for an object that is so long and narrow, you may want to use tiling for the texture. here is a quick example using your mesh,...
http://www.andimages.com/proofs/pongo/girder.zip
here is the image used (included in the .zip)

the texturing has some streaking and needs some more cleanup, but it should give you the basic idea.
http://www.andimages.com/proofs/pongo/girder.zip
here is the image used (included in the .zip)

the texturing has some streaking and needs some more cleanup, but it should give you the basic idea.