Castlewood State Park, St. Louis, MO
I woke up a little before 6am on Saturday to make sure I was ready to pick up Marcus and his buddy Mark by 7am. It was in the mid-20’s when we left town and did not get much warmer before the 10am start. We layered up, checked in and got our race numbers. The temperature had raised to a warm 31 degrees, so we walked back to the car and sat inside until ten minutes to go. After standing the bathroom line for that ten minutes, we were off!
I hadn’t had a chance to run much distance before this race, due to poor weather and I can’t handle running more than 7 miles in the Rec Center. So I thought this race would be a good test and looked at it mostly as training. With that said, I tried to run my butt off! After an easy mile loop on flat, soft grass we hit the first climb and the men were separated from the boys. Unfortunately, I think I was one of the boys today! Running inside on a flat track did not prepare me for the hills I would run today. After the first rocky climb, I caught my breath and got to work. I lead a group of 5 or 6 from mile 3-7ish, with a very heavy breather right behind me….so annoying! I kept waiting for him to pass, but the single track didn’t give us much room. I pulled over at about mile 7.5 for a quick GU…yuck, vanilla. I let heavy breather go and then pushed to finish hard. We came back down hills to finish the last couple miles on flat ground, along with a creek crossing at mile 9. The water wasn’t too high, but I knew it would make for a cold, heavy-footed final mile. I was able to pass a few people in the creek and over the next mile and crossed the finish line right behind my heavy breathing friend.
(Marcus and I at the finish)
Volunteers had space blankets for us and passed out 180 energy drinks (I could of used one before.) I had a hot dog and a handful of M&Ms for my post-race chow. We then changed clothes and hit the road.
Review:
Race : B+, well coordinated for first annual, but could have had a better post race spread.
Effort : B, wasn’t a bad race for me, but wasn’t fantastic. I found out where my fitness was and have an idea of some things to work on. GO! St. Louis Marathon is coming up soon (Apr 19th.)
Quick numbers update...
February:
Swim: 12,200m
Bike: 84mi
Run: 94mi
YTD:
Swim: 29,600m
Bike: 170mi
Run: 166.65mi
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