Run DMZ

I manage the San Diego Track Club's Web site and produce a quarterly e-zine called San Diego Running . This was my third issue I created all on my own after taking four Saturday morning Web design classes exactly a year ago. I ran out of time and broke my own promise to always do my best. But sometimes, when everything seems to go wrong for you and those you love, you do what you gotta do. I had a fancy masthead like previous issues, but it wouldn't render correctly in Firefox and Safari. Then I had this crazy orange color where the masthead once was, even as Dreamweaver swore up and down it was white. So, since it already looked like crap I thought, "Why not pile it on. Make it look intentional." That's why the sidebar on the homepage is turquoise. And I just noticed some pages don't look right in IE8. Still. All this is my way of asking you to focus on the content. There may be something that helps you with your own running, whether you live in San Diego or ...

I came so close to batting 1.000 for hosting rain-soaked runs this year. And technically I did because we had drizzle before the start, but otherwise we really lucked out and hit that reprieve between storms this morning for the 4th Annual Christmas Card Lane Run. This would not seem all that spectacular of a streak if we lived in Portland or Seattle, but this is San Diego and it only rained on the Saturdays I had a hosted run scheduled. Each year is a little different and this time, due to what would otherwise have been a record crowd – San Diegans can be fair-weather runners – I needed a place with a lot of free parking and setup space. So we ran to Rancho Penasquitos’ famed neighborhood from a parking lot next to a city-owned skate park that doesn’t open until 10 a.m. The location from that standpoint was perfect. The course, however, was .2 miles short because I walked the group to the base of a big hill for the official start. This was for everyone’s safety. This one was probably ...

Once again a last-minute forecast check and reality did not align this morning as I hosted another training run. This time the rain proved a real problem since we were running all trails. I had a backup road course, but a group vote in drizzle affirmed the original plan to run along the main trail through Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve. The rain stopped just long enough for a group photo at the trail entrance and then I ran up ahead to get photos of everyone coming through a particularly photogenic spot ... and my camera would not turn on. That bode ill for the remainder of the morning. The plan was that everyone would turn around if the rain became more intense, which the rain did. But it's difficult to gauge rain pressure when you are running and so no one came back for an hour, and then folks trickled in (no pun intended), seeking a way to get the mud off their shoes. Before everyone returned, the park ranger came by to place a sign warning everyone to stay out; the trails were...

Some weekends I feel closer to my food and this is one of them. That’s partly because yesterday we made our annual pilgrimage to Little Quail Farm in Valley Center to pick our own ripe persimmons. Partly it’s because I finally made it to a farmer’s market and felt a little pious buying direct from growers versus grocers. But mostly it’s because of pigeons. Yesterday morning I drove down to Coronado to babysit canisters, cups and a couple of jackets while everyone in our half marathon training program ran around town at daybreak. (I even saw AKA Alice gearing up for a Silver Strand ride in a chance encounter.) Once everyone took off, I sat on a concrete bench with a book and about 10 minutes later noticed a couple of pigeons walking toward me. Soon more pigeons were on the move and before I knew it they were arriving en masse. Feeling like a hapless victim in the early 1970s movie “ Willard ,” I stood up to leave, which is all the action it took for them to fly away. But they kept comi...

You’ve probably heard this one before, but everyone wants to be a television (or radio) weather forecaster. Why? Because it’s the only job where you can get it repeatedly wrong and still not get fired. This time, though, even the normally accurate weather.com and weatherunderground.com were way off, leading to a very wet opening to the three runs I’m hosting this fall. Just an hour before the run, the forecast was for rain in Scripps Ranch between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. One television meteorologist said the rain would miss us entirely. And yet the skies opened just as we started the 7 a.m. warm-up stretch. It was pouring by the time everyone hit the first of three hills on a 9-mile route I call the Lake Rim Run because you climb up and around the perimeter of Lake Miramar. It also includes two short trails, one of which qualified this as a mud run too. Everyone in my track club's fall training program took the conditions in stride, considering it good training if they encounter a rainy...

See the father and daughter trailing everyone at the start of this morning's Ursula Rains Balboa Boogie? I thought they'd be my rabbits, so to speak. I thought wrong. That duo finished well ahead of me in today's cross-country 5k, as did every other child and adult except a Vietnamese high-schooler hoping to join the foreign service and her classmate, who wants once day to be either the first or the most famous Jewish-German character designer in Japan. I had the pleasure of being "the sweep" in today's open race. It's one of the few volunteer positions I'd never held within our track club and when I was assigned the open division, I was a little worried. This is part of a highly competitive cross-country series that draws very fast runners from throughout the county. (And, remember, my county is the size of Connecticut landwise and the nation's eighth largest by population.) It also meant that everyone in the field was at least 10 years and most l...

I just uploaded pictures from my position as a volunteer at this morning's 46th annual Balboa 4 Mile cross-country race. I love this opening shot not only because it looks like one guy is running on air, but because it also shows the age range in the open category. There were so many kids under 18, even 12, giving it their all today. I've long believed that volunteering as a course marsal or aid station worker is a great way to recharge and to revise your own race strategies. Plus, you do not have to worry about heat, hydration or the lines at the portable toilets. This is a tough course, which includes running up both of the biggest hills in Balboa Park (Powder and ZigZag) in addition to smaller hills. This year there was a new celebrity race competing for participants. But between the great turnouts at both events, I think it was a good day for one and all. I worked a well marked part of the course, which allowed me to take pictures while yelling, "Move on to the grass!...

The two biggest road races in San Diego are the Rock 'n' Roll Marathon in June and America's Finest City Half Marathon today. I haven't run the AFC in several years, but this morning I found myself maneuvering around traffic jams at 5 a.m. and then surrounding myself with AFC runners the rest of the morning. I volunteered to host the San Diego Track Club's post-race tent at the expo, which entailed buying select treats, loading up the car with items from the SDTC shed and hauling everything to our site before the first runners came through. That included the frozen grapes and chocolate milks in the photo above. Everyone was hard at work by 6:30 a.m., setting up displays and sorting fruit like these two young gentleman above. Our site, pre-setup. I needed three other hands to set up the tent and thank the complete strangers who came to my aid. After I had set up the regular and soy milk, frozen grapes (green and red), organic baked items, Red Vines and individually ...

While my friends were weathering the heat in nearby road and trail races and even an Ironman, I was assisting aging athletes who proved you’re never too old to compete. The event was the Chuck McMahon Masters Meet at Cal State-San Marcos. Beautiful track. Beautiful day, if you discount the raging heat. And beautiful people, truly. These were former high school and collegiate stars and even current world-record holders who continue to display the spirit, if not quite the physique, of their glory days. Many were in their 60s, 70s and even 80s. There also were triathletes using the events for training and at least one Para-Olympian javelin thrower with quite a story to tell. And, truth be told, most were a lot faster than I’ll ever be. I primarily worked registration, which unlike road races is an all-day assignment. People often arrive early to do one or two events, then add on competitions as the spirit moves them. Occasionally I got up to shoot some photos, some of which I’ll share her...