Alameda Runners – Get After It!

The need to find runners to train with can help push us towards new PRs and added camaraderie in a usually independent sport.

A basic idea behind Alameda Runners is to help share information among casual athletes looking to learn and push themselves. As such, we have a special request from a SF East Bay runner looking ahead to the 2011 California International Marathon (CIM).

@Chris_in_cal is looking for training partners while he wants a sub-3:00 hour marathon — and needs a few running buddies to train with. If you think you can help out, or know someone who runs at a similar pace, feel free to Tweet him. (Or post here and we can make sure you get in touch with him.)

The second Oakland Running Festival event will take place this weekend, and Alameda Runners decided it was time to chat with race organizers, Corrigan Sports Enterprises (CSE). We ran the Oakland Half last year — and will lead the official (but still unofficial) 2:15 half marathon pace group — and had a couple of questions.

Last year’s event had around 6,400 participants, with event organizers expecting more than 7,000 runners this year, race organizers told Alameda Runners.

SF Bay Area runners really had no idea what to expect leading into the event last year, and there were good and bad things about the event. Athletes were brutally honest and CSE took the criticism as motivation to make changes.

“Runners really loved the crowd support, bands, the Crucible Fire Arch, the organization and the course. The one area they were concerned about was the expo and we have done our best to make the experience better for 2011.”

I enjoyed the Crucible Fire Arch and the taiko drummers, and can’t wait to see what’s lining the course this year. It was great to see Oakland and the East Bay turn out in great numbers last year, but this weekend’s poor weather forecast may only bring out the diehards.

There have been some slight course changes made that CSE wants runners to be familiar with.

“The full marathon has some changes in the Montclair and Fruitvale areas to alleviate some of the traffic concerns we heard after last year’s event. Runners this year will run along Trafalgar and Monterey before Lincoln instead of Mountain Blvd. Also, participants will make a left onto Nicol before turning onto Coolidge as opposed to making a right and going down Fruitvale. The other major change is that runners will traverse the path around Lake Merritt this year instead of going down Bellevue avenue.”

Outside of the actual race and what runners will experience, other changes have been made as well.

“We have streamlined the expo process where runners can print out their confirmation card before arriving at the expo. We will have more signage and made the post-race area longer to accommodate more people. Residents will see that we have put together a detour map to show how they can get to each one of the Freeways that surround Oakland.”

Waiting in line is never fun, so it’s great that they’ve made it easier for us to get the packet pickup faster and more efficient. In addition, I saw a few complaints on Twitter and in local media about the unexpected traffic issues in and around Oakland on race day… good to see it’s getting fixed.

The inaugural ORF expo was a bit sparse, and runners told CSE about it, and changes are being made for 2011. Organizers decided to expand into a larger hall and expect more than 40 vendors to show their wares — and we’ll be there to check out the good stuff.

To finish up the interview, CSE — which also hosts a successful half marathon and running weekend in Baltimore — is glad that the event is able to have such a positive impact on the City.

“Last year’s event brought high praise to the City of Oakland and changed a lot of misconceptions. We hope your readers understand that our goal is to put on a top-flight race each year that will rival some of the other races around the Bay Area. Last year’s event brought in nearly $2 million for the city and CSE paid for all the city services.”

If you’re looking for a race this weekend, on-site registration is still taking place, with a limited number of spots available for the full marathon, half marathon, 5K and kids fun run.

I went from a long injury layoff of 6 months right into a hard half marathon in the hills. I injured myself again by over doing it. I seem to excel at injuring myself from excess. I took three weeks off, now I am right into training for a half ironman distance triathlon. All of this has put me a bit out of sorts for writing. I am going to post a few blogs to help me get back into the swing of things.

First of all, I need to apologize to Fluid. We reviewed some fluid sports drink last year and gave it a bit of a poor review. I tried it again this year and it is much better. I ran out of sports drink and decided to give Fluid another try. This time, I paid attention to the instructions and stuck with the product for a month. The taste is okay. It goes down well and I do not feel ill effects after my runs. I put them back into the buy category.

I was out for a run with the guys from Clif about a month ago. As you can guess, our conversations all revolved around Clif. It is nice to see them out running and using the products they sell. They sent me a care package full of their new products. I tried Mojo bar between an hour run and 90 minute bike ride and felt fine after the ride. I felt no need for gel or anything else while riding. I will really put the products to the test when my mileage increases. The bars taste good enough to eat after a morning swim.

In my next post, I will try to string together some coherent thoughts.

On January 29, 2011, Brazen Racing came to our home course in Newark, California.  It was fun doing a run on our local trails.  The half marathon was two loops with an out and back leg.  The Brazen events always have hills and single track trails, or at least it seems that way.  Most of us are used to the trails but the single tracks can be a challenge for track runners starting out on trail runs.  This was a great event with a unique start line that was on the hump of a small hill.

A lot of us have a few key events that we are training for and do other races as social events or advanced training events to gauge our fitness.  This was a social training run for me.  I was out with the Mission Peak Striders, Daily Mile members and plenty of Alameda Runners.  Thank you all for showing up in such great numbers.  It is nice to get all of the local runners together for an event.  Oddly enough, I wound up running with Ron the Punk Rock Runner who is in his own group.

I am training for a triathlon in July.  This week was a rest week in my training cycle so I took it easy on my run.  The Punk Rock Runner is training for an Ironman distance triathlon so he was cruising along too.  The way I see it, if you can run 13 miles on a rest day, you are doing well.  When you do these events as social events, it is fun to meet new people and talk to them in the back of the pack.

My new best friend Ron, started running 3 years ago after he heard a coworker talking about marathon training.  He weighed over 280 pounds when he decided to run a marathon.  He told his friends at work he was going to run a marathon.  He said they had an office pool to see how far he would go before he crashed and burned.  He finished, now he does Ironman distance triathlons.  He still has trouble with his weight but he does no let that stop him.

Get out and do some events, it is a lot of fun and you meet a lot of people just like you.  It is great to compare notes and have a new friend to encourage you along.  We were comparing notes on our strengths and weaknesses thinking “if only…”.

This was a great event for me.  It was like a family reunion with so many friends and conversations.   we all had something in common.  We just finished something hard.  Doing a rest run of 13 miles is still hard.  It was still fun.

This turkey is too fast to be eaten

What is Thanksgiving without the traditional turkey trot?  I enjoy getting out and doing a run on Thanksgiving morning.  Turkey trots are always social events which make them fun.  I want to run today but I got out there early to take pictures.  The people from the food bank were out early collecting food and helping out with race logistics.  I did not know about the food bank because I didn’t read any of the pre-race instructions like I should have.  Not only did I show up at an event for sharing and did not have anything to share, I was interacting with the wonderful volunteers from the food bank.  You can bet that I won’t miss the next bin for a food bank.

The race started out with a kids run and the Nitro Turkey.  It was fun to see how popular the Nitro Turkey was.  I was taking pictures of the kids run and was totally overwhelmed.  There were so many kids and proud parents in the race that the winners crossed the finish line before everyone crossed the start line.  I tried to take pictures but I was confused and could not handle the mayhem.

Point Pinole is not very big but it is fun to run there.  The views are excellent and the course is pretty flat.  It is a strange feeling to run with the 5K runners and you can see there finish line when you have to turn the other way because you are only half way done.  Getting out for an early run is a great way to start Thanksgiving.

A big shout out to Sam, Jasmine and Marie over at Brazen racing for a job well done.

After careful deliberation, I bought the Timex Ironman GPS Trainer because a $50 rebate and 15% off coupon made it $100 cheaper than the Garmin.  I also thought it would be easier to use.  I should know better than to think, it only gets me into trouble.  It is not easy to use.  It was a brick strapped to my wrist.  I figured since I went to the trouble of buying the thing I should at least give it a fair try before I took it back.  Maybe the ladies will think I look sexy with a brick strapped to my wrist.

I spent about 3 hours reading the instructions and trying to get the thing to tell me what time it was.  I did not realize that satellite reception is hard to get in the San Francisco area.  My Garmin never had a problem.  I got the time to show the correct time and told the watch my age and weight.

I took it for a practice walk and the watch told me I was going for a swim.    I did get it to switch to run mode and there are a lot of options for configuring the watch face.  I could go from 1-4 items on the face and they are easily configurable without reading instructions.  I decided to give the brick a fair trial starting with a swim.

Off to the pool I went to put my swimming toy through the paces.  The watch failed miserably.  Actually, I was the miserable one.  I managed to get it into swim mode in less than 5 minutes which is a respectable time for something high tech and no instructions in hand.  Happy with my progress, I pushed start and jumped into the pool to start my swim.  I did not mention how the chest strap is hard to adjust and uncomfortable when tight.  I feel it is worth mentioning now because it went to my waist as soon as I kicked off the wall.

I put the strap on the wall and started swimming again.  I swam for about 4 minutes consciously aware of the brick on my arm.  It was uncomfortable and heavy.  I checked the distance and found I went more than 400 meters in 4 minutes, including the time I spent taking the strap off.  For you non-swimmers, that is world class speed.  The GPS did not consider arm rotations as part of swimming.  Since I really wanted the GPS to succeed in the water, I switched from brick mode to anchor mode and put the thing on my leg.  I only found it a bit odd that it fit my leg better than my arm.  Apparently the watch did not like being on my leg and it stopped doing its GPS thing and went to watch mode.

I did not cry when it failed the swim test because I did not really expect success.  I really did hope it had some cool math algorithms going so the distance would be close.  It showed a distance that was greater than twice the distance traveled.  I might have kept the watch if the GPS worked in the water.

Getting to the desired mode is aggravating.  Like most people, I wear the HRM GPS when running more than anything else.  The watch should default to run mode.  It defaults to triathlon mode.  In all fairness, it is not very hard to switch to run mode.  I don’t like the idea of changing modes every time I run.

After reading the instructions, the watch is really powerful and relatively easy to use.  The chest strap is very well constructed with very nice pickups.  It does have snaps which are terrible for us open water swimmers.  The dual adjustment strap is hard to get right.  The watch is big and fits small wrists very poorly.  It fit my leg pretty well but it is hard to read on my ankle.

The GPS watch is so big, heavy and inconvenient to use, I took it back before I got out for a run with it.  Sorry Timex, you have the makings of a great product here but size, weight, GPS performance and triathlon first setup sunk this one for me.  The buckle has a little too much metal that cuts into the arm because the strap has to be tight to keep it from bouncing and it seems like the watch is not designed to be worn.

Most of the things I write about here at Alameda Runners are based on my own experiences.  I usually get advice from the experts but I often take it for what it is because we are all different.  It is good to read different views and follow the advice based on your own experience.  The idea is to try things to see what works.

I say this because a friend of mine gave me some books on cycling in your geriatric years meaning over 50.  I am close enough to 50 to read the books to see what it is about.  In the first chapter of the first book I picked up, it says to give up all sports other than cycling.

That is not going to happen.  I like cross training.

As most of the regular readers know, I have been injured for the past 4 months with very little running at all.  During this time, I have been lifting weights, swimming and cycling.  I have also been doing rehabilitation work to strengthen the muscles around the injured hip flexor.  After a long 4 months of no running, I went out for a run with one the local running clubs.  We ran for about 8 miles at 8-9 minute per mile pace.  That is just a bit slower than my pace before the injury.  I feel good now.  I have to restrain myself or I will aggravate the injury by over training again.

Back to the cross training.  I was always afraid to lift weights using my legs because I was worried about injuries.  I started out very slowly with high repetitions (20-25 per set) on the various exercises.  For the first month, I did this once per week slowly increasing the weight as it got easier.

I now lift with my legs twice per week lifting 2-3 times as much weight as I did when I started.  I don’t know if the weight training will equate to increased strength and less injuries but I sure hope so.  I do think that I will incorporate leg training with weights at least once per week from now on.

In all fairness to the book, I may have taken “give up all sports, other than cycling” out of context but I am not about to read through that section of the book again because it was boring.

Another fine event by Brazen Racing.  We are all learning about the beautiful parks in the  East Bay Regional parks district and how hard it is to run around in them.  The views up on the ridge were absolutely stunning.  Unfortunately, you had to get up to the ridge to enjoy the views.

Here is a paragraph from pre-race instructions- “One note for everyone coming:  these are some tough courses.  While the distance may resemble those of road races, the experience is going to be a lot different.  Hills will be super-tough, trails will be bumpy, rocky and full of roots and water stations will be spread out much further than most would prefer.  The Las Trampas Wilderness is not for sissies!  We’re not trying to scare you, we just want to make sure you know what you are getting into and are mentally prepared.  You will likely have some tough times out there, but we believe everyone is capable of finishing.”

He was right.  I went up and down the hills for the 10k course and wound up icing my legs later in the night.

We had a nice contingent from Alameda out running the race with one of our own winning the 5K!  I did not see anyone from the 5K as I was out taking pictures on the 10k course.

John from Alameda estimated an extra 45 minutes from his PR because of the hills.  It took him an hour longer than estimated or twice the time it normally takes him to run a flat road half marathon.  Carrie, John’s wife, did her first 10k here.  That is a serious accomplishment.  Marathoners and half marathoners are used to this type of punishment.  It is rare to find a 10k with 2,000 feet of climbing.  We had Laura, a cancer survivor from Alameda, finish her first distance event in a while.

Just last year, Laura was talking about never being able to run again because of the beating she took from her battle with cancer.

I have been struggling with a hip flexor injury for the last couple of months so I have been volunteering to take pictures at the brazen events instead of running them (You can see some photos here).  I have just as much fun taking pictures as I do running the events (almost).  If you ever make to Northern California, check to see if there is a Brazen event to run.  They are all hard.  The harder they are, the better the views and the fun.

It’s quickly approaching late July and we’re all aware it’s summer time here in Alameda.  That means longer days and even more kids and pedestrians wandering the streets.

If you’re an Alameda resident, you’re probably used to seeing a large number of pedestrian crosswalks around the city.  Use them if you plan to cross the street.  Stop for pedestrians if you’re driving a vehicle (or riding a bike).

Alameda Police Department statistics (reported in 2008) indicate the highest number of injury incidents took place in August and September — and it’s a combination of speeding drivers and careless pedestrians.

As a reminder:  If you’re in a crosswalk, you still have to look around.  Don’t assume just because you’re in a crosswalk that vehicles will stop for you.  I routinely have at least five or six cars buzz by me even though I’m clearly waiting to cross the street.

Here is what the APD recommends (April 2009 Alameda Police News Wire):

“Prior to crossing any street you should look both ways, make eye contact with the drivers, and do this for each lane you are crossing.  When lit crosswalks are available, always activate them before crossing the street.”

I can tell which drivers are likely going to stop and let me cross the street — try not to get jumpy to cross the street until the vehicles stop.  Just to show your appreciation, it’s strongly recommended to give the drivers a wave (and thank you) for stopping.

Many of us are familiar with waking up early on a Saturday or Sunday morning to head to a local race.  Races are often early events that force athletes to wake up as early as 3:00 a.m. to prepare for the day’s events.

Casual athletes to race directors themselves are curious about why most running races are on Sundays, and at such crazy times, with the Runner’s World Ask the Race Director column able to answer the questions.

Aside from the fact that more people are free due to weekends off, race organizers have found it be extremely difficult to hold events on Saturday.  There are more people out on a Saturday morning, along with a higher number of businesses open.

Per the race director:

Even though it’s a weekend day, most businesses are open on Saturday and it becomes tricky to close streets. That may not be a major problem in a 5-K, but it is for longer races. Sundays also allow big races to hold expos and registration on Friday and Saturday, plus I’ve found that it’s easier to find volunteers for Sunday races than for Saturday races.

It’ll always be impossible to cater to all athletes, but race organizers will continue to try to do their best to accommodate as many people as possible.