A Few Pictures from the Diablo 8k/25k/50k

Diablo 50k Top Dogs

Diablo Wild Turkeys

8k Runner in the Oaks

Heading to the Finish

The results of the Pacific Coast Trail Runs in Diablo State Park:

8K

Matthew McDermott - 39:00

Kim Lingel - 51:58

25k

Andy Holak -2:24:41

Marianne Baldetti - 2:43:54

50k

Jasper Halekas - 4:48:48 - New Course Record

Kim Holak - 5:42:21

At the 50k half-way mark, Jean Pommier was a minute or so ahead of Jasper Halekas, who in turn was just a minute or so ahead of Graham Cooper. Jean finished third in 5:11:21 and Graham finished second in 5:05:04, which itself broke Andy Jones-Wilkins previous course record of 5:10. Kim Holak ran strong to finish fifth overall.

It was a warm day out at Diablo with temperatures upwards of 90 degrees on some sections of the mountain.

Lake Chabot Trail Challenge

A nice half marathon trail race in the East Bay hills is the Lake Chabot Trail Challenge. This year is the 25th year of the event, and the fourth year I've run it. When I first ran it in 2003, in 2:01:27, I had never run 13.1 miles up to that point. Now I use the race to see how my training is doing, and how fast I can run the loop around the lake.

In past years, I have run as fast as 1:48 on this hilly course. Since I regularly run around the lake, often on Tuesday night runs, I felt I could pull off a better time this year, even though I don't technically do any speed work. And since a friend gave me some grief for going out slow at Miwok 100k, and then passing dozens of runners the last 40+ miles, I thought I would properly warm up with a few miles before the race, go out at a strong pace, and run as fast a time as I could manage. Well, it worked fairly well. I finished in 1:41:10, or 7:43/miles. I haven't seen the results, but that's sometimes good for top 5 in my age group. Not bad for a lllloooonnnngggg distance runner.

Perhaps I'll come back another year and see if I can get under 1:40.

Update: Here are the results. I guess my run was good enough for 24th place out of 243 runners, and fourth place in my age group.

Blogging Sabbatical

It's obvious I haven't been blogging for some time. I have discussed why with various friends, and will now explain the reasons briefly here.

1. At heart, I am a private person, so I don't have a desire or need to expound on my experiences. I didn't realize this about blogging until I did it for awhile. So I'll blog in the future, but quite infrequently.
2. After Crossing the Sierra in Winter, I realized I don't care much for writing about my ultra experiences, if only because what I experience in traveling long distances on foot just doesn't come through in the written word. This is true almost universally, whoever is writing. If you want to know what it's like to run 100, 50 or how ever many miles, running it and reading it are wholly different understandings. One is visceral and somatic, the other cerebral and reflective. Some runners/writers spin wonderful tales of their adventures. I particularly like some of Scott Dunlap's and Garett Graubins' (often found in TrailRunner Mag). It's just not where I get any satisfaction. Perhaps I should take up haiku race reports.
3. I write most all day long: reports and letters for work, emails to friends and family, and a personal journal. I struggle for time for everything in my life, so I just didn't need one more task to keep up on. Like a lot in running, you don't realize some things don't work until you try them.

I enjoy running and the adventure. There are plenty of blogs that will give 51 flavors of the experience. As a friend said, if you don't have fun at it, don't do it. Or More Fun. So I'll focus on my adventures, and if I feel like sharing some of it, I will. If not, well, I won't.

Stay tuned if you wish. It may be a sporadic ride.