We are experiencing technical difficulties. Please stand by. [REVISION NOTE: Most of the photos have been uploaded as of April 25, 2016]
I can’t seem to get the photos to upload properly from my phone. Hopefully tonight I can find a decent WiFi connection and try again using my Surface. But in the meantime, text will have to do.
I got into town yesterday afternoon. I haven’t flown in and out of RDU in a few years and I’m always astonished at how things change in my absence. This would be a recurrent theme of the 21 hours I would be in North Carolina this trip. Even though I was just here a few weeks back via motorcar, the land seemed different when coming in from the air and driving around in a rental car.
What hadn’t changed was the delightful people I quickly caught up with after the Tar Heel Ten Miler bib pickup. That they remained as great as I remember because the bib pickup was at the former University Mall. What I once knew as a lower keyed mall has gone a bit upscale in my time away — it’s now called University Place and features a swank new movie theater complex that would rival the Hollywood Arclight chain. I was sad to see the standalone Pizza Hut in the outskirts of the mall was closed and for sale. I have one very fond memory of going there with Brandon, Jennie Reklis and Shaheen after Hurricane Fran knocked out all power and water to campus en masse and our dorm in particular. Pizza Hut was the only place that still had power and we dodged downed tree trunks on the road to get there. Strange what we remember.
I grabbed my bib and shirt and contemplated buying a jacket. But seriously, did I need another jacket? No… But I kinda wanted it… Cooler heads prevailed. Maybe if I come back next year for the 10th Anniversary Ten Miler. In getting a free photo at one of those photo booth kiosks I was reminded of two things — 1) it was raining when I got into town and my hair looks particularly awful when it rains, and 2) the reason I try and wear sunglasses in photos is that my eyes as windows onto my soul always display a sort of exhaustion that I don’t like to see captured on film.
I then met up with Brian, Harper, and Dave at the Napoli Pizza truck. Ya know what? Damn good pizza, each one a four-slice, meal for one. I went with the Mediterranean thanks to roasted garlic and eggplant.
The nice thing about this dinner is that we wound up at YesterYears, a bar with a BYOF (bring your own food) policy. It was in the old Vis-Art location, a VHS movie rental house that used to be the place to go for renting a flick. Caroline and her husband joined us later; as Harper, Dave and I were doing the 10 miler in the morning, we kept it to a 2-drink maximum.
Not wishing to over-impose, I was able to trouble Brian for a couch at his condo for the evening. It’s a swank place that turned out to be ideally located for race morning. Rather than braving the morning traffic snarls and closed roads, I was able to walk the mile and a half or so up the hill to the Bell Tower start line. Heck, had I parked at the Dean Dome like the organizers seemed to want me to do I’d have had at least a 15-20 minute walk anyway.
I snapped a quick photo with Brian before his self-produced PlayStation painting; honestly, it’s one of my favorite works of art.
Brian was, as always, a delight to chat with; I’m reminded again of how lucky I am to have met such great people along the roads of life … And how fortunate I am to still be able to catch up with them now and again.
Morning came far too quickly — I slept fine thanks to a comfy couch but I just felt a little off this AM. My ankle, though better, still felt a twinge twitchy. And I was nervous about the logistics of getting through the ten miler starting at 7:45 and then back to the airport for my noon flight to OKC.
Walking up the hill, dawn approaching, I was struck by the steady stream of cars headed to the 54 cutoff. Traffic was backing up and this was just as the race organizers and Harper had foretold and warned me about. But I just kept moving, smug perhaps in my outwitting the motorcar monsoons and parking problems.
It was a surreal experience to walk back into the UNC campus. I had been back a few times over the close to two decades since I was a student. The changes and expansions still astound me. The Student Union has morphed, new buildings have sprouted, and the kids have all gotten so very, very young. But some things haven’t changed — the Bell Tower, the weird parking restrictions, the Daily Tar Heel (albeit the latter has undergone various layout changes since my days as a columnist). There was a comfort and a shock to the homecoming.
Killing time, I wandered through Kenan Stadium, the finish line in previous years but now just a pre-race meeting point. I snapped a panoramic as a memento of the place, its bleachers reflecting the rising sun’s rays.
Despite the 6500+ entrants, I was able to find Harper amidst the crowd. And by hanging out at the 9 minute pace group, I was also able to catch Dave before the official start. The pre-race announcements included this weird stat — it takes 387 volunteers to pull off this race. Harper nailed the gag by saying with 386 they would have cancelled and 388 would’ve just been excessive.
At 7:45, the Bell Tower chimed. I meant to Shazam it because I couldn’t quite place the melody; it was NOT the alma mater but it sounded ever so familiar. I’ll need to ask Harper and Dave if they can name that tune with zero notes.
I sadly ditched the chance to run with Harper and Dave as I needed to get through the distance so as to make my flight. I dropped the ball on travel plans this weekend. I had previously booked the OKC marathon and found out about the Tar Heel Ten Miler later, thus tried to shoehorn in more than perhaps I should have. My greed at running more events costs me time to enjoy, but such is life sometimes.
I don’t know if it was because I knew the campus and area better but I found the Ten Miler course infinitely more engaging than the Not-So-Normal Half Marathon in Carrboro. It helped that after the previous night’s rain we had ideal running weather with sun and crowd support. Plus I didn’t get lost this time.
In running Chapel Hill, I had the chance to pull off the course and enlist some unsuspecting spectator to snap a photo of me at the Old Well.
I snapped selfies on Franklin Street, from 411 West, THE date night splurge when I was an undergrad, to the Varsity Theater, to Suttons Drugs, to the new-to-me-and-these-college-kids-don’t-know-how-lucky-they-are street Waffle House. I noticed the latter the last time I was in town and was relieved to see the WH hadn’t put Ye Olde Waffle Shoppe out of business.
Winding our way through the boundaries of campus, I recalled how lovely UNC looks. As the oldest state university, it exudes a collegiate town atmosphere that I found alluring when scoping out colleges in high school and still find alluring as I hit middle age.
While I was a student, I don’t think I ever walked up Laurel Hill… I wasn’t a runner then, and really what was the point as a college student but to eat pizza and ponder life’s imponderables? The only thing that’s changed about me is that I run now. But tackling Laurel Hill at mile 8 proved a bit… Steep. I’ve run tougher, to be sure, but it was an eye-opener and a slap-my-forehead, It’s-called-Chapel-Hill-not-Chapel-Flats moment. Chapel Plain? Chapel LowLands?
Doubling back into campus proper and headed for the finish just outside the football stadium, I had a rush of memories from those heady days of yore. It all seems so long ago and yet so very much of the present. Hard to describe to anyone as everyone’s experience is unique but the universality bit I hope is that we’ve all had that moment of time-slip, where past and present blend together and there’s that sense of wonder over what was and what is… And what might be again.
All told, I finished the ten miles in a clock time of just under one hour, sixteen minutes. I grabbed some pretzels, a bottle of water, and tapped out a quick email to Harper congratulating him on his run. Again, despite the volume of runners, I did catch sight of him around mile 5/6 and snapped a pretty good photo of him:
A few finisher pics later, I headed back down the hill to Brian’s place to jump in my car and head to the airport. He had mentioned a bocce court near where I was parking so I couldn’t resist one last super nerdy photo before leaving.
I made it to the rental car drop off with plenty of time to spare. Shoot, I should’ve hung around to congratulate Harper and Dave in person… But one never knows what roadblocks life may throw up against you. You just try your best and deal with what’s around the corner when you get there.
I’m now winging my way to OKC via DFW. Assuming flights are on time, I have about twenty minutes to make it to the expo. So far things have worked out, albeit it’s been a whirlwind. Was it Young Guns (1988) that had brat packers shouting, “Ride the whirlwind!”?
