Sacramento Running News

As with last month’s PAUSATF Grand Prix half-marathon in Humboldt, locals dominated at Clarskburg in both individual and team results.

This year, the traditional 30Km PAUSATF race was dispensed with, but there were still a boatload of overlapping races associated with this event. There was a 20-miler, a half marathon, a 5 Km, and a kids half-mile. With the half-marathon being the PA (i.e., faster) event and starting just 20 minutes after the 20 miler, half-marathon runners enjoyed the special thrill of weaving through the endless, and often clueless, ranks of slower 20-mile runners.

I was pleased to see locals–Kevin Pool of Folsom and Lindsay Nelson of Roseville–get the win in this PA race–both with solid times. Pool’s 1:07:56 would, in a typical local race, give him a commanding lead. Here, however, runner up Sergio Reyes was only seconds back in just over 1:08. In fact, there were eight men under 1:10!

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Each fall, I make an enjoyable visit to the Humboldt Redwoods for another go at one of my all time favorite half marathons.

This past Sunday’s aptly named Humboldt Redwoods Marathon and Half Marathon is the nearly identical twin (the stereoisomer really) of the Avenue of the Giants Marathon (AKA “The Ave”) with one major difference. The Humboldt Redwoods Half Marathon is part of the PAUSATF Grand Prix and therefore draws a very fast crowd. (Also, The Ave is run in April.)

This is how a small race that starts in a little turn-off of Highway 101 has 33 finishers under 1:20 and a woman running 1:18:19 comes in 2^nd.

The weather was perfect. The race was well organized. And this year, they replaced the usual terrible cotton shirts with pretty nice technical ones.

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Jaymee Marty last month on her way to winning the Buffalo Stampede.

After years of very publicly training for it, and a couple near misses, Sacramento’s Jaymee Marty knocks out a Olympic Trials qualifier at the Chicago Marathon yesterday.

Under unusually warm conditions, Marty qualified with almost a minute to spare in 2:45:09, improving on her prior personal best of 2:46:26 from last year’s Twin Cities Marathon.

Marty is the third local woman to meet the Olympic B standard of sub-2:46. At 43, Marty also builds on a trend of local masters women superstars–Midori Sperandeo and Mary Coordt–who have already qualified for the 2012 trials. Will any “open women” runners (i.e., women under 40) qualify in this cycle? And what about the guys?

Jaymee Marty writes all about her race experience in her blog. Read it. It’ll bring tears to your eyes.

This past Sunday,  Paul Ngeny of Auburn (by way of Kenya) came to town and ran away with a commanding win of the now officially huge Urban Cow Half-Marathon.

Ngeny’s time of 1:07:51 was announced as a new course record, leaving this reporter confused as the race’s website lists Dennis Rinde’s 1982 course record as 1:05:38. (We promise to post an update when we figure this out.)

UPDATE: Race Director Rich Hanna explains that Dennis Rinde’s record is the “Race Record” set on the old Sacramento marathon course, but Ngeny’s time is the new course record for the Cowtown/Urban Cow course.

Following up in second and third were Chad Worthen of Sacramento and Ben Deland of Pleasanton, who finished in 1:13:17 and 1:14:35, respectively.

In the women’s race, masters runners dominated with Midori Sperandeo, of Folsom, picking up the win in 1:20:17, and Jenny Hitchings, of Sacramento, coming in second with 1:23:34.

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John Blue finishing up his pacing of the 2008 Cowtown Marathon

If you are planning to run the Urban Cow Half Marathon this year, you should know the fees go up on September 27th.

In case you’ve been living under a rock or somewhere far outside the Sacramento Metroplex, Urban Cow is the new name for the race that had been known as the Cowtown Half.

The owners of the other Cowtown Marathon got pissy with our race just being generally better, if for no other reason than our race is in Sacramento and not Fort Worth.

Lawyers, or the threat of lawyers, got involved and suddenly it is the Urban Cow Half Marathon. You can read the story behind all the name changes right here on the event’s history page.

If you were maybe sitting on the fence, and were trying to decide whether or not you had the fortitude to run this thing somewhere in the neighborhood of 1:40, you can join me, John Blue, as I lead this epic pace group.

There will be other pacers there, and maybe their pace is more what you were looking for, but I guarantee you that I will make many dumb jokes and do my best to get you in by 1:40.

Lets say you’ve been training for the California International Marathon and it’s still months away. December 5th seems like a distant country. No need to worry about signing up yet, right?

Unfortunately, that is probably not a good idea this year. Like many races, CIM’s registration is way ahead of prior years’, and they are reporting three times the number of registrations compared to this time last year. You might not want to put it off. They’ve passed 5,000 already and are capped at 7,500.

Jaymee Marty looking strong at the halfway point.

Since the 1970s, runners from around the region have lined up on the first Sunday after Labor Day to take on one of Sacramento’s premier distance running events: The Buffalo Stampede.

In the heyday of American distance running, there were fewer races to choose from and the competition was fierce. A sub-60 minute time might not guarantee you a top-20 finish!

The popularity of this 10-mile race has ebbed and flowed over the years, and the fast end of the field at one point dwindled to a single runner breaking that 60-minute barrier.

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Over the past few years, the Race for the Arts 5K has managed to remake itself from a unique Friday evening, race in downtown to just another Saturday morning 5K in Land Park.

Still, Land Park is a great place to run a 5K and the weather was perfect, so a good crowd assembled to take on the event and support local arts organizations.

Did I mention the weather was perfect? For last year’s race, we “enjoyed” high temps and Gulf Coast-like humidity. This year, it was absurdly cool for late August–about 59 degrees at the start–and clouds filled the sky. It was a perfect fall morning, about a month early.

The overall event seemed larger this year, and the race organization made use of the park’s amphitheater for showcasing local performers. Young opera singers serenaded us as we warmed up and a rock-band was on the stage as we cooled down.

Many of the usual (fast) suspects were on hand for the start and once all the kids that went out at a sub-5:00 per mile pace faded, local speedsters Steven Schenck and Mike Styczynski battled it out for first.

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Once again the streets of River Park were filled Saturday with a happy mix of fitness enthusiasts and some of Sacramento’s fastest women at the Susan B. Anthony 5K. And just like last year, top local speedsters Midori Sperandeo and Mary Coordt battled it out and finished 1, 2 with only few seconds between them.   Although if you were looking for them to slow down you’d be disappointed as this year they shaved a dozen seconds off last year’s winning time, coming in at an eye-popping 17:33 and 17:36!

This being one of very few women-only races in the region, it attracts some of the top local talent.  There were 20 women running under seven-minute miles!

With seven finishers in the 70+ age bracket (including the always amazing Barbara Miller who finished in 23:51) you can guess the race caters to all participants and this year’s race was bigger than ever, with over 450 finishers. Complete results are here.

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It’s not even August and now you need to make that critical decision: Register for the marathon now (before August 1st) and Pay $80, or wait until you’re sure you’ll be running and pay $100.  Relay team prices go up from $100 to $160.  You may as well bite the bullet and register now since registration closes for sure by November 1st, and they are on track to sell out in advance of that date.

It seems like just a couple of years ago, registering at the Expo was still an option!  Get the details at the California International Marathon website.