Run to Win

I saw this note from Trail Monster Jeff Walker about a Skate Ski clinic at Pineland Farms next Monday:

Morgan Laidlaw, the coach of Maine Coast Nordic and the Bill Koch League skiers, is offering a beginner skate skiing clinic at Pineland on Martin Luther King Junior Day. Take advantage of this opportunity!

Time: 9AM, Monday 19 January (MLK day)
Location: Pineland – meet in the stadium (the large, flat, groomed area by the touring/visitor’s center).
Cost: $10/person (what a deal!)
Note: A trail pass must be purchased from the Visitor’s Center or the Nordic Center (downstairs from the Visitor’s center) to ski on the trails. Also, the Nordic Center rents skate skis, boots and poles.

This is a great deal and an excellent opportunity to learn an effective cross training activity for the Winter if you can make it. If you have any questions about the event then leave them in the comments below and I will forward them on to Jeff for you.

And if you are concerned about whether there will be enough snow or not, fellow Trail Monster Jamie Anderson has this quick video on how you can make some more:

This week last year centered around two topics, the world championships in Osaka and trail running basics for beginners.

Ian Parlin and Jamie Anderson gave an excellent Trail Running 101 clinic at a local shoe store, introducing the basic concepts and rules of trail running to the crowd. You can read my notes on the presentation as well as download the original powerpoint slides.

The world championships had a fair bit of media coverage, with constant radio broadcasts and daily television broadcasts on the Versus network and on NBC.

The IAAF coupled the increased media coverage with the first incarnation of their fantasy athletics game.

The heat and humidity was good preparation for this year’s Olympics, but led to quite slow times as Luke Kibet won the men’s marathon in a “pedestrian” 2:15:59.

In other racing news, the L/A Bridge Run was exactly a year ago. I managed to run (slightly) faster and place higher despite not being in as good of 5k shape as I am this year.

This week two years ago, I gave some reasons that running takes practice just like any other sport. I also found the “Athletes Against Doping” website, which contains a lot of information about what substances are banned in each sport and who the governing bodies are.

This week three years ago, I also talked about doping by explaining what EPO was after the furor with Lance Armstrong brought it to attention. Kenenisa Bekele also set the 10k world record with a time of 26:17.53.

Due to concerns for runner and volunteer safety, the Western States 100 mile trail race has been canceled. It’s a huge disappointment for all of the runners who are making their way out there right now, and hopefully they are given an opportunity to run next year. This race is extremely limited in the number of people that can be allowed onto the course.

Since the beginning of more than 840 wildfires statewide, 312 wildfires in northern California and more than 3,200 lightning strikes in the Tahoe National Forest alone on June 21, the race’s organizers have worked closely with a variety local, county and state agencies in determining the best course of action for our race. It has become apparent that given our race’s paramount concern – the safety or our runners – holding this year’s race would pose too great a risk to our runners, to our aid station personnel and to our volunteers. Given the close proximity of at least two fires that are within two miles of our race course and a critical access road, as well as the deteriorating air quality stretching from our start in Squaw Valley to Auburn, Calif., the board has determined that cancellation, rather than postponement or the use of an alternative course, represents the safest and most prudent decision for our 2008 event.

This year’s lottery was held in December, and Jamie Anderson was the only Trail Monster to get a slot in the race. He’ll lose his entry fee, which isn’t a huge deal, but if he loses his chance to run in the race then he is going to be really bummed out. At least he’s already registered for the Vermont 100 next month.

(More Information: Western States 100 – Hat Tip: Jamie Anderson)

The lottery for the Western States 100 Mile Endurance Run was this afternoon, and there were 3 Mainers attempting to get in through the lottery.

Jamie Anderson made it through the lottery after having been chosen within the first 20 picks. James Demer and Stephen Wells were not one of the 191 lottery entrants.

Jim Eckert will also represent Maine. He bypassed the lottery because he was guaranteed a slot at the race after having won last year’s raffle.

There were approximately 1350 applicants to run the race this year. There are only 357 slots available for runners, and 166 of those slots were filled by automatic qualifiers who had either won a raffle from the year before, had “lost” in the lottery for the past 2 years, or who were in the top 10 finishers for male or female last year. The race includes entrants from 13 different countries and 40 different states, with the vast majority of runners coming from California.

The Western States Lottery coincided with the ultramarathoners apple pie baking contest today. Chuck Hazzard tried to sway the judges by bringing his pie straight from the oven to the contest, so it was still warm when judging began. No clear front runner could be decided between his pie or Jamie Anderson’s, which had been baked earlier that morning. Everybody seemed pretty happy with both pies.

(Click here to view the 2008 WS 100 Lottery Results)

Last night, Ian Parlin and Jamie Anderson spoke for an hour or so at Peak Performance Sports about trail running, providing an introduction to the local trail options and a primer for those who are first making the migration to trails from the roads.

They described the popularity of the sport and defined some technical terms that any new trail runner will need to know. After offering advice on how to running on trails differs from running on roads, they offered some tips on running safely and being able to enjoy the trails. They finished off the night by describing some of the different gear that they have used (and stopped using) in their training and racing.

They put together a short PowerPoint presentation (download here) that they projected onto a wall at the store. There are quite a few pictures and diagrams that are worth taking a look at.
(Click here to continue reading…)

Photo by Ian ParlinThe Vermont 100 Mile Trail Race was this past weekend on July 24^th. The top three Maine finishers all belong run with the Trail Monsters, a running group in the greater Portland area that runs local trails every week and race in the local mountain series.

Stephen Wells was the first Maine finisher in 20:27:37.80, and was 15^th over all. He overcame cancer a few years ago and has been doing all of the endurance events that he never thought that he would do before he was diagnosed.

James Demer was the second Maine finisher in 23^rd place over all. His finishing time was 21:10:07.00. He came by to the Trail Monsters group run this evening with his daughter and puppy, but he was just walking around on the trails.

Jamie Anderson rounded out the group in 36^th place over all with a time of 22:09:55.50, which is very impressive only 3 months off of knee surgery. He wrote a very detailed race report that is well worth taking a gander at. He walks through the day from waking up at 3 a.m. to taking a short 1 hour nap after finishing and then watching more people come through the line.

Andy Jones-Wilkins won the race with an impressive 9:32 pace, almost exactly an hour off of the course record time. He ran the race in 15 hours, 53 minutes and 45 seconds. Mary Churchill was the first woman to finish with a time of 19:41:13.80. There were 142 finishers. Other Maine finishers within the 30 hour cutoff were Maurice Kelleher (25:54:00.70) and Sarah Heck (27:42:09.60).

(Full Results – Photos)