Marine on St Croix July 4 Race

Every year the town of Marine on St Croix holds a fun little four-mile race as part of its Fourth of July celebration. It’s a one-way race with every runner having to arrange her/his own transportation to the start. The course is about half on gravel roads, somewhat up and down, it does drop at least 200 feet from start to finish. Usually it’s a warm race, but this year it was wet and warm. 135 souls braved the rain, about the same number of runners as last year.

I decided to run both ways to get in a few extra miles, leaving my car at the finish well before race time and running up to the start line, then racing back with the pack. My race time was 35:22, only four seconds better than last year. On the other hand I was second of seven in my 60-69 age group this year, compared with seventh of 13 last year, and I did run up the hill before the race this year. It’s fine.

There is a new pain, though, in the top of the right shin just below the knee I think. It feels different from the pain I’ve been feeling in that knee. I have felt hints of this before, but I don’t recall if it ever reached the point where I logged it. Now it’s in the log - and I sure hope that’s the end of it! Shin splints I don’t need, if that's what it is, with a marathon coming up (there is always a marathon coming up). I suppose it could have been caused by the pounding that the legs take on the steep downhill parts of the course. I'll try to run mostly on grass and walk down hills for a while.

Don't you love summer, with all of the fresh fruit and berries? Nectarines are a favorite of mine.