San Marcos HS
Santa Barbara HS

Annie
Bethany
Cooper
Drea
Fran
George
Leah
Liz
Maggie
Nite Grooves
Stuart
Jim K.

Bethany, our UCSB track correspondent is a blogger now. Actually she's been a blogger for some months, but I only just discovered it. (6 Jan 09)

Age Graded Someone asked me why I didn't show the ages in the age-graded graph. Well the whole point of the age-graded percentage is to provide a way of comparing runners abilities that is independent of age and sex. The age graded percentage for each runner shows how close s/he came to the world record time for her/his age and sex. Aaron and Drea are still young (at least from my perspective) and it's not surprising that they won their respective races. Michael is not so young and the fact that he was just a few seconds behind Aaron is impressive. Michael ran at 86% of the world record time for his age, Aaron ran at 79.8% (now running at 80% quite good, but running at 86% is even better). Drea ran at 83%. By comparing a runner against the best possible for his/her age, we get a percentage that (one hopes) has removed the effects of age and sex on performance -- providing a meaningful way of comparing runners of different ages and sexes.
    An extremely long winded way of saying: "Ages aren't shown on the graph, because the point of the graph is to get rid of the dependence on age". (6 Jan 09)

And speaking of blogs... you may recall that about a year and a half ago the blogs stopped working for 6 months. We used to host them on this site, but moved them to wordpress.com when our site died. I think I know why our site died: spam. We got spammed to death. Liz W.'s blog had 176Megabytes of comments, another had 15Mb and several had ~1Mb. The site only had 200Mb of disk space so 195Mb of spam overwhelmed it. Old news (if you will pardon the oxymoron), but I'm glad I understand it finally (6 Jan 09).

Why are so many of the top US runners immigrants? Is something wrong with our training system? Or is it the expected result of evolution that some parts of the world will select for better runners than others? (5 Jan '09)

Age Graded

More Resolution Day 'Drea ran a 5K PR, and her club record has been adjusted accordingly.
    Denis has pictures of a very foggy race.
    The good folks at Santa Barbara Pix have uploaded a thousand images from the race.

Resolution Day. Fog. Fog. And more Fog. The person in front: hidden in the mist. The person behind: muffled to inaudibility by the fog.
    5K (Gran Prix) Results Aaron Gillen with 16:16 followed by Michael Smith with 16:22 (and the highest age-graded percentage of the day 86%!), Leroy Thomas at 16:26 and Todd Booth 16:28. 'Drea McLarty won the women with 17:44, followed by Sara Dillman 19:24, Laura Turner 19:40 and Mariann Thomas 20:07.
    10K Results Todd Booth won the 10K at 34:47, Joe Nordin at 36:26, and the indominable Shigy Suzuki with 38:09. The women's race was run by Jenny Mintz 43:23, followed by Danielle Lipski 43:38 and out of towner Melina Healey 44:31.
    Eleven runners over 80% in the 5K, and 3 in the 10K.

Res Novae Day. I have always respected Jim as a webmaster, and fear that I will be unable to live up to the breadth of his interests nor the verve of his comments. But I shall do what I can.
    I feel I must try to live up to Jim's expectations, so here are some Lemur catta mothers (with babies on their backs) enjoying the sun. Humans aren't the only ones who like to sunbath.

Thank you. As of today, I'm resigning from both the SBAA Board and as webmaster.
    I served on the Board in the mid-80's and again over the past few years. The Board is turning over, at a deliberate rate, as it should, and this is a natural part of it. The SBAA is in good hands.
    I've been webmaster since the inception of the site. George Williams will be taking it over. George is a CalTech grad, well-known as a local runner, articulate, and he might be the SBAA's foremost authority on lemurs. (Up to now, lemurs have played little part in local running.)
    Over the past five years, I've written roughly 200 thousand words. Most of what I wrote about was trivial -- not in its importance to the people involved, to the person who ran the marathon PR -- but personal and passing. Perhaps some was not; I'll never be privileged to know which was which. Sometimes the off-hand remark echoes in an unintended ear, or in an unintended way. I've relied -- I've had no choice but to rely on -- the generosity of you readers. All of these words leave traces in our memories; that fade, or never arrive at all, or perhaps sink below the surface to re-emerge later, at some unexpected time, with an unexpected meaning. If something I've written has given you pleasure, or amusement, or some information about the world you might not otherwise have had -- thank you for engaging with me. -- Jim (New Year's Day 2009)

SBAA site. This past week, a quiet week, we've had around eight hundred visitors a day, from the US, Germany, China, Russia, the US military, Brazil, Romania, Canada, Venezuela, Taiwan. From Turkey, Sweden, Singapore, Thailand, Ukraine, the UK. Even from Tuvalu. On more active weeks, it climbs to twelve or thirteen hundred per day -- if you're accustomed to "hits," that's around 34 thousand a day. (01/01)

State Street Mile. Megan R-R reminds that for the early birds -- the really early birds -- the SSM is open for registration on Active. And, oddly enough, Tough Enough -- which is as close to the opposite of State Street as is gets, yet attracts many of the same runners -- is as full already (before even the first of the year) as it was on race day its first year back. (12/30)

Runner enclave. Runner enclave forming -- housing for runners age 18-30 $600/mo on the Mesa. Fro more info, e-mail Kevin Young, or reach him by phone at 564-3400. (12/29)

Volunteers. Yep, could be you. The spin says Barack Obama started out as a community organizer, but really -- he was a race volunteer. (Facts you won't find on any other running website.) January 1, 2009, Palm Park. Registration, finish line, course monitors, water station, food, raffle. Patsy Dorsey is The Woman.
    Go for it. Click the link. (12/28)

Endorphins and endocannabinoids "Endo" means inside, "-orphin" from morphine, cannabinoids from cannabis (marijuana). Running releases these, the most natural thing in the world, something our ancestors, who walked and ran all the time, enjoyed as their normal baseline. One wonders whether the physical benefits of running really derive primarily from the mental?
    Well. SBrunning is not one of those running websites that endorse Descartes' error. Mind, body, brain; not separable, really. It's nice that running nourishes and makes healthy all of the intricately-intertwined systems that make us up. (12/28)

Happy Christmas to all. Philip Larkin, dark, then light:
    The first day after a death, the new absence
    Is always the same; we should be careful
    Of each other, we should be kind
    While there is still time.
Happy Christmas to all, to all a good morning. (12/25)

Top ten distance accomplishments of 2008. For Americans, as selected by Ryan Lamppa, local athlete and Running USA Media Director. Fails to include Aaron winning the SBHM in a caveman outfit; a shocking omission, but admittedly not quite up there with Shalane's Bronze. Get 'em here. (Solstice)

Are you tough enough? Will be Saturday, April 11th this coming year. The race director is a little concerned at the degree of early interest. Geez. Registration page now posted; and a link added by the blogs. Even if you're not planning on running you might want to check out the interactive course map Garrett H. made. (12/20)

New Year's volunteers. New Year's Resolution Day Run volunteers needed. January 1, 2009, Palm Park. Registration, finish line, course monitors, water station, food, raffle. Start the year as a race volunteer! Time varies depending on what is done, between 6:30am - 10:30am. Please contact Patsy Dorsey, patsy.dorsey@cox.net. Thank You! (12/18)

Running long #1. John Lofthus ran his first 50-miler in 9:11 on a tough Marin County course with almost 11 thousand feet elevation gain. (John: "We ran on the Dipsea trail for part of it and that wasn't the hardest part!") Scott Devore was 3rd in the trail 10K (45:06, 255 runners).
    John writes, "I'm still trying to reach my goal of $1,000 for student scholarships at UCSB (I'm now up to $600).  Last year there were 2,000 students that were eligible for student scholarships (had financial need and academic merit) but didn't receive any scholarship dollars. This is a small step towards solving that." Anyone interested in donating, please email John directly. (12/18)

Running long #2 Gina Fennell: "Steve Miley once again organized a great fun run. Nine of us gathered at the Jesusita trailhead at 6:30 AM on Saturday to run Half Nine Trails (hence the 4.5 Trails name). Our group was a nice mix of trail running newbies and 9-trails finishers. Ken Hughes ran ahead from the start and graciously marked every tricky turn on the course. Patty Bryant joined in for the first few miles before ditching us to hike with her husband! We all took time to enjoy the beautiful rainbow and the gorgeous views of the islands and ocean. Our veteran trail runners, Steve Miley, Michelle Greer, and Lisa Kanen led the newbies, myself, Brian Dutter, Matt Boeddeker, and Kim Denig, through the interesting maze of trails that comprises the race route. Special thanks goes out to Tony Borek and Tamara Berndt who stood out in the wind and cold on Gibralter to provide water and snacks and to Shannon and Sage Dutter, Brooke Powell, Tony and Tamara who provided food at the finish and rides back to the start." (12/18)

SBAA alumni news. Nate Kornell, PhD, will shortly accept a faculty position at Williams College in Massachusetts. US News & World Report ranks Williams as the #1 small liberal arts college in the country. (12/18)

Elda, Carrie, Marie. A field correspondent writes, "Elda Rudd ran a perfect race! She finished in 3:32 with a negative split, a Boston qualifier and a 23 min PR! Marie Schnyer had a great first marathon and finished strong with a 4:05. Carrie Dent had a great PR of 3:25. Maggie Mason won her age group and we got to embarass her at the awards ceremony. It was unaninomous amongst the team that [trains] with Mike Swan and Rusty Snow how fortunate we are to have guidance and support from such great people. It was a great time in Sacramento." (12/12)

Las Vegas and Tucson. Sarah Mandes ran 3:25 in Las Vegas; at Tucson, Paulette and Art Posch ran 4:00 and 4:28, respectively; Larry Suhr 5:54; Ann and John Brinker 4:14 and 3:35. Sorry to have missed and congratulations all around. (12/12)

GP banquet. Splendid time had by many. Particular note was taken of a transition: Des O'eill, 40-year SBAA president, and John Brennand, Secretary/Treasurer for 48, are both stepping down, handing off to Jim Sloan and Rob Olsen. Des has guided the club through the middle way, neither too ambitious nor too passive, the consequence being that the club is still around (to our benefit). He's done so in an admirably ego-free way, which has allowed a rich interplay of initiatives and ideas to become self-sustaining (or not) within our local running ecosystem. John has been such a central figure, perhaps the central figure, in local racing for decades. When other races where haphazard, ours were measured, marked, chuted and accurately timed, chiefly thanks to John's tenacity and systematicity. (The community is still reeling from the disappearance of John's Citroen wagon--beyond question the most distinctive RD vehicle in California running history. A wonderful sight, with the pneumatic suspension relaxed at park, making it look like the car had sunk to complete collapse under all the race gear stowed in the back.) Thanks go to Wally Marantette, emcee Joe Howell, who makes every feel welcome and comfortable, to Jay and Scott and the Outfooters crew, to Art Blondell, of trophy fame, and chiefly to all the runners who make the community a community. (12/12)

Least surprising result ever. Carl Legleiter defended his thesis successfully -- and having paid his fee and submitted a 655-page dissertation, he's now Carl Legleiter, PhD. Off this month for a short post-doc at USGS in Colorado, then beginning in the fall at the University of Wyoming as a tenure-track professor. At which point he'll look back with longing at the easy days of being a grad student. Carl -- it's been great having you part of the community. (12/12)

Oops. SBrunning apologizes for the interruption. Domain registration is carried by the same parent as the web hosting, but the web hosting fees and domain registration fees are separate. We're good for another five years now, though. (12/12)

California International Marathon. Results, courtesy of Rusty Snow, who writes, "Mike [Swan] and I have the pleasure and honor of coaching these folks and they are all very tough individuals and showed that today."
    Andrew Maxwell 2:46 first marathon; Jill Zachery 3:08 great effort and time considering not the greatest buildup; Daniel Rudd 3:08 first marathon; Maggie Mason 3:17 10 sec off pr; Kim Burnell 3:19 HUGE pr; Jamie Allison 3:34pr; Dave Adornetto 3:30pr; Claire Krock 3:36pr; Tony Borek, HUGE pr of 3:48 -- left no stone unturned as Tony saw a nutritionist and has been training hard for two years now to transform himself from a football player to runner; Tamara Berndt, HUGE of 3:53.
    SBAA congratulates all for terrific running. (12/07)