You are currently browsing the monthly archive for November, 2008.
MONET, (AGE 7) AND ALL HER FRIENDS AT BOXER RESCUE OF LA, SEND YOU LICKS AND KISSES FOR THE NEW YEAR. (DID YOU KNOW BOXERS ARE CALLED THE CLOWNS OF THE DOG WORLD?? IF YOU ARE CONSIDERING GETTING A PET THIS YEAR, PLEASE REMEMBER HER AND ALL THE OTHER DOG’S IN SHELTERS AWAITING THE WARMTH OF A HOME AND A FAMILY’S LOVE. (BOXER RESCUE’S WEB SITE IS: http://www.boxer-rescue-la.com/ PHOTOS AND BRIEF HISTORYS OF HER AND ROUGHLY 50 BOXER’S OF ALL AGES, ALL LOCATED WITHIN A 90 MINUTE DRIVE OF HERE, CAN BE FOUND ON THAT WEB SITE. (MONET WAS FOUND ABANDON IN A FORECLOSED HOUSE.)
SO WHAT’S THIS GOT TO DO WITH RUNNING?? CALL A DOG THE EVER READY RUNNING PARTNER -NO BATTERIES NEEDED!
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3 Pizza Nite 6:15 |
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6 FM 7:00 AM |
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10 Pizza Fac 6:15 PM run |
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13 FM 7:00 AM |
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17 Pizza Fac 6:15 PM run |
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20 SRP Cancelled- Mud-FM at 7:00 instead!! |
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24 Pizza Fac 6:15 PM run |
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27 FM 7:00 AM |
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31 Pizza Fac 6:15 PM run |
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Legend: Pizza Fac: Pizza Factory
FM : Farmer’s Market (old town ) SRP: Santa Rosa Plateau
Note: Track work outs have been discontinued til Spring
STARTING IN JAN, SRP RUNS WILL NOW START AT 7:30 am per Dec. meeting
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THRILLS and CHILLS:
SCAN down for TOO MUCH Data from my X TERRA Hawaii race : an adventure filled with cow paddies and cattle guards.
AND THEY’RE OFF (X TERRA)
CHILLS:
On the chill side, more than just a few of you did Tinselman -in fact, it looks like 1/4 the club was there!! …Scan down below my too MUCH data to read what Doug shared about just how cold it was or wasn’t and how the troop of trotters did in Hemet.
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Below comes from Ingy:
When you have the time could you put a little blirb in the newsletter that prior to getting new club shirts, I need to get rid of the old inventory. They make great Christmas gifts at $10 each, two for $15. Below is what we need to sell:
MEN
Size XXL 1 trotter tee & 1 white running center
M 1 trotter tee
S 3 blue RC singlet (women could wear these)
WOMEN
Size L 9 trotter tees & 2 blue RC singlets
M 1 trotter tee
S 5 trotter tees
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DEAR SANTA, All I want for Christmas is for people to pay their dues…and for someone else to assume command of this club, at least for a while. Ingy.
DUES PAYABLE (Membership Expired)
Karrie Carlson
Jane Gainer
Erika Kreske
Mari Jones
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X TERRA TRAIL RUNNING WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
Kualoa Ranch…Where scenes from movies Jurassic park, 50 Dates, and TV show ‘Lost’ were filmed.
Most of you know I was hanging out in Hawaii last week but I wasn’t exactly hanging loose while there. I arrived on Thursday and spent the next 60 pre race hours protecting my feet from developing blisters from my copious walking and protecting my stomach from the copious calories that surrounded my every step in Waikiki.
On Sunday morning, we smelled the race before we got to it. That’s because the start local was in a large cow pasture and 500 cars carrying roughly 800 athletes were driving through and parking in the pasture and I guess you know cows aren’t famous for using porta pottys.
Maybe I should add that even on a ‘dry’ day, this part of the Island gets daily rain. We walked across the cow pasture to the start line. Squish Squash, Squishy squash, Squishy OOPS STINKO SQUASHhh!! We were all extra eager to leave the starting line area behind us.
At 0900, after a Hawaiian prayer asking Pele’, the God of volcanoes, to not erupt on us, 450 of us from 32 states and 8 countries took off running. (The other 350 athletes were doing the 5 and 10Ks –they got to stick around a bit longer.)
TWO COW PADDIES in the fore ground, one freshly flattened, orange shirted runner barely visible. Probably has smelly shoes.
That running lasted for a good half mile. Really impressed our cheering spectators. Then we turned a corner, spectators no longer had a visual on us, and that double track suddenly went from horizontal to typical X terra up N’ UP vertical and is anybody up for a hike?
“Are we some where flat yet??” Asks number 419. Me: ”Close your eyes and imagine it is!”
I guess everybody was indeed ready to hike because I took several videos and numerous photos and noticed that most everybody was walking in most every one of them. It was classic X terra. I can sum –it- up by saying it went up and down, down and up some more, and had gorgeous green views on 3 sides with ocean view on the 4th.
We crossed numerous cattle guards and I found out if one ‘mooOOs’ going over cattle guards, everyone around you laughs. I practiced mooing a lot.
About the 8 mile point the nice not flat double track road turned into oowie gooie single track. The mud was just deep enough to suck the tires off the average Hummer, and I’m talkin’ the H-1 version, not the ‘petit’ H-3 model. More than a few shoes got sucked off in the muck and is this your Asic or my Nike ‘cause they both look the same now….
Everyone trod up UP that and then mostly slid or fell down the far side, hands attached with a death grip to 200 plus feet of rope the race folks had strung up for us to cling to. The question of the day was, “Is that a cow paddie or mud slopping into my shoes??”
Most of my fellow racers had not done X terra style races before. That may have included the female who wore Ecco clog style backless no longer pastel blue shoes with her attractive satiny blue sundress, the dress which now sports mud brown spots. She wore her socks tied through the straps on the back of her dress instead of on her feet.
EMBARRASSING CONFESSION: SHE CREAMED ME IN THE SPEED DEPT.
DOES ERIC HAVE A SISTER??
After the muddy descent, some where around mile 8.5, the course turned into a steeply canted arc that followed the edge of a hillside. I caught my second or maybe 3rd wind on that segment and passed several runners before finding the finish line staring me in the face at about mile 10. HUH?? There were no mile markers any where on the entire course so I had no idea how far I’d gone over the undulating terrain. But I knew from my watch I couldn’t have covered 13 miles yet. Then volunteers started waving me straight through the ’start’ arch, and someone yelled out I had 5 pant PANT K’s Pant PANT to go still.
“5 more K’s to go still… ARE YOU KIDDING??” Came out of many a runner’s mouth as we were waved back through the start area.
So, in typical X Terra style, we got to repeat the first 5 K’s worth of UPS and do you recall that I said we were all walking after the first half mile of the race so you can guess how we were dragging repeating that area at mile 10… Would I do this race again? In a heart beat, but next time I’d take my GPS because I actually finished feeling ‘too fresh’ from never knowing how much further I had to go so I saved ‘too much’ of my effort.
What follow are excerpts from the X terra web site re the race:
“Near perfect running conditions with cool breezes, cloud cover, and temperatures in the mid-70’s greeted runners for the 13.1 mile championship race that featured 3,000 feet of elevation gain while weaving up-and-down the verdant cliff faces in Ka’a'awa Valley and into the dense rainforest of Hakipu`u Valley at Kualoa Ranch.”
The overall male winner:
King, a member of the Team USA cross country squad and the reigning XTERRA Trail Running USA Champ, led from start-to-finish and was the only runner to post sub 6-minute miles for a winning time of 1:18:23. King said, “This race was a lot tougher than Nationals. The last 5 kilometers were definitely the most challenging. I just didn’t want to do anymore hills. This was an awesome event.”
The second place male’s comments:
His first time in Hawaii, Bruce said this terrain, and the course’s elevation gain was quite different than what he is used to. “There was more climbing in the first two miles of this race than the entire Nationals race combined.”
Another runner’s comments:
The trails were nuts” according to Richard Burgunder of Astoria, NY. “I took a bad spill out there, but the course was even more amazing than I expected, especially the upper ridge section. I loved it, but it was really challenging.”
Dirt ’stair stepping’ up 2 ft tall ’stairs’
One more fellow:
Winner of the men’s 55-59 division Francisco Rodriguez, of Bayonne, NJ, has a running resume that includes completing 157 marathons, at least one in every state. He is now working on a half-marathon in every state and chose the XTERRA Trail Run Worlds as his stop for Hawaii. “I obviously run a lot, but this was my first trail run. It was a tough course, but I definitely want to come back next year.”
Last, that night many of us attended the XTerra ‘survivors’ party at a bar in down town Waikiki. At the party I set with the oldest finisher, a 74 years ‘young’ Canadian man. He had run a half marathon more than a year before and his time was so slow he vowed to run 10 MILES EVERY single day until his half marathon time got better. He came to Hawaii on Friday for a weekend business trip, saw the X terra tent, signed up for the race having never heard of X terra before but thinking this was his chance to improve his “Oh my god so slow” previous time. His finishing time: 3 hrs 20 minutes 49 seconds… 6 minutes faster than that half marathon time he was out to beat. With no rest days from running 10 miles a day for over a year. That boggled my mind. More power to him.
Link to great video of the race –go to this link, then click on the right side to pull up this race’s video specifically.
Fastest female’s pace was 7.36
Where did I stack up: 10:30 pace
2 hrs 17 min 27 sec. for 2nd of 7 in age, 29 of 127 females, 145 of 444 finishers.
(First in my age beat me by 19 minutes, I beat 3rd place by 22 minutes. My prize was unique –a 6 pack of Hawaiian beer, a ‘matching’ 6 pak of ‘GU’, a nifty lotion/shampoo set, plaque with my name on it and of course an X Terra medallion. Eat your heart out Bob who won Survivor last night. Wait, what am I saying…..I’d trade places with him in a heart beat : )
NOW didn’t I warn you this was way too much info about my race? Call me a space hog!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THANX to DOUG, this entire newsletter won’t be just about me after all : )
Tinsel Man Triathlon, Hemet, CA.
Yes Virginia, there IS a Spiderman!!
( Editor’s note: For those few Trotters who weren’t present, this race took place in and around West Valley High School and consisted of a 5-kilometer run, a 12-mile bike ride and a 150-meter swim. Above photo is from the Hemet News)
Doug’s input:
Well that race wrapped up the year for most of us. It was a bit sketchy goin in but it all worked out. Saturday as you all know was sorta wet and drizzly. I thought to myself “Self, I sure hope the weather improves by tomorrow”. I awoke early Sunday morning and turned my head to look at the indoor/outdoor thermometer I have on the wall next to my bed. 33 degrees!!. Oh well I’ll just wear my Eddie Bauer goose down tri suit. Seriously I did take tights in case Id need them ( I didnt) and I took my UnderArmour long sleeve top in case I needed it (and I did) and gloves. Oh and I took a warmer Xterra beanie for under my bike helmet to keep my gorgeous shiny dome warm.
We got lucky. There was virtually no wind and once the HRs got up to redline one hardly noticed the cold.
It seemed there were more people there than ever before. Parking lots were full an hour and a half before race time. The porta potty line went from in front of the school to San Jacinto I think. Turns out that for the past 2 years anyway that there have been just over 700 entrants….this year….1200. It made for an interesting and sometimes frustrating race.
Trotters present were Dan, Victor, Brigid, Eric, Karrie, Kim P and yours truly. The race got underway a few minutes late and everyone was glad to be moving. When you read the flyers for many Sprint Tris they will say “Beginner Friendly”, usually thats a bold faced lie. That said however I think that the Tinsel Tri is the most beginner friendly tri in So/Cal. at least of the ones Ive done. This thing is F L A T. The run is as flat as a billiard table. And its fun as it has 4 turn arounds so you can root on your friends ahead of you and make fun of the friends behind you.
The bike was where most of the frustration came in. They close down the West bound lanes (2) of Domenigoni Blvd and we go out in one lane and make a U-turn at Hwy 79 and head back in the other lane. But with this many bikes it can get dangerous. There is one small hill in the course and its a bridge on the freeway. I was on my out leg and had just crested the bridge. I clicked into my big ring and started hammering on the down side. But at top speed I came up on a group of riders and they had left no room on their left side near the white line. I kept screaming on your left and all moved but one. I didnt want to lose the head of steam I had and I peeked around to see if I could get away with passing in the uncoming lane (sometimes possible) but as I peeked I saw a peleton of bikes coming at me and they filled their side of the road right to the white line. I was going near 24 mph and Im sure they were going faster so that would have made for an ugly collision. At the back of that pack was Brigid doing exactly the same thing I was doing….looking outside to see if a pass was an option. Not only could I have crashed but Id have taken out another Trotter..not good. Well I finally got around and the rest of my race went farily smoothly. I must have passed a few hundred bikes. It was insane. Got thru that and back to T2 and while I was never cold the water of that pool felt downright HOT.
In the end it looked a bit like this: …… Brigid was 3rd woman O/A laying down a 56:45 and she managed to go about 1:10 faster than last year………. Dan was the fastest Trotter at 55:19 and took 5th in his AG. Dan improved by last years time by almost 3 minutes…….. Eric threw down a 56:14 almost 2 minutes faster than last year and took 3rd in his AG……. Kimi once again (just like last year) laid waste to all the women in her AG, she smoked them bad. She went 1:00:31 and was disappointed as she wanted to break 1:00. Still she too took off time she beat her last years effort by 1:17…….. Karrie also improved greatly over last year. Improving by 2:33 as she managed a 1:12:25. (Id caught up to Karrie at about mile 1 of the run. After exchanging plesentry’s I slowly moved away and I heard her say she was going to try to hang on to me. Im thinking she did as for the next 2 turn arounds I didnt see her. Im thinking she was hiding in my shadow…….. Victor didnt do this race last year so we have no data to compare but he had a good day (I think). Id see him in the run a minute or two ahead of me and we’d hollar obsenities at one another as we’d pass. Just kidding. Victors finishing time was 1:07:47. …….. And me? I finished ARGH 17 seconds slower than last year giving me a 1:09:42. I was slower on the run. Much faster on the bike (like 2 min faster) and for some reason I cant explain I was much slower in the water. Still I was pretty happy with myself and it was the first time Ive ever managed an avg bike speed over 20 mph (20.1 
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EXTRA DATA FROM THE LOCAL NEWSPAPER:
( Editor’s Note: APPARENTLY there are men out there older than older- than- a- Dinosaur Doug)
At 84, Bill Bell of Palm Springs, was the oldest competitor and was presented a plaque citing him for that distinction.”You get used to these fun races where you are racing against yourself,” said Bill Bell, who has competed in 32 Ironman competitions, 158 marathons, 33 half-marathons and two Ultraman competitions in Kona, Hawaii.
(Editor’s note: Compared to the distances he usually does, no wonder he found this race fun!!!)
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wed night meeting notes:
Get your points to Beth
Race of the Quarter concept is being dumped due to apathy, being replaced with some sort of unique club run once a quarter….people with ideas for these runs, pass them onto Ingy. Ideas discussed: Hash house harrier type run N’ catch em runs, guess your time runs, how fast can you do a hill run.
Ingy’s looking at getting cards like business cards with run club data on them that we can hand out to people we think might want to join the club.
SRP runs have been moved back to 07:30
T shirts were discussed -Submit logo ideas to Ingy ASAP -Victor hopes to order them by 1 Jan. We discussed possibly changing our club name…that idea got lots of support but to go on new shirts, we’d need to finalize new name fast and if we change the name, does anyone know how to change it on this web site because that’s graphics and I don’t do graphics. Yet.
Discussed the 24/25 April relay race -looks like lots of people are interested. Estimated cost per person roughly $125. part of which goes to some other country for gasoline.
Last and Best, Doug Dawkins mentioned below provided very interesting info on his cross country journey. Due to my current limited time, I can’t do justice to all he told us but encourage you to check out his below listed web site and maybe someone who’se got the time who attended the meeting can summarize what he said in the comment section of the Newsletter. His basic mission was to see if an ‘average guy’ could do this and despite being told that he couldn’t in this day and age due to safety issues, he proved all the skeptics wrong and is having a great experience proving them wrong.
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Note 2: ON 3 DEC PIZZA NIGHT, REMEMBER THIS FROM ERIC: a cross-country runner from NC (and an old ultra-runner aquaintence of mine) will be attending the dec. wed. night pizza meeting and will give a talk about his cross-country trek still in progress. he started at the atlantic ocean in NC and is finishing at the pacific at san diego. he will be running right thru the lovely burg of temecula on his route to the sea. he started july 15th and will finish on dec. 12th. his name is doug dawkins, he’s 56 yo and if people want to look at his blog it is at: http://dougsrun.wordpress.com/
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