Sacramento Running News

The River City Rebels masters men’s team ended up on top of the team standings in the 2013 PAUSATF Road Grand Prix!

That’s an impressive feat in this competitive grand prix. Rumor has it that West Valley Track Club will be gunning for the Rebels in next year’s competition.

Complete team results for the Road Grand Prix are here.

In cross-country, the Rebels also took top honors in both men and women’s senior (50+) standings!

Complete team results for the XC Grand Prix are here.

Geoff Butler ran every day in 2013 and made a pretty cool video about it.

And based on the video, he seems to have avoided rain for most of those runs. Well done!

He traveled around a bit (more than a bit!), but much of this is shot in some of my favorite local running venues. Check it out!

In her marathon debut, Becky Wade runs 2:30:41 for the fifth fastest time by an American this year.

While I am not one of those crazy CIM “streakers,” this year I marked my 11th CIM finish, and 13th start. Many of them were cold–especially at the start–but none were as cold as this one.

How cold was it? It was so cold that some of the buses at the starting line were capped with snow–snow that wasn’t melting despite the buses’ heaters running.

It was cold enough to ice over the Power Aid in the paper cups at the aid stations.

And it was also cold enough for the spilled water and electrolyte drink to freeze on the ground, turning the road along the aid stations into crazy, jostling ice rinks.

I’m sure RD Michelle LaSala has added “road salt” to the aid station supply list, something no previous race director has ever had to worry about.

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Unlike road races that can accommodate thousands of runners, popular trail ultras are often limited to many fewer runners than would like to participate. As a result, lotteries are becoming a common theme.

You may already know the Western States Lottery is closed and the “lucky” runners will be drawn this weekend.

There are, coincidentally, a couple other big lotteries underway right now, too.

The Way Too Cool 50K lottery is currently open and closes on the 8th.

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Numerous road closures will be in place on Sunday during the 31st annual California International Marathon, which begins at 7 a.m.

Here is a mile-by-mile look at closures along the course from near Folsom Dam to the state Capitol, provided by the marathon organizers:

1 – 5:20 a.m.-7:15 a.m. – Folsom-Auburn and Oak

2 – 5:20-7:30 – Oak and American River Canyon

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Dopers competing in the last couple of Olympics should be sweating a bit (I hope.) as the IOC has announced it will be re-testing urine samples stored from the 2006 winter Olympics using an enhanced detection protocol.

The new testing can detect certain steroids several months after their use. This is a significant improvement over the prior testing protocol, which would fail to detect residues after a few weeks of abstinence.

SI Online reports:

”The IOC is currently retesting some of the samples collected during the Olympic Winter Games in Turin in 2006 and we can confirm that we are using the new long-term metabolites method to detect anabolic steroids,” the IOC said in a statement.

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Do you feel lucky? Do you?

If, for you, luck is getting the opportunity to train and run for 100 miles in the extreme heat of summer and the extreme terrain of the Sierras, then you definitely don’t want to miss out on the Western States 100 lottery.

It closes tonight at midnight.

Of course, there are only about 270 slots available and (as of this writing) over 2,700 people who’ve put their names in. Your odds are better than zero but far from reasonable.

Of course, reasonable people don’t aspire to run this event.

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What if you showed up for a color run and the color run wasn’t there?

A white shirted army descended on the Sacramento Raceway for a chance to be showered in colored corn starch Saturday. But the hundreds who turned out for an event promoted as “The Color Fight” discovered only an empty track and their prepaid tickets worthless.

According to an article in the Sacramento Bee, the event’s Race Director, Chris Martin of San Jose, failed to secure the facility for the event.

Accidents happen–even in well established events–but this is a fine example of why you should stick to races with local roots and a solid history.

Alert runner John B. (not me) reports passing Olympian and 2013 World Championship silver medalist Matt Centrowitz running (briskly) on the parkway near Sunrise this past weekend.

“He was followed about a quarter-mile later by (NCAA West XC champ) Alex Kosinski,” John reports. “No more Ducks followed.”

Keep your eyes peeled. With the NCAA West XC championships at Haggin Oaks this week, there’s no telling who you might see out there.