June 1st is National Running Day
In case you weren’t aware, Wednesday, June 1st is National Running Day.
Why? Because it is, that’s why.
What are you going to do about it? (Run, hopefully.)
Archive for May, 2011
NCAA West: Three Hornets Advance to the Finals
Lea Wallace is the first Hornet woman to advance to NCAA finals in two events. Photo from the Big Sky Conference Champs
This weekend, three Hornets earned a trip to the NCAA Finals at Drake University by advancing out of the NCAA West Preliminaries in Eugene.
Senior Ronald Brookins will be making his second appearance at the NCAA finals in the 110 meter hurdles after finishing 2nd in his quarterfinal heat, running the event’s 5th fastest time of 13.47.
Teammate and fellow senior Lea Wallace advanced to the finals in the 800 on Friday, and again in the 1500 meters on Saturday. Friday, Wallace won her 800 heat and posted the fourth fastest time of 2:03.69. Then on Saturday, she took 2nd in her heat in the 1500 to automatically advance to the final, and posted the 7th fastest time of 4:20.38.
World Masters Championships Marathon Course
The World Masters Athletics Championships (AKA World Masters Track and Field Champs) are a little more than a month away and there is excitement in the air. It’s a little like you’re a kid waiting for Christmas, except maybe you’re hoping that Santa Claus is going to bring you that massive track meet you’ve always wanted!
(I suppose I should task the interns with rounding up some better metaphors.)
Most of the venues are pretty easy to figure out. One world-class track is pretty much the same as another. The critical question for most of the events is: What’s the weather going to be like? (It’ll be July in Sacramento so the odds are good it will be warm and sunny.)
CIM Registration Set to Increase
The weather is still cool and a December marathon seems a world away.
It’s hard to believe you might need to be thinking about registering already, but if you want to run the California International Marathon for the “cheap” price of $85, you need to register before midnight on June 1st.
After June 1, 11:59 p.m. PST, the registration fee will increase to $105. The price remains $105 from June 2 until until the entry cap of 7,500 is achieved.
After June 1st, the price shoots up to $105, which seems like a lot until you realize that it’s only $4 per mile! (Okay. It still seems like a lot.)
Relay registration is already $105, but it goes up to $165 after August 1st.
The Rabbit Wins!
Race organizers at the Pittsburgh Marathon brought in Jeffrey Eggleston to rabbit the leaders to a fast time.
After running his contracted 18 miles at Olympic Trials qualifying pace (sub 2:19 pace), Eggleston found himself running alone, but in visual contact of the lead pack.
He then threw down some faster miles, caught and passed the leaders for the overall win and a PR time of 2:16:40. Good times!
I could read stories like that all day. Read about it in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Better yet, read about it in Eggleston’s blog.
ARC Men Win State Title
It looks like another local college’s track and field program had a good year, this time at the community college level.
The American River College men won the California Community College Athletic Association Track and Field Championships this weekend on their home turf.
Mt. San Antonio and El Camino tied for the women’s crown.
To wrap it all up, the Beavers won the 4 x 400 relay with the state-best time of the season, 3 minutes, 13.00 seconds.
A 1970s teletype version of the complete results is here (PDF).
Burning Calories After Excercise
There is a persistent bit of conventional wisdom about how athletes continue to burn more calories after they are finished exercising.
The usual reasoning is that our metabolisms are turned way up for hours after we are finished working out.
The science behind this has always been a little sketchy and a new study sheds a little light on why the data has been inconclusive so-far. It turns out that this effect has a lot to due with how hard or how intensely you work out.
In other words, you’ll enjoy the after-burn from a tempo run or set of intervals, but you won’t get it from an easy run. I guess this explains why I always lose more weight (or get hungrier) during a speed-training phase.
Read about it in the Charlotte Observer.
Weekend at the Races: Avenue of the Vines, Dirty Secret, and Bay to Breakers
If one were thinking of running a half marathon and wondering where one might find a race to place well (AKA “cherry picking”), one might think that a trip to the little valley town of Lodi might do the trick.
You could imagine the pleasant farming folk setting down their hoes, or parking their combine harvesters for the morning, lacing up some jogging shoes and trotting out an easy 13.1 miles. Then they might gather around a jug of fresh squeezed lemonade to chat about the new livestock auctioneer they’d seen at the county fair last summer. Or something like that.
Then you might actually run Lodi’s Avenue of the Vines Half-Marathon, or just look at the results, and notice that local running impresario Rich Hanna ran a 1:13:29 and still finished over four minutes behind winner Jose Morales, of Turlock, who ran 1:09:17!
To put that in perspective, imagine that you were running a 5:37/mile pace. Even if you were running that pace, the winner (i.e., Jose Morales) would be done and sipping on some of that fresh-squeezed lemonade and you would still have over a half-mile to run.
Cats on Treadmills
It’s unseasonably cold outside and you’re looking for motivation to go for a run.
You could bust out that Sweatin’ to the Oldies DVD. Or, you could entertain yourself by watching cats run on a treadmill.
Suit yourself!
Sac State Men and Women Win Big Sky Conference Championships
Celebrating Hornets
There was wind and there was unseasonably cool temperatures. There were cramps and pulled muscles, and there was the occasional jackrabbit bolting across the track and mid-field. When the all-weather track dust had settled, both the Sac State Men and the Sac State Women had clinched Big Sky Conference outdoor titles.
The Hornet women earned their fourth consecutive team title, with a commanding 236 points. Montana finished second with 133 while Eastern Washington was third at 79.
While the women have been there before, this was the first time the men got to enjoy wearing the outdoor title. The men scored 204.5 points, ahead of Northern Arizona who finished with 167.