Sacramento Running News

Kevin Cimini gets chased to the finish by Carol Parise. (SRN photo)

As I sat through the long awards ceremony after the Fab 40s 5K, the question that kept running through my mind was “Where are all these fast people coming from?”

For a 5K in flat-as-a-pancake Sacramento, it’s a somewhat challenging course–not just because it starts and finishes on the highest hill in Sacramento.

There are deceptive, rolling hills on that East Sac course, and yet, Saturday’s times were still quite fast.

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I fell in love with the Race for the Arts 5K when it was run downtown from Crocker Park and along the Sacramento River, on a Friday evening in late summer.

Over time, originally because of construction issues, the race was moved to Land Park–but still run in the evening.

Now, it’s just another Saturday morning 5K in Land Park, but still a good time and still a local favorite. The course is flat and shaded. There is plenty of grass to set up a team tent or run your kids around on after the event.

In today’s race, local speedster Kevin Pool ran alone for the win in 15:13. Following him in for 2nd and 3rd were Hector Miranda in 15:52, and Camron Shahmirzadi in 16:15.

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Runners are off at the Run to Break the Silence (Photo by Randy Wehner)

This last couple of weekends have been crowded with races!

The biggest (and most competitive) local event this past weekend was easily Saturday evening’s Run to Break the Silence 5K.

Folsom’s Camron Shahmirzadi was the big winner there, in 16:30. He was followed in by Chad Worthen, of Sacrmento, in 16:43, and Jason Harne, of Folsom, in 16:45.

The first woman was Gina Dayton, of Sacramento, in 20:11. Hot on her heels was Karen Jeffers, of Wheatland, in 20:17, and finishing up in a close race for third was Kelly Wisnicky, of Fair Oaks, in 20:37.

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Jesse Barragan took 3rd in the 50K despite a bad stumble that had him walking the last mile or so. (Photo courtesy of Scott Sandow)

Sunday’s Run on the Sly trail races continue a long tradition of August trail racing along Jenkinson Lake in El Dorado County. This year, more than 600 runners completed the various races.

In the 50K, Palo Alto’s Cameron Berg ran away with the overall win in a smoking 3:57 on that hilly course.

The next three in were locals. These were Lincoln’s Michael Fink, finishing in 4:17 (only a couple minutes off his age group course record), Folsom’s Jesse Barragan, with 4:30, and the women’s winner Jen Pfeifer, of El Dorado,  in 4:33.

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Happy finishers (Photo by Matthew Perry)

There was hard work and there were challenging trails, but the weather was fine at Sunday’s Blood, Sweat and Beers Trail Run.

There is a long course (10.5 miles) or a short course (5.9 miles) and the race directors promise “a challenging mix of single track mountainous trail, a totally cool canal system, unimproved dirt roads with just a hint of paved roads to keep things interesting.”

Sounds like a good time!

In the long course, Chris Vargo led the way to win in 1:07:24. He was followed in by Matthew Twietmeyer , who ran 1:12:30. The 3rd place male was Eric Peterson, in 1:15:22. All were from Sacramento.

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