Sacramento Running News

If one were thinking of running a half marathon and wondering where one might find a race to place well (AKA “cherry picking”), one might think that a trip to the little valley town of Lodi might do the trick.

You could imagine the pleasant farming folk setting down their hoes, or parking their combine harvesters for the morning, lacing up some jogging shoes and trotting out an easy 13.1 miles. Then they might gather around a jug of fresh squeezed lemonade to chat about the new livestock auctioneer they’d seen at the county fair last summer. Or something like that.

Then you might actually run Lodi’s Avenue of the Vines Half-Marathon, or just look at the results, and notice that local running impresario Rich Hanna ran a 1:13:29 and still finished over four minutes behind winner Jose Morales, of Turlock, who ran 1:09:17!

To put that in perspective, imagine that you were running a 5:37/mile pace. Even if you were running that pace, the winner (i.e., Jose Morales) would be done and sipping on some of that fresh-squeezed lemonade and you would still have over a half-mile to run.

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Runner with beer being stopped by police.

Organizing and hosting a race is always challenging.  As a race director, you have to plan for every contingency imaginable and then deal with the things that really happen on race day.  Imagine the headaches created by binge drinking race participants!

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Bay to Breakers race organizers said “more than 30 participants had to be taken to hospitals via ambulance after this year’s race, most for alcohol-related reasons.”    This is why they are announcing a strict “no-alcohol policy” for next year’s race.  Are they going to start cracking down on the naked guys now?