Beautiful morning for a race; 55 degrees, partly cloudy, & a light breeze. The race start was only 1.5 miles from my house which made for a perfect warm-up run distance. I got all checked in & visited with a few friends before the start. The course is through the park that I do most of my weekday runs through, so I knew all the turn, hills, & potholes ahead of time. I finished with a 22:45, 1AG, & 7OA. Then ran back home.

Paul

Nothing like home field advantage, Paul.  Very nice time!

Wow.  Nice job spinach!

I ran the Superior Spring Trail Race 25K. The course intimidated me:

"The Superior 25KM and 50KM Trail Races are extremely hilly, rugged and technical out-and-back (100% trail) trail-races which traverse the Sawtooth Mountain Range on the Superior Hiking Trail in the far reaches of northern Minnesota .  The course parallels Lake Superior,  climbs to near 2000′ peaks with breath-taking vistas of the lake and crosses whitewater rivers and serene streams."

I had high hopes, though. Hills and mud are my friends, I told myself. And things went well on the "out" portion of the out-and-back course. And since I could see the front runners coming back, I could see that there were only about 10 runners ahead of me. At the turnaround, I felt great and passed 4 or 5 runners that slowed at the aid station. I got cocky and went a bit fast on a downhill. I turned my left ankle HARD! I think I heard a pop and then I let out a yell. I SHOULD HAVE turned around and gotten someone at the aid station to help me back. But I'm stupid and stubborn. I ended up walking the last 7 miles, hobbling in to the finish. Here are my shoes after the race:

I finished 59th out of 299. I will definitely be back.

great job to the two and four legged racers - and yes we need more pics!

impressive shoes

marj

Back to the Beach 10K

This is a 10K run in conjunction with a half-marathon that I've done a couple of times in previous years, but didn't feel up to this year. Good thing, as it was cold and rainy this morning and it would have been an even tougher slog than usual. Still, even the 10K is not easy, as it's pretty much all trails, which of course were wet and muddy with a lot of ups and downs with rocks and tree roots being the major trip hazards. By the way, it's called "Back to the Beach" because it starts and ends at the beach pavilion at Stony Creek Metropark's big lake.

At least the temperature was not too bad -- upper 50s -- but it rained on and off for the whole time. Sometimes we were under heavy tree cover and mostly just caught the drips, but I was still pretty soaked by the end. The worst of the hills were in the first three miles, so once I passed that point I was able to step it up a bit.

Going into this, I had three main goals, all of which I met:

1) Don't fall. I ran without my glasses due to the rain and possible fogging, but made it without even a close call.

2) Run faster than my age. Again, I made it by running a 63:11, which was much better than I expected given the course and conditions (about 6 minutes slower than on a flat, clear course).

3) Place in my age group. I actually won my AG, but it was a bit of a disappointment since I was the only one in it (male 70-and-up). But I'll take credit for finishing 75th overall out of about 200. I was the oldest person in the race, so I think that's a pretty good placing.

No other races on my calendar right now and I plan to concentrate on biking for the next few weeks.

Amazing runs being posted here. Congratulations to you all.