Sacramento Running News

Meghan Arbogast on her way to the win. (Photo by Sean Dulany/Freeplay Magazine)

While Jed Smith is the opening day of the NorCal ultra-running season, the Way Too Cool 50K is undoubtedly the opening day of the ultra trailrunning season. It is the first major trail-ultra in the region and the day folks get to test their fitness and see the trails after hiding out in the cold winter months.

Old friends get an excuse to hang out and visit, and rivals get to check out the competition.

There is a soft spot in my heart for this race, as it was the first ultra I ever ran–way back in 2000. It’s grown a lot over the years, and is a lot harder to get into, but still feels like a local event. The organization is tight and the volunteers are beyond outstanding.

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We are in the heart of the fall marathon season and there are many stories to choose from! Here is a sample from around the world.

Major

This past weekend was the Bank of America Chicago Marathon where Ryan Hall was due to a) win, b) set an American Record, and/or c) set a course record.

Unfortunately for Ryan Hall, there were some other fast guys out there on the course, too.  After hanging with the lead pack for 14 miles, Hall faded to 5^th (no small thing there!) and Kenyan Moses Mosop was the one to (barely) set a new course record of 2:05:37.

Liliya Shobukhova of Russia was the women’s three-peat champion, with a smoking fast 2:18:20. This is the 4^th fastest marathon time ever by a woman.

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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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