Charlotte Running Company XC 5k

Boy, the humidity made running terrible this morning. I finished my warm up miles before the 5k race, and sweat dripped from shorts as if I had been standing in a rain shower. No amount of toweling off could keep it from coming back.

So this morning, I headed down Myers Park for the Charlotte Running Company XC 5k and High School Invitational Meet. The adults go off first at 8 AM. Then, starting at 9 AM, the kids get to run going off in groups every 30 minutes. Let me tell you, they are amazing to watch.

Adults run with caution. We totally understand that tomorrow is another day, and we are unlikely to push to the point that we put ourselves in harms way. Kids don't have that fear yet. They attack the up hills hard and even harder they attack the down hills with a reckless abandon. A fact made very evident to me while I was attempting to stay a couple runners likely not born before I ran my first marathon.

We start from the far side of the ball field. Run along a dirt trail until it pops out behind the school. We follow the edge of the campus until the course picks up the trail again. Some of course is rather rugged. Bone crunching down hills followed by heart pounding up hills. To make runner's life even more interesting, every type of surface is encountered on the course: from grass, dirt, asphalt, gravel, to concrete.

I had hopes of staying with Cory during the race but once we hit the rugged section, he opened up a lead that I never closed. When I came off the second loop, he was well out sight. He went on to beat me by some 50 seconds today.

I finished 6^th overall in 20:45. This was a little better finish than my last XC race here a little over two years ago. Funny, my time was nearly same.

Kudos to Lamont from Myers Park High School, Start 2 Finish, and Charlotte Running Company for supporting this event. They did an awesome job making sure the race was organized, and this is all any runners wants.

While XC running has never been my real forte, the way this course challenges me keeps me coming back year after year.

The Cool Down Runner