Saturday, June 20, 2009

St. Malachy Steeplechase 4.65 Mile Run

After being in Vancouver all week on a business trip, I decided to run a race this morning. The race is sponsored by the St. Malachy Church. They have a country church located about 8 miles west of Muscatine. The run was essentially all on gravel with a short section on blacktop. One stretch of gravel was very difficult to navigate due to the large pieces 2"+ in the road bed.

I have never ran a race of this length and for that matter never ran any training runs of this length. Most of my runs are 1 to 2 miles long. I paced myself during the race and kept about the same speed for the full length of the race.

I ended up finishing 4th in my age group (50-59). They didn't have a separate age group for 55-59 or I would have taken 1st. Last year my time of 37:34 would have been good enough to finish 1st, but this year there were some faster runners that didn't participate last year. My legs feel pretty good this evening, but we will see how I feel tomorrow.

Only 8 days until the Colorado bike ride and I have been off my bike for about 2 weeks with an infected cyst on by bottom last week and this week I was away on business. Will spend the next few days back on the bike to get ready for my long ride in the mountains.

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