Notes
I ran the steeplechase! It was actually much easier than I expected. It's a funny race. Everyone gets out hardish the first 250 meters but as soon as you clear a hurdle, the pack spreads out. The first lap was in 78 or so, it did feel that slow. The second lap was in 82, including the water pit. I don't think I really fell off the pace at all, but I certainly am not a hurdling or water pit jumping expert. It felt much like a 10k, as Geoff had suggested. The pace is slow, like 10k pace and you need to be strong on the last two laps. Clearing the hurdles was far far easier than I expected. In practice I hit maybe 5-10% of hurdles with my trail toe, and occasionally knee, but I didn't hit anything during the race. I did land with both feet in the water pit all six time, the only six times I have tried to jump into the water pit. I'm not sure what time I ran one person said 10:16 another said 10:24 and I am guessing 10:20 because after I finished and recovered I looked back at the time and it said 10:27.
I had a great time, it was pretty fun. Things I take away, practice jumping off something onto one leg, like into a sandpit or something to simulate the water pit. Practice going over hurdles at race height because it is specific and the adrenaline of a race gets you the extra inch higher so catching a toe in practice means you are probably good for a race. I think that prolonged periods of running with hurdles spaced more densely than a race is excellent preperation, like the 2000 meters and 60 hurdles I did on Thursday. Maybe have a 4k/100 hurdle workout or 5k/100-120 hurdle tempo run. The difficult part seems to be going into the hurdles strong the last two laps, and the water pit. One final critique I had of myself was that I went over every barrier off my right leg, even though I practice on both legs my weak lower left leg tendon thing made me scared to try it during the race. I did jump onto the water barrier off my left leg a few times, but never a hurdle. So I was weak. That being said, you can easily run the entire race using just one leg to hurdle with.