Sacramento Running News

Iain Mickle (#241) leads the Masters Men’s race. (Photo courtesy of Sean Dulany/Freeplay Magazine)

In Saturday’s first Pacific Association race–the women’s 5K–Lindsay Tollefson made it three years in a row with her win at Rebel’s XC Challenge, at Granite Park.

Tollefson, 28, of Roseville, took first with a 17:34 over Tanya Ferreira, 24, of Watsonville, who finished second in 17:58.

The third woman finisher was Madeline Kramer, 26, of Oakland, who brought it home in 18:00.

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Kevin Pool gets the win. (SRN Photo)

It always seems like summer is finally winding down when cross country races pop up on the calendar.

This year, for your running pleasure, there are three PAUSATF Grand Prix cross country races in the Sacramento area. These races are quite competitive as they draw talented runners from across Northern California.

It was a little hot, but there was a good crowd on hand as The River City Rebels hosted the first of these races today in Granite Regional Park: the First Annual Rebels XC Challenge

Today’s race followed the usual format, with separate races for women, masters men, and open men. For this race, the women ran 5K and the men ran 7K.

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The Pacific Association of the USA Track and Field has posted a reminder of the new requirement for teams competing in their Grand Prix events.

As of March 1, 2011 PA/USATF clubs are required to have a minimum number of certified USATF officials (with an LDR/XC specialty) on their club roster to score team points on the PA Road and Cross Country Grand Prix circuits.

This only applies to teams with 25 or more athletes competing, which is pretty much all the big local clubs.

Clubs fielding 25 to 49 runners need one official. Clubs fielding 50 to 99 need two, and 100 or more need three. Details of the requirement are posted here (PDF).

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The start of the men's race at last year's Willow Hills XC race

If you have fond memories of the cross country races  you ran back in high school, and are maybe getting a little tired of pounding out 5Km races on city streets, you might be happy to learn that the Sacramento area will be hosting two (Two!) adult cross country races this fall.

The first is the Buffalo Chips hosted Willow Hills Cross Country Open, which will be held next weekend (October 9th) at Folsom High School.

The second, hosted by Golden West is the Ancil Hoffman Challenge, which will be held at Ancil Hoffman Park (naturally) on November 6th.

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Day two, and the world records continue to fall like rain.  This time, it was the steeplechase.  The USATF  reports:

Lisa Valle set the W40 world masters 2,000m steeplechase record when she crossed the finish line in 6:51.92, after setting the previous world record two weeks ago of 6:52.6. “I had it stuck in my head that I wanted to break my record, so I guess I barely made it,” she said. “I just tried to stick to my pace and it worked out. I thought I could’ve broken 6:50, but I’m happy with it here in the heat. It was a good run.”

And it was also the 400 meters!  Again, from USATF:

In women’s 400m finals action, Suzy MacLeod won the W75 age group with her world record time of 1:25.40, which is faster than the previous listed world record of 1:27.17 set last year by Margaret Peters of New Zealand. Her time also bested the previous W75 American record of 1:27.41 set by Audrey Lary at the 2009 USA Masters Outdoor Championships in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

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