Monday, September 11, 2006

A Busy Weekend

The weekend started out with some fun. Friday night, we took my grandson to a local theme park. We ate BBQ, and then rode the rides. My daughter and I hit some of the crazier rollercoaster and scarier rides. My back injury was talking to me by the end of the evening. We got home at 11:30 p.m., and were asleep by 12:30 a.m.

I awoke to the alarm on Saturday at 5:15 a.m., after getting a decent 4-1/2 hours of sleep. I headed out to WyCo Park for the XTerra "Dot" trail race. Caleb and I were going to make sure the XTerra folks knew where to put the aid station for the 5K/10K trail race. We also needed to run the course and make sure it was still marked right (from our Thursday night efforts). We were both going to be running in the 10K, along with some other Trail Nerds and the rest of the runners. I ran a decently smart race, even though I'm a fat, old gimp. I took 2nd place in my age division. The only reason I wasn't beat by two of the other 40-49 year olds, is my ability to run downhill quickly on rocky & technical trails. Down I can do.

Caleb took 2nd in his division (in this race), too. He was a little tired from many miles of ultramarathon training the past week at a 5:45/mile pace with some other fast area runners. Neither one of us did too bad, though. He and I both took first in our age groups for the entire XTerra trail race series, and we also tied each other for first place (overall) in the series, based upon points! Not bad. We both went home with medals and some nice North Face race schwag. After the race, Caleb and I ran the course again, to take down the signage.

Sunday, I drove out to Kill Creek Park and ran on technical trails with the Nerds. I ended up only running for 1-hour & 20-minutes, but it was a quality run, and I finished strong. The rest of the day was spent preparing race-day supplies for the next 2 races (next weekend), and brewing some homebrew in my garage.

My back and hamstring were bothering me last night and this morning, but I think I'm getting back to normal, finally. I won't run today, but will workout in the gym this afternoon.

3 comments:

Olga said...

Wow, you fast dudes! We need something like this too - I was thinking how slow I had become (not that I was ever fast) after I stopped going to shorter races in NYC.
Congrats on an award!

D said...

Hard core running - Ben! Did you go on the new Roller Coaster out there? I'm too chicken to try it - the concept of my legs dangling while going at those speeds SCARES ME.

Ben, aka BadBen said...

I didn't go on that rollercoaster, but hit all of the others. My back suffered for it, though; nothing that 4-1/2 hours of sleep couldn't cure, right?