #2. The competition was really good; the first 4 finishers in the 10k were all within about ten seconds, so it must have been something to see them battle it out over the last half-mile or so.

As much as I enjoyed running along the golf course, it turned out to be a really humid day and I was wishing they had an earlier starting time. It was very nice out when we were running through the shady sections of the course, but when we hit the sunny, shade-free sections, it got hot very, very quickly. I enjoyed the golf course immensely; it's in immaculate condition, it looks like it would be fun to play, and they obviously dropped some large coin on all the landscaping, bridges and layout (which doesn't return to the clubhouse inbetween the nines). On the back nine, we crossed another one of those nice bridges and got a very pretty view of a lake on the property. (They had offered discounted greens fees to the runners that I had intended to take advantage of, but the doctor wants me to take a few more weeks off from golf to let my hand finish healing.)

I got around the course OK, but with the heat and just not feeling my best, I really suffered on the last couple of miles and stumbled home with a disappointing 73-minute finish. Hopefully, though, the race will come around again in '09 and I will be better prepared for it. But the RMEC did a fantastic job with the race, and they've got a great foundation to build this race on.

Weather Impacts to Weekend Runs

Unfortunately, the passing winds and rain this weekend resulted in a lot of changes to the running schedule, the most notable of which was the postponment of the 5k Run for Healthier Babies from Saturday morning to Sunday morning. That will impact some runners in the Second Empire Grand Prix Series like me, who couldn't make the new Sunday morning time. Hopefully not too many others were knocked out of SEGP contention.

Lake Lure "Best Dam" 5-Mile Run

Yep, it seems pretty strange to start off a blog about Raleigh's running scene with a post about a run on the other side of the state, but that's how the schedule worked out. You can read how my buddy Chad and I collected another county by viewing our race report here.

Why are we "collecting counties" by running races all over the state? Good question.

Welcome...

Yep, it's another blog about running. I'll try not to bore you with a lot of personal statistics and numbers; my interest is the overall local running scene in Raleigh, hopefully with some humorous anecdotes and behind-the-scenes stories. Raleigh's been ranked in the top 20 running cities by Runners World, so hopefully that will improve each year!