Sacramento Running News

Last week, I wrote about some repairs of the parkway around the 3 mile mark. The work was supposed to have finished by now, but there have been delays.

The notice from the Sacramento County Regional Parks said:

Beginning Thursday, March 1, the American River Parkway Bike Tail will have a short detour near Mile 3 while work is being performed to repair damage (undermining) to the trail by beavers. The detour will take trail users off the paved tail for less than 100 feet and onto the adjacent unpaved maintenance road. The detour will be in effect until the repairs are completed.

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Huh?

I’m not sure how I missed a race that encourages you to run in your underpants, but there it was in today’s Bee.

I’m happy to see the Bee covering a local race–but kind of sad it has to be because of a gimmick like running in underpants.

Oh well.

Results are here.

The Napa Valley Marathon was this morning and if you were hoping for a top-spot, you had better have brought your long-game. A quick survey of the results shows a surprising number of the region’s top ultrarunners among the top finishers.

The winning woman was San Francisco’s Devon Crosby-Helms, whose 2:39:37 appears to be a new course record. According to my March issue of Ultrarunning, Crosby-Helms is also the woman who ran the fastest 100Km in the North America last year. (7:46:33 at the Mad City 100Km)

I don’t recognize any of the other top women, but the men’s field was stacked with some of the top ultra guys.

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Proponents of barefoot running often speak of the improved efficiency of barefoot versus shod running, but for some reason we still don’t see many barefoot runners at a competitive level.

Why is this?

A recent study published online in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise worked to minimize the possible confounding factors that have plagued prior research.

To tease out the differences that could be attributed only to the shoes or lack of shoes, the researchers worked with experienced barefoot runners and all the runners in the study were midfoot strikers–with or without shoes.

Then, the researchers added weight to the feet of both the shod and barefoot runners and found, not surprisingly, that people use more oxygen as the weight of the foot or shoe increased.

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Huh?

Last Sunday morning, Scott Downard pinned on a race bib for the Cowtown Marathon (the one in Fort Worth, Texas) and ran 2:31:40 and was the first across the finish line by six minutes.

The trouble was that the bib Downard was wearing was actually that of a friend who couldn’t make the race.

In what was no doubt an awkward moment for everyone involved, Doward, according to the Star Telegram, admitted “without any prompting” that the bib wasn’t his.

Race management disqualified Downard for not being a registered runner and instead awarded the win to Kolin Styles, who was the next to finish in 2:37:53.

While this seems to be a pretty odd story, apparently the exact same thing happened at the 2003 race!

Read the whole sad story in the Star-Telegram.

Time to plan for 2012!

We’ve just added many more races to this year’s calendar–bringing us to more than 100 for your racing pleasure.

Start planning!

Expect some construction related detours on the Parkway this weekend.

From the Sacramento County Regional Parks web page:

Beginning Thursday February 23, there will be a detour on the ARP Bike Trail between mile 2.5 and 3.5 for trail construction. A detour will take trail users up on the levee. Construction is expected to be completed by the following Monday.

On Saturday, February 25, the Guy West Bridge (near mile 8.0) will be closed to all traffic for bridge inspection and repair. Additionally, the bike trail will be detoured a short distance onto the levee to prevent park users having to pass under the bridge.

Plan accordingly!

Do you have what it takes to go to London?

In case you’re wondering, Flotrack has the qualification standards up on-line.

How hard could it possibly be? (Hint: Pretty hard.)

Your brain is in charge.

There is a growing body of evidence in support of the theory that your brain is the limiting factor in your running performance. This article from the Globe and Mail, sent to me by alert reader Chris, describes yet another study that reinforces this theory.

What was intriguing to me about this study is that it gives some indication that not only can you trick your brain into increasing your VO2max, but that the effects are apparently enduring.

Researchers took several athletes and tested their VO2max using a traditional protocol–slowly ramping up the pace of the treadmill until the athletes oxygen uptake hit a plateau.

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