Ordinarily, this race is scheduled right on top of the Undy, so this was the first time I’ve had a chance to run in it.

I got to the site early yesterday morning (big surprise, eh!), and found a little breakfast at Picasso’s Coffee.  I’ve had the coffee at Picasso’s in old town St. Charles, and this one was every bit as good.  Nothing like a good cuppa joe on race day to get me started.

The race site is about thirty minutes from the house, so while I coulda picked up my race bib on Friday, I elected to wait until Saturday morning.  The race organizers got things set up pretty quickly, and I had a little time to kill.

I hadn’t been in this part of St. Charles before, and I was impressed.  It’s a new “urban living” area, with lofts above first floor shops — really neat concept.  This particular incarnation has everything you could want… except on-site grocery shopping.  I suspect there’s something close-by, but that’s the thing that’s a deal breaker for me. Even the revitalization of downtown St. Louis seems to have missed this small detail.

Racetime quickly approached, and we started to line up.  There were only about 600 folks in the combined 5k/10k event, so lining up was quick, as was the start!  In a big race, it’s not unusual for it to take more than a few minutes to get through the start line.  For this race, it was about 30 seconds.  🙂

We started out, and the first thing we were greeted by was a nice downhill slope.  That was great, but I had a funny feeling that I’d see that slope again, and not from its best side.

In no time, we were on the Katy Trail.  This is a wonderful rails-to-trails conversation that spans about 250 miles.  Needless to say, we didn’t cover nearly that much of it!  We spent about 3.5km on the trail, which was a nice flat part of the race.  And on again, it had a nice “pass it twice” water stop.  And at that water stop was a big ol’ cow, advertising the Mo’ Cowbell later this fall.

I got back to hill again, and sure enough, it was a climb.  I’ve gotta tell ya, some of these race course designers are real cruel folks.  Why would you finish a race on an uphill climb????  I got to the top of it, and finished the race, gathering up another medal for the wall.

This was really a nice race, with good support, and a huge medal.  Assuming they stay away from the Undy, I think I’ll be back!

This race benefitted Just Because We Care and Timmy’s Mountain.

Race Course