The Way Running Should Be - The Craig Cup

This a little over 1.5 miles into the race. That's Mike Payson in front of me, who was running easy because of recent ankle surgery.

Clearing skies, wet grass, and some mud greeted runners at he 7th Annual Craig Cup xc race yesterday at Twin Brook. I both ran and ran the race. Since I was running the race, I was pretty stressed about it's execution but this was greatly facilitated by a big group including Steve Ballou, Mary Ballou, Bill Landis, Cacky Sexton, Tom Bottomley, two Greeley HS runners, and trail monsters Jamie, James, Stephen, Carter, Kevin, Christine, Blaine, and Val. Four was also on the course taking photos including the one above. And since I was running the race I didn't have any time for a warm-up prior to running the race.

I finished 14th, 6th in Age Group. My goal time for the race was 19:23 (1 minute slower than Dan Cardillo) and my official time was 19:35. That's a 6 second PR but I admit to being slightly disappointed. There's an interesting 1 minute gap between the slowest Dirigo masters runner and the rest of us (ignore Garth Sukalot, a pseudonym for a guy out on an easy run with friends). That's a big gap to try to close!

Because of the wet grass and mud in sections, I raced in my inov8 mudroc 280s instead of the NB 790s. They performed well, but I'd really like a pair of x-talons.

Finally, congratulations to Sara Hellstedt who finished 3rd overall among women.