Sacramento Running News

Kirsten Schneider finishes 3rd at the Women's Fitness 5K. Photo courtesy of Randy Wehner.

There has been a lot of racing going on around here! With all the rain and mud we’ve been slogging through, it’s hard to believe that this is the beginning of the summer, short-distance race season–but it is.

At Sunday’s Kaiser Permanente Women’s Fitness Festival 5K, Caroline Kirui, of Auburn (by way of Kenya), smoked all comers with a 16:26. This was surely one of the fastest women’s 5K times we’ve seen in town lately.

Rounding out the rest of the top-three were two of Sacramento’s top masters talents–Mary Coordt, of Elk Grove, was the second finisher in 17:45, and Kirsten Schneider, of Sacramento, was third in 18:24.

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Several years ago, I ran in the Heritage Oaks Bank Paso Robles 10Km, which was at the time the US masters’ national championship. I was struggling after a season of trail ultras and barely kept it under 40-minutes.

In that same race, Eddy Hellebuyck was having the race of his life (as a masters runner) and set a new American Masters record for the road 10Km. Finishing in an astounding 29:05, Hellebuyck was so far ahead of the 2nd place runner, they had a separate lead motorcycle for him.

A short while later, I was not surprised to hear that Hellebuyck had failed a doping test for EPO. Disappointed, but not surprised.

The December Runners World has an excellent article by John Brant wherein Hellebuyck finally comes clean about the doping allegations and gives some insight into why he did it.

The story left me with an uneasy mix of feelings about this runner. He cheated and stole other runners’ prize money. He’s also coming clean without being compelled to do so. If confession truly is good for the soul, there are many other prominent athletes out there who would do well to follow his example.