Sacramento Running News

Barbara Miller running strong (SRN photo)

On an uncharacteristically cool Memorial Day morning, several hundred runners and walkers lined up in Land Park for another running of the No Excuses 5K.

No Excuses is Sacramento’s original opportunity for fast young men to get their clocks cleaned by older, fast women and pre-teens in the age-graded results–a race within a race, so to speak.

In the age-graded results, winner Barbara Miller, 73, of Modesto continues to dominate by continuing to run pretty darn fast–age graded or not.

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Barbara Miller shows winning form at last month's Zoo Zoom. (SRN Photo)

Each Memorial Day, Land Park is abuzz with with runners for the popular, age-graded, No Excuses 5Km. There are the usual suspects up at the front of the pack (Styczynski, Schenck, Fadling, Myers, Cruz, etc.), but the real stars of this race are a few minutes back.

The age grading format gives those runners who are precocious or durable a chance to shine.

A couple of years ago, the official race shirt had a list of popular excuses on its back. One of those excuses was “I’m not Barbara Miller.”

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The end of 2011 is upon us so it’s time to check out the results of the major road race series/grand prix that local runners compete in.

Local

We’ll start with Sacramento’s own Buzz Oates RunSac Race Series. This year-long series of local races is a points competition with over $7,000 in prize money and bonuses. Points are earned based on age-graded performances in more than a dozen top Sacramento-area road races. There are awards for team and individual competition, and in 2011, there were several hundred individuals and eight local teams vying for the prize money.

The top placing individuals for 2011 were Janice Kesterson, 57, running for the Buffalo Chips, and Terry Baucom, 54, running for Fleet Feet Racing.

Second and third individual women were Karen Jeffers, 48, with the River City Rebels, and Stacey Worthen, 38, running for Fleet Feet Racing.

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As we say goodbye to 2010 it’s time for those of us who care to look back and see which local runners ended up on top of the heap.

There is probably a way that some industrious person could analyze all the results of races run by local runners and come up with a ranking that no one could understand, kind of like NCAA football. Unfortunately for you, I am not this industrious. Fortunately for all of us, there are actual races with results and a few really competitive race series that you can test yourself in.

The big daddy of regional competition for  amateur athletes is the Pacific Association USA Track and Field Grand Prix. The PAUSATF region is much more than Sacramento–running north to the Oregon border down to San Luis Obispo, and from the coast to just beyond Reno, Nevada. There is a lot of talent in that pool (including Kevin). There are team and individual results and you can look up your favorite runners’ results here.

I am not going to break out the individual results because there are too darn many due to all the age, distance, and gender divisions. There are many local runners, from the big local teams, landing in the top-ten of their respective divisions.

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