Alameda Runners – Get After It!

Today we went out and did a run with the East Bay Running Club. It is a club that is run by Jon Strishak, and he  does a very nice job. You can find their site here. Feel free to drop in on any event posted. The Saturday long runs cost $5.00 for drop-in runners or free for members.

Jon does not make a profit off the drop in fees. It just helps him cover his costs. It does take a lot of effort to run a club so I appreciate his hard work and dedication.

Today’s run was a 10K around Lake Elizabeth in Fremont, California that happened to be timed with bibs. It is always fun running with a bib and someone timing you. There were about 15 of us out there running today. All vying for the top prizes with a photo finish at the end for the top prize. We had a lot of fun. Rule #1 of the pre-race instructions was to introduce yourself to three other runners. We started late because we were busy introducing to everyone. Friendly organized runs are so nice.

They had a post run breakfast at one of the local restaurants that I skipped out on. I like to be social but it is a bit tough to eat a meal and then cycle. If I was by myself I would have eaten anyway but I had someone with me who wanted to run. Eating and cycling is OK but eating and running is bad. Check out the East Bay Running Club web site.

I have my own training schedule but I am going to run with them whenever our paths cross. I have no problem doing a run then driving off to do a bike ride.

In case you missed the news recently, the Benicia Town Race will not be held this June as previously scheduled.  The event was approved by the city council, but event organizers wouldn’t have been able to adhere to mandatory changes.

“It would take a Herculean effort,” race promoter Peter Van Slyke told the Vallejo Times-Herald.  “I don’t want to shortchange the event, or our sponsors.”

Here are some of the changes (courtesy of Vallejo Times-Herald):

This year, organizers had agreed to hire track monitors and professional setup crews to provide a more professional look and help with controlled crossings.

Changes were also made to address merchants’ concerns. Organizers agreed to switch the race date from Saturday to Sunday and hold the event at least two weeks before Fourth of July weekend.

I’m always disappointed when I hear local cycling events are canceled for reasons that could have been avoided.

Benecia could host another bike race in 2011 if Van Slyke and other organizers are still interested.  I think it’s really going to be up to the Benecia cycling community step up and jump through the hoops to put this thing on.

The City of Alameda had a bike criterium race a couple of years ago on part of Park Street — I was told it didn’t take place again because some business owners saw it as a bit of a nuisance.  To be fair, the race was held early on a cold, rainy, windy Alameda winter morning (before anyone was out of the house).  I’m going to have a future blog post about this in the next week or two, so stay tuned.

Received this e-mail earlier in the evening:

This is just to confirm that you are entered in the race and that the race has reached its limit of 300 runners. We have never sold out this early, and we thank you for your support.  We have a number of runners who are wait-listed for the race and we can only let them in should one of you be unable to participate.

Also wanted to point this out for anyone running or the event (or anyone wanting to run with some company):

On Saturday  May 1, there will be a practice run on the course starting at 8:30 am.  It is open to all runners and is free.  You must bring and carry your own water for this run, there will not be any on-course support and there is no water available at the Start/Finish area.  There are bathrooms.

Both Ted and I will be running this event, along with our Twitter friends, @runsesarun and @billb.  The Tilden brochure is available here (PDF).

As the weather in the East Bay becomes warmer and we have more daylight, many people are dusting off their bikes and getting ready to pedal.  What better way to shake off that riding rust than a refresher?  The East Bay Bicycle Coalition (EBBC) hosts the “Traffic Skills 101” classes for free to interested participants.

There will be three East Bay bike safety classes coming up throughout the rest of April:

Saturday, April 17
1:00 – 4:30 p.m.
Albany YMCA annex
1216 Solano Ave, Albany

Thursday, April 22
6:00 – 9:30 p.m.
Kaiser Richmond Medical Center
601 Nevin Ave., Conference Room C3

Thursday, April 29
5:30 – 9:00 p.m.
Dublin Civic Center Library
Dublin City Hall

If you want to learn the basics – or re-enforce the laws you already know – look into one of the EBBC Traffic Skills 101 classes.

Per Team Alameda cycling team:

Alameda Bicycle is teaming up with Giant Bicycle and invites all Team Alameda members to “Giant Demo Day” where you can test out and ride all the newest Giant road and mountain bikes.

No RSVP is required but you must bring a helmet and your own bike shoes. They have a variety of pedals available, but if you use unusual pedals, bring those along as well. The on-site mechanics will install them and set you up.

Location: Joaquin Miller Park Date and Time: April 10, 2010 (Saturday) from 10 AM – 4 PM

Questions: Contact Gene at Alameda Bicycle 510-522-0070

If you’re in town and want to test ride some Giant gear, go ahead and bring your helmet and shoes!

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I think the Oakland Running Festival was a great success.  Sure, there were some things that need to be worked out in the future — but as an inaugural event — I think it was amazing.  Along with giving runners the chance to enjoy some of the city’s excellent surroundings, it proved to be a great event for the City of Oakland itself.

Here’s a brief clip from a recent N.Y. Times article (I definitely recommend reading the entire article):

At some point during the half-marathon on Sunday in Oakland, part of the Oakland Running Festival, I realized that people were yelling “Go Oakland” at me and other runners as well as the usual “Good Job” and “Way to Go.”

In other races, I don’t remember hearing “Go Wilmington, Delaware” “Yippee Napa,” “Show what you can do, San Francisco,” or “Well Done, Brighton,” as they might have said in England.

Michelle continues:

But back to “Go Oakland.” On Sunday, there was a connection between the runners and those who lined the race course. I started to feel as if I was running for a cause beyond stretching my own physical abilities. (I did the half in 2 hours 7 seconds.) Throughout the city, musicians provided a kind of fuel along with the volunteers handing out water.

I think this is something both the athletes and spectators felt as thousands participated in the first marathon hosted in Oakland since 1984.  I also heard cheers and chants of “Let’s go Oakland!” while running, and thought it was rather surreal.  I saw one lady break down in tears at the end of the event, saying she was proud of her city.

We did the Oakland Half Marathon today. You can tell it was a special event for us just by looking at all of the posts. I carried a pace sign for the 2:15 group today and the turn out was tremendous. At first, we thought there were about 30 people in our group. Looking back at the pictures, it was more like 50 people. I could feel the excitement just by walking around the start/finish area. People saw my sign and ask if they could join and just talked about distance running logistics. Quite a few people saw my sign and used it as a gauge to where they should start the run. Out of the small group on the original plan, only Michael stayed with me after mile 1. The rest of the group were people who saw the sign and joined us. Read more… »

This morning was the inaugural Oakland Running Festival, and we led the 2:15 pace group (half marathon).  We have two pages of pictures (page one) and (page two) ,  with Mike expected to randomly grab pictures and write a quick note about some of our adventures today.

The crowds were out in force along the route today, especially towards the end of the race around Lake Merritt.  The Oakland Police Department and event organizers did a good job making sure the streets were closed off, so we didn’t have any problems.

Already looking forward to the 2011 Oakland Running Festival!

Hm.  I should have known better, but I still made one of those mistakes that seems to be a live and learn type moment.  I know I shouldn’t eat a Clif Bar without washing it down with water — but I tried any way.  (Also learned that perhaps I should wait  to eat bananas after the run is over.)

Felt great the entire run, but all of the chow I ate on course came very close to coming back up.  Here is a picture that shows some of my discomfort.

Turned out to be okay, but there were a couple of uneasy minutes at the end.

I got out bright and early this morning to practice with the Garmin 405 super deluxe sports watch.  I set the virtual pace buddy to 10:15 then took of for a jog.  It is really odd looking down at your watch and seeing zero.  I stopped, shook the damn thing and cursed before I noticed the timer started going and the odometer started going too!  It said I was falling behind the pace by X distance.  I stood there feeling silly, cursed the damn watch again then took off to catch up to the pace.  I slowly got it back to zero.  Cool.  I picked up the pace when I approached a stop light and watched it level out while I waited for the light to change.  My next step was find an area that looked like a water stop and walk through it.  I found that walking through water stops does not hurt the overall time much.  The next challenge was the old port-a-potty break.  I was quick about it and it still hurt the time pretty good.  It set me back 30 seconds.  Lesson learned here is that walking does not hurt much, stopping hurts a little more.

I am ready.  The goal is to cross the finish line between 2:14 and 2:15:59.  Your chip may say 2:09:32 but I want to finish at a gun time of 2:15.