Sacramento Running News

Charlie Brenneman (left) and the author show off their Urban Cow trophies. (SRN photo)

If races have seasons, then we’re definitely in the middle of road half marathon season. October has already seen the Urban Cow, Humboldt Redwoods (part of the PAUSATF Road Grand Prix), and Folsom Blues Breakout.

Next weekend, you have a choice between the Clarksburg Country Run, or the new Run the Parkway Half, hosted by the Sacramento Running Association.

It’s hard to imagine that SRA isn’t directly targeting the Clarksburg events since they are offering similar 20 mile and 5 km distances alongside a more competitive half marathon.

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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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