Sacramento Running News

Huh?

Last Sunday morning, Scott Downard pinned on a race bib for the Cowtown Marathon (the one in Fort Worth, Texas) and ran 2:31:40 and was the first across the finish line by six minutes.

The trouble was that the bib Downard was wearing was actually that of a friend who couldn’t make the race.

In what was no doubt an awkward moment for everyone involved, Doward, according to the Star Telegram, admitted “without any prompting” that the bib wasn’t his.

Race management disqualified Downard for not being a registered runner and instead awarded the win to Kolin Styles, who was the next to finish in 2:37:53.

While this seems to be a pretty odd story, apparently the exact same thing happened at the 2003 race!

Read the whole sad story in the Star-Telegram.

Time to plan for 2012!

We’ve just added many more races to this year’s calendar–bringing us to more than 100 for your racing pleasure.

Start planning!

Expect some construction related detours on the Parkway this weekend.

From the Sacramento County Regional Parks web page:

Beginning Thursday February 23, there will be a detour on the ARP Bike Trail between mile 2.5 and 3.5 for trail construction. A detour will take trail users up on the levee. Construction is expected to be completed by the following Monday.

On Saturday, February 25, the Guy West Bridge (near mile 8.0) will be closed to all traffic for bridge inspection and repair. Additionally, the bike trail will be detoured a short distance onto the levee to prevent park users having to pass under the bridge.

Plan accordingly!

Do you have what it takes to go to London?

In case you’re wondering, Flotrack has the qualification standards up on-line.

How hard could it possibly be? (Hint: Pretty hard.)

Your brain is in charge.

There is a growing body of evidence in support of the theory that your brain is the limiting factor in your running performance. This article from the Globe and Mail, sent to me by alert reader Chris, describes yet another study that reinforces this theory.

What was intriguing to me about this study is that it gives some indication that not only can you trick your brain into increasing your VO2max, but that the effects are apparently enduring.

Researchers took several athletes and tested their VO2max using a traditional protocol–slowly ramping up the pace of the treadmill until the athletes oxygen uptake hit a plateau.

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If you’ve ever run in one of our many, wonderful parks, you’ll appreciate this essay from McSweeney’s Internet Tendencies.

If you’ve never surfed over to McSweeney’s, you owe it to yourself to check it out. There is some fabulous writing there and some of it is really, and truly hilarious.

To begin, let me go on record as saying that you are, undoubtedly, the fastest jogger at the park. You burst out of the wooded thicket and into my sight like a firework of sweat and sleevelessness amidst Sunday’s leisurely banality.

I don’t know if the writer, Eric Torres, is a runner or not, but he puts his literary finger on the experience of watching that person weaving, perhaps obnoxiously, through the crowded foot traffic in the park. (more…)

Meghan Arbogast on her way to a new American age group record for 50 miles. (SRN Photo)

If you were looking for a top finish at this weekend’s Jed Smith Ultra Classic, you’d better have brought your “A game” because some of the country’s top talent was there throwing down.

There are many (many!) ultras in California and they are all, for the most part, pretty long. Some of them are known to be beautiful. Others are popular, mountainous, hot, sadistic, and sometimes famously hard to get into. Jed Smith has always been about speed.

The Jed Smith Ultra Classic, put on by the Buffalo Chips for the past 34 years, includes three events–a 30km, a 50km, and a 50 mile race. They are all run on an accurately measured, 4.85 mile loop course along the American River that is ideal for setting records and running 100k team qualifying times–as long as the weather on the first day in February is fine.

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All you need to know in one image!

Everyone knows you slow down and get weaker with age, right? In fact the data shows that 37 percent of senior citizens have disabilities.

Well, how much of that is simply due to the unavoidable effects of aging, and how much of that decline is due to sitting around on our butts?

To answer that question, some smart scientists at the University of Pittsburgh conducted a study of masters athletes and discovered that there was a huge, enormous even, difference between older people who had been training diligently as they aged and those that did not.

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