Lance at the Gila

For those of you living under a rock (like me), Lance is at the SRAM race in Silver City right now! Here's a link to a nice VeloNews article.

Run For Your Life 5k Results

Well, we had a lot of leftover bananas... Cold winds and bunch of other Socorro events led to an impressively small field of 11 runners and 2 walkers! That said, thank to you to those that turned out and competed and to the many volunteers. Almost every racer got a gold, to boot.

Multiple Marathon Race Report

Yeah, you heard that right - here's Rick and Jan's Boston race report with an addendum of the Big Sur Marathon that Jan ran about a week later!

Rick and I ran Boston for the first time on 4/19. He started in the first wave at 10:00, had a great run at 3:28, and went immediately from the finish line to the airport for a flight to Oregon. He thinks he finished in the top half of his AG. I started in the second wave at 10:30. I had high hopes, but felt bad/queasy from the get go-- maybe the mid-morning start combined with not enough food. Anyway, I hung in there for a 4:07 finish. Not what I had hoped for at all, but that's what happened. Still in the top half of my AG. Rick said to me "Thank goodness for the charity runners". Ha ha.

But Boston is an INCREDIBLE event, as the whole city LOVES THE MARATHON. There were 500,000 spectators along the course cheering for you, including Red Sox fans spilling out after the game. (The paper said the next day "All runners scored except at Fenway"). The fabled Wellesley Scream Tunnel was in force-- SSR runners for next year, be forewarned--college women screaming and leaning over the barricades with signs tempting the guys, such as "Kiss me, you Fool", "I Majored in Kissing", and my favorite, the one that really got to the point, "Let's Make Out". Heartbreak Hill is only a 120' elevation gain. Not a big deal, but it comes about mile 20 so it is tiring. The last 6 miles were packed 10 deep with people yelling for you-- incredible. The Boston winner set a new record, Ryan Hall set an American Boston record-- in fact, his time would have won 8 out of the last 10 Bostons, but for last Monday, he had to settle for fourth. And Meb got 5th. But Boston treats everyone like a VIP. The race is run impeccably, runners ride free on the subway, and they clapped for us on Southwest on the flight home.

But that is only half the story.

If Boston is the king of American marathons, the awe-inspiring, breathless beauty of Big Sur must make it the queen. April 25th was the 25th anniversary of Big Sur and this year they had the inaugural "Boston 2 Big Sur Challenge"-- 2 marathons, 2 coasts, 6 days. I decided to do it along with 400 others. Basically, they made a big hoopla for these runners. I had a feeling of "uh-oh" the day before the run, but stuffed myself with pasta while overlooking sailboats and seals on the Pacific, and tried to stay positive. 6:45 am dawned, the anthem was sung, the white doves were released, and we were off running once again through the redwoods. I started waaaay back in the pack, and ran a very conservative first two miles and then realized "Holy cow, I FEEL GOOD". To shorten this report, I picked it up, beat my time from last year at Big Sur, and finished 8/134 in AG. [Eph's note: This means an impressive 3:59!] Closer to the podium.

And for those on the fence, I understand they will be doing B 2 BS again next year.

Jan and Rick

Tour of Socorro Results and Photos

Don't forget to mosey over to our Tour of Socorro page and check out the results and photos. If you couldn't make it to the race(s), the photos of both snowy and desert courses help provide a perspective on how unique the Omnium really is.

Charlottesville Race Report

Adam and James ran the Charlottesville marathon and half-marathon recently:

Saturday morning found perfect conditions - light breeze and 60F - for the 1500-odd marathoners and half-marathoners at Charlottesville. Unusually, the start was all together and also included an 8km race (which initially caused some disbelief when we saw them come flying back around the 2 mile mark!) but we were near the start line and didn't have many problems with traffic.

The hilly course took its toll on many participants but James powered home at the head of a big 3-way sprint in 1:32:51 (46th/1077) as Adam swung through for the two-lap course which made up the second half of the marathon. He was looking a little ragged on the way through to lap 2 but held it together to sneak under the 3 hour mark for the first time (2:59:07, 7th/501). The race organisation was a little scrappy but the course was beautiful, so an awesome time was had by all!

Gallup MTB Race Report

Emma (who raced with Walter and Adam) passed along this race report - it sounds like fun!

Adam, Walter and I rode in Saturday's Dawn 'til Dusk race in Gallup.  We
managed eight laps of the 12.5 mile mesa-to-mesa singletrack course, more
than we expected and enough for 7th out of 12 in the co-ed team-of-four
group.

Walter led off with the daybreak lap, coming in so quickly that I was
still struggling to wake up for the corn/timing chip-necklace hand-off.
We then rotated through two laps each, enjoying the mix of fast hardpack,
edgy boulders, and whimsical trail art.  The general feeling by then was
"knackered," but Adam and Walter had ridden so speedily that I had time to
plod through one final lap just before the 7pm finish.

On Sunday, the recovery breakfast burritos made up for the unfortunate
lack of showers.

Update from Shingo

Shingo passes along his greetings from Yokosuka, Japan. He recently represented SSR (check out the hat!) in a 10k that was part of the Musashi-Ryo Marathon in Tokyo. As he took many months off from running, he wasn't pleased with his 52:40 time but was happy to run without any troubles. Well done, Shingo!