Sacramento Running News

The Saucony Peregrine in blue, cleaned up after a long, muddy run.

I’ve spent the last few months enjoying the roads in a pair of Saucony Kinvara, and I’ve come to appreciate their super light weight, soft ride and minimalist construction. I was looking for a shoe that was more accommodating to my increasingly fore-foot strike. I could feel the thick heel on my regular trainers interfering with the normal mechanics of my foot and Achilles tendon.

The Kinvara, with its lower heel feels much more natural to me. I’d be careful about them if you are a heel striker or need some motion control, as they are a completely neutral shoe. But as I said, I’ve been very happy with them, running distances of up to 22 miles.

But right now, I’m not training for a road race. I’m training for the Way-Too-Cool 50Km and the American River 50, both of which include a wide variety of trails—rocks, mud, technical, hills, etc. Whenever I’d hit the trails for training runs, I’d put on my Montrail Masochists.

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Tuesday’s Bee has the strangest story about a local Hash House Harrier run gone seriously, epically, sideways. Apparently, some hashers were allegedly caught on Aerojet property and Aerojet security allegedly roughed them up went all “Guantanamo” on them.

Reportedly, the security guards generally went nuts over the flour the hashers were using to mark the route (HAZMAT!!!) and hilarity ensued.

Some of the hashers sued and in response, naturally, Aerojet filed a counter-suit. Two years of intense legal wrangling were followed with–silence from all the interested parties.

Some of the details in the Bee story seem to be a bit off –in particular identifying the Doughnut Dash as a “hash. It just happens to be listed on the club’s bulletin board.

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Here is some good news about the long term prognosis for those of you who are facing possible knee replacement surgery: the long-term prognosis is pretty good.

A long-term study of knee replacement patients, presented last week at the annual meeting of the American Association of Orthopedic Surgeons in San Diego, found that most patients were doing very well 20-years later–even those who had broken all the rules and ran or played tennis.

A majority of the patients could walk indefinitely, and about the same number were “pain free.”

It is important to note that these patients were pretty old, as the average age at time of surgery was 64. So being pain free and highly mobile 20-years later (with one or more knees replaced) is a pretty sweet deal!

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Time to start planning!

You will be pleased to learn I finally got around to performing a thorough update of the race calendar for 2011.  There are now around 40 events listed. These are generally limited to within 50-miles of the Capitol, but some significant regional races are also included. Go crazy!

I’m not done adding events. (Well, I’m done for the evening.)

I’m no longer including start times because I figure runners should check the actual race site for that level of detail.

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If you’ve been isolated from your email and the internet for the past few days, you might not be aware that the Boston Marathon has finally made changes to its registration process.

These changes are an attempt to address complaints about the race filling too rapidly and faster runners getting shut out by the overwhelming number of slower runners.

As written about here, and elsewhere, the 2011 Boston Marathon sold out in eight hours. This led to immediate speculation about whether the qualification standards were too loose.

The BAA chose to leave the qualifications standards intact for the 2012 race, but will open up registration earlier for runners with qualifying times well below the standard.

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I couldn’t make the Valentine Run this past weekend, but watching this video is almost as good as being there!

The high point of the video is seeing Po Adams challenging folks to get out there and do it.

Results are here.

Rumor has it they are finally enforcing the parking restrictions at the Aquatic Center.

Some time ago, I reported here that the Aquatic Center, would begin restricting parking access to Aquatic Center users (i.e., not the runners and cyclists). And then nothing happened.

This past weekend, there was an attendant turning people away from the parking lot. There doesn’t appear to be much logic associated with the move since the lot is generally half-empty whenever I’ve been there. One runner noted that last weekend, “My wife and I felt bad for the girl they made sit out there to protect their empty parking lot.”

What to do? Get a Golden Poppy Pass, you free-loader, and then park at Nimbus Flat, right around the corner. You should do this anyhow, then you can park at any lot along the river upstream from Hazel–and support the State Parks System that you use all the time.

50 km winner Chad Worthen accepts his winner's certificate from Co-Race Director John Blue

How fast can you run 30 km? How about 50 km? Fifty miles?

This past weekend, a small crowd of distance runners met up at the Watt Avenue access to the American River to explore that question.

The Jed Smith Ultra Classic is a 33-year-old, local tradition hosted by the Buffalo Chips Running Club.

Traditionally held at Gibson Ranch Park in Elverta, the race has been relocated along the American River due to cuts in the County’s park budget.

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