Gov. Rod Blagojevich, an avid runner, made sure everyone knew he participated last weekend in the River to River, an 80-mile race across southern Illinois from the Mississippi River to the Ohio.
The governor’s communications office issued several press releases in the days before the race about Blagojevich’s being the first governor ever to run in the 18th annual race. It pointed out that the governor had competed in three marathons previously, was running the anchor leg for his team and was running the longest total distance for the team, nearly 11 miles.
But one thing the press office didn’t make sure everyone knew about was how the Elvis-loving chief executive and his team–“The Blue Suede Running Shoes”–actually did in the race.
According to the official results, Blagojevich and his seven running mates came in 92nd out of 219 teams, and eighth out of 12 teams participating in the “masters” division, which is for, ahem, more-senior participants. The team’s time was 10 hours, 25 minutes and 39 seconds.
Just to put that time into perspective, the winners, St. Sebastian’s Disciples, completed the course–which starts on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi, follows country roads through the Shawnee National Forest and ends at the Ohio River in Golconda–in 7 hours, 34 minutes and 14 seconds. And the winners of the masters division, Team Reliv, won in 7 hours, 59 minutes and 51 seconds.
Also on the governor’s team were his chief of staff, Lon Monk; Mike Matulis, the editorial page editor of the Springfield Journal Register; Matulis’ brother Mark; Meta Minton, the editor of the Southern Illinoisan newspaper; Kimberly Drake of Carbondale; Bruce Liimatainen and Joe Curci, CEO and CFO of A. Finkl & Sons, a steel manufacturing company in Chicago. Blagojevich’s father worked for A. Finkl & Sons for many years.