Sacramento Running News

The lead pack after 8-miles: Gary Gellin, Rich Hanna, Shaun Martin and Sam Robinson

This past weekend featured two of the regions most popular races.

On Saturday, over 700 ultrarunners, including some of the top names in the sport, lined up near the Cool Firehouse for a go at the remarkably dry Way Too Cool 50K.

This was the second running on a new and designed to be faster course. For last year’s debut of the new course, mud was the theme of the day and thigh-deep stream crossings kept a lid on the pace.

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I couldn’t help myself.

It looks a lot easier with a groovy sound track. I hope you enjoy it.

Austin Weaver with a comfortable lead before the levee road (SRN photo)

Around 5,000 runners converged on Land Park this morning for the 7th annual running of the Urban Cow Half Marathon and 5Km.

Sacramento’s Austin Weaver took advantage of the cooler weather to put the hurt on all comers, getting the win and a course record with a 1:07:47 finish.

Chad Worthen, also of Sacramento, was the next in at 1:14:37, followed by Carmichael’s Mason Myers in 1:15:24.

Myers was the top masters runner for the men.

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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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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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If you are planning to run on the American River Parkway this Saturday, you should probably avoid the area within six-miles of William Pond. The Parkway Half Marathon will be starting there at 7:15, and the Parkway is otherwise “closed” in this area until noon.

Remember that the Parkway Half is actually two out-and-back races, with walkers going upstream from William Pond and the runners going downstream.

Plan accordingly!

I have to confess. I was too tired after yesterday’s Way Too Cool 50K to get up early, as I’d planned, and go to the Shamrock’n Half Marathon.

Apparently, however, thousands of you did. Results are posted here.

It was nice that the rain held off until late this afternoon!

Last weekend, Dylan Wykes came down from Kingston, Ontario and won CIM, leading wire-to-wire. I know you are all wondering: “Who is that guy?”

Flotrack has a lengthy interview with Wykes.

It’s an interesting read, covering the race and what it takes to train for something like that. Turns out, Wykes is a Montreal Canadiens fan.

As with last month’s PAUSATF Grand Prix half-marathon in Humboldt, locals dominated at Clarskburg in both individual and team results.

This year, the traditional 30Km PAUSATF race was dispensed with, but there were still a boatload of overlapping races associated with this event. There was a 20-miler, a half marathon, a 5 Km, and a kids half-mile. With the half-marathon being the PA (i.e., faster) event and starting just 20 minutes after the 20 miler, half-marathon runners enjoyed the special thrill of weaving through the endless, and often clueless, ranks of slower 20-mile runners.

I was pleased to see locals–Kevin Pool of Folsom and Lindsay Nelson of Roseville–get the win in this PA race–both with solid times. Pool’s 1:07:56 would, in a typical local race, give him a commanding lead. Here, however, runner up Sergio Reyes was only seconds back in just over 1:08. In fact, there were eight men under 1:10!

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Each fall, I make an enjoyable visit to the Humboldt Redwoods for another go at one of my all time favorite half marathons.

This past Sunday’s aptly named Humboldt Redwoods Marathon and Half Marathon is the nearly identical twin (the stereoisomer really) of the Avenue of the Giants Marathon (AKA “The Ave”) with one major difference. The Humboldt Redwoods Half Marathon is part of the PAUSATF Grand Prix and therefore draws a very fast crowd. (Also, The Ave is run in April.)

This is how a small race that starts in a little turn-off of Highway 101 has 33 finishers under 1:20 and a woman running 1:18:19 comes in 2^nd.

The weather was perfect. The race was well organized. And this year, they replaced the usual terrible cotton shirts with pretty nice technical ones.

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