Profile: Desa Mandarino. The Runner's Profile has returned, thanks to Joe Howell and Gene Deering, kicking off on Mother's Day with Desa Mandarino. Author, athlete, teacher, optimist, advocate of unrestrained use of exclamation marks--have a great Mother's Day, Desa!!! (5/11)

Science: Carbon footprint. Christopher Weber of CMU found that going vegetarian one day a week was roughly equivalent to driving 1155 miles less per year. Food for thought. (5/11)

Wine Country Half. Updated. On-the-scene correspondent George Williams: "Perfect conditions (~50F at start, overcast), good course, rolling hills (two ferocious hills one at mile 6ish and one at 11ish). Micah [Tyhurst] second overall, 1:09:19; Aaron [Gillen] 1:10;06 (third); Teage [O'Conner] first 21-24, 1:11:25; Leroy [Thomas] 1:14:18 (first in 35-39); me 1:23:01 (first in 45-49); Ricky Ho 1:24:04 (second 30-34); Jeff Devine (third in 35-39) 1:26:53; Tara [Kulikov] (first 30-34) 1:25:01; Monica DeVreese fifth 30-34, 1:33:08; Melissa Marstead second 40-44, 1:31:04; Tommie (Mariann) Thomas third 40-44, 1:32:22. Many other SB/Goleta/Carp [runners].
    "Biggest surprise: No mile markers. No markers of any kind. Slightly different start from last year, so even if someone remembered where the markers had been, they would not be relevant. Still, I ran in the range I expected/hoped to so the lack of markers must not have been a significant issue." Link to results. (5/10)

Gaviota OCR returns. Paul Shields writes, "Heads up for the Gaviota OCR... The date has been set for June 21, 6:30am. The new website is www.gaviotaocr.net." Paul is still building up the site; it's a fantastic event for the adventursome. Perfect prep for a night of dancing, too. (5/7)

Trail management The Santa Barbara County Trails Council is presenting a two day intensive trail management workshop, May 14th and 15th, 9am to 5pm. Allen Doyle has more. If you've enjoyed the benefits of the trails and haven't had a chance to give back, this might be a great starting point. (5/7)

Coming events updated. A fleet of events from Lompoc, and one from Ventura. Check 'em out. (5/7)

Track meet. Sunday night the Cardinal Invite saw an American and an Oceania record in the women's 10,000. Despite a stacked field--tenth place ran 31:39--the race broke open early with Shalane Flanagan following the pacemaker and New Zealand's Kim Smith twenty feet back. Smith closed the gap smoothly and by the 5K mark (15:17, or two seconds faster than the open 5,000 winner), Smith and Flanagan were inseparable. They cooperated on leading through the second half (taking four laps at a time) until the final 800. Then it was racing, with Smith trying to defuse Flanagan's superior kick, pushing hard, and Flanagan holding on just as determinedly. Shalane made her move on the final turn; they finished at 30:34 and 30:35. Incredible race. Watching them on the back straight, they looked like they were running a 1500. Making the 31-minute 10K runners look slow and awkward, and the 32-minute women like they were joggers in the wrong race--amazing. And great to see them embrace at the end.
    In the men's race, Britain's Mo Farah led much of the way, until Craig Mottram become inpatient. A slow (for them) 13:58 first 5K stayed steady-on until Mottram decided to push, stretching out the field (ten men had still been together at 8K). Mottram ran the second half in 13:36 for a 27:34. He looked like he was nearly jogging for much of the race.
    In the women's 1500, high-schooler Jordan Hasay ran a smart race, moving up gradually through the field to run 4:17 (not her PR, but pretty darned fast). Shannon Rowberry's 4:07 is the best time by an American this year, and she kicked to a huge-on-the-track five-second gap.
    The men's 5000 was notable for Bernard Lagat, last year's World Champ at both 1500 and 5000, settling easily into 2nd place, sitting there unperturbed during the race, then simply drifting forward with no seeming effort to gap a couple of seconds on 2nd place Brett Vaughn (who ran a huge PR).
    Finally, the women's steeple. It was painful to watch Bethany, favoring her hip and driving herself without restraint. Seeing her on all fours at the finish, hurting--hard for we fans who've learned to care for her through her writing for this site. (5/5)

Mother's Day. Wally: "UCSB Club Soccer has taken over directorship of the race from Mom's In Motion and SB Parent. Relaxed, fun atmosphere, good to see the UCSB kids getting involved in more of the local races." Appropriate to the event, there were a lot of mothers and daughters running (and some fathers and sons, too). Eric Forte (34:29) and Drea McLarty (38:27) won the 10K (something Drea didn't mention even once at the kid's birthday party she and family attended later in the day). Shawna Berger won the 5K outright (17:47), with second-overall Blake Robillard the first man. Ricky Ho ran third in both races. Thanks to the Club Soccer folks, the participants, the timers, and all the vols and participants. Results for both. (5/3)

Run for Life. Fundraiser at Bishop Diego, not wrapping up until Sunday morning--if you're reading this on Saturday--or at 2 or 3 am Sunday morning--drop by and support. Buy lemonade! Cheer! Buy the winning raffle ticket! Or just enjoy the positive vibes. (5/3)

Tetlo Emmen. Former UCSB 800 meters star Tetlo is running the Peyton Jordan/Cardinal Invite Sunday night in Palo Alto. Last year, Tetlo was readying himself for his biggest race of the season, an international meet in Belgium, when his father died suddenly and unexpectedly of a heart attack. Burning, but with his mother's encouragment, he ran his lifetime best 1:46.67.
    As well as Emmen, a handful of UCSB runners qualified for the invitation, including "our" Ms Nickless. The "B" standard for the Olympic Trials in the W3000SC is 10:20; Bethany has run 10:11. It would be great to see her hit that mark, whether Sunday night or at Conference. (5/2)

Nite Moves. First of the season last night. A mild evening that saw faster runners finish earlier than those less fast. (SBrunning: the site that's not afraid to speak the truth.) Garrett Ince ran 16:06 for the win, with 52-year-old Terry Howell running an excellent 16:53 for second, which obscures Fred Mellon's 17:07 at 47. Drea McLarty hit 18:20 to win on the women's side. Many masters runners, lots of people overall. Thanks to Jake, Wally for the results, and the volunteer team. (5/1)

May Running Shorts. Like April, May Running Shorts available as a downloadable PDF--here. Thanks go to Kevin Young. (4/29)

Gaucho Gallop. RD John Loftus writes, "The inaugural Gaucho Gallop was a huge success with 250 entries for the race. Aaron Gillen and Tara Kulikov walked away with new UCSB logo'ed beachcruiser bikes with their respective wins in the 10K race. Aaron outpaced Are You Tough Enough, Nine Trails and Roses to La Playa champion - Teage O'Connor. 33:19 to 35:30.  The cross country course offered something for everyone with dirt, sand, grass and pavement." Results are on Paul's site, will shortly be on the Gaucho Gallop site, and cool pics by Kevin Steele. Bikes--excellent. (4/28)

Big Sur Marathon. Today (Sunday). Zach Komon led the SB contingent along the edge of California, running 3:10. Many other Santa Barbarans: check the results page for the facts. Congratulations to all the finishers. (4/27)

Science: Baby boys, baby girls, and what you eat. Fiona Matthews (U. Exeter) and colleagues tracked the eating habits of 740 women before and through pregnancy. They found a strong result: for the third of the women on the highest-energy diets, 56% had boys, compared with 45% boys in the lowest-energy group. (Before making any inferences about which gender is "high energy," male fetuses are more fragile than female, so the extra calories may have helped them survive.) Women eating a bowl of breakfast cereal every morning had 59% boys, compared with 43% in the group that had one (or fewer) per week. Matthews acknowledges that no-one really knows why. (Original research in the Proc. Royal Society: Biological Sciences.) (4/27)

Toads--are they lizards? Steve H. is looking for a sidekick at work (Horny Toad)--e-mail him for info. Any job where Steve is, is bound to be fun. SBrunning's first job posting. Yow. (4/25)

Tough Enough. Like many trail races, the Western States 100 requires participants to do volunteer work on another ulta in order to run. Garrett Headley created an uncommon course map for Tough Enough. Clicking the link will load an applet. (Yep, that's what they're called. They're like baby apps.) When it asks whether to trust the certificates, trust 'em. If your display is cranky, try updating your video drivers. (World Wind is the underlying visualization engine.) Thanks, Garrett, and have fun with it! (4/25)

Race results. Patty Bryant ran the Leona Divide 50M in just over 11 hours. Elda Rudd ran 3:55 at the Salt Lake City marathon. Congratulations to both. (4/25)

Feet of truth. Thanks to New York Magazine for an excellent article on feet and their use. (4/24)

Coming attractions. Gaucho Gallop coming this weekend; John Loftus is the contact. In Ventura, there's the Summerfest 5000 coming at the end of May; Ruth Vomundis the contact. And, also Ventura, the Splash and Dash, a summer tri series; plus a new Half in Ventura in October. And, JT Service, former Gaucho and Half-mara winner, has completed his law degree and is taking over as race director the Silicon Valley Marathon. Eventful. (4/23)

Barbarans Bostoniate. Congrats to Loren Bland (2:52), Phil Gans (3:20), Bill Bittancourt (3:21), Jenn Mintz (3:35:15), Kristin Wise (3:59), Gary Clancy (4:13), and all the other Santa Barbaras (and Goletans, and the single Montecitan) who finished. (4/21)

Deena wins. US Women's Trials in Boston today, the day before the traditional marathon. Great the see the women's race as a "pure" race: all the qualifiers at the starting line, no pacers, not embedded in another event, whomever gets there first. For a long time it looked like that would be Magdelena Lewy-Boulet, a Polish immigrant who achieved her citizenship on September 11th, 2001. Kastor cut 100 seconds off Lewy-Boulet's lead in the last six miles for the 2:29 win. Lewy-Boulet was second, Blake Russell third. Nice moment when all three women lined up to greet and embrace 1984 Gold-medalist Joan Samuelson at the finish. (Ms Samuelson, 50, ran 2:49:08. An age-adjusted 2:23 equivalent.) Congratulations to all three women, and to all the athletes.
    Add: San Luis Obispo's Linda Somers-Smith, the 1996 Olympian who's three weeks shy of her 47th birthday, ran 2:38 for 17th overall. She first broke three hours 26 years ago. (4/20)

10-mile add. For the third time in the race's history, the lead pack was split by a train. Leroy Thomas and those with and behind him had to stop to let a train go by. The race organizers try to avoid this, but our trains don't exactly run like trains. Apologies to those affected--and grateful thanks for not doing anything foolish.
    Peter S. over at Edhat has added pictures. (4/20)

SB Running Co 10-miler. Cool morning, perfect for running fast. Which is what men's leaders Paul Wellman and Aaron Gillen did, with Encinitas' Wellman slightly ahead of the SBAA's fastest, 51:18 to 51:34. For Aaron, returning from a softball injury, he was within his PR from the same race last year. Former UCSB runner Micah Tyhurst was close behind (52:17). Competitive enough that Hector Hernandez averaged 5:16 a mile for 4th.
    Shawna Burger ran 60:34 to lead the women. Shawna was first runner on her 5th-place Cal State LA NCAA DII XC team last year. Jan Denkins (San Diego), at 62:20, was a half-minute up on returning, now mother-of-three Michelle McToldridge (62:55).
    Excellent turnout (444/149 in the 10-mile and 5K respectively); excellent organization (of course), and many thanks to Wally, Paul, and all the volunteers who made it safe.
    Brandon Burkhardt is volunteer of the day. Paul writes, "He tore down the whole Biltmore area, he helped tear down the Cabrillo front until almost the end of the volleyball courts. He hung off the back of a truck and pulled in cones for over two miles. On top of that he clapped for every runner that went by at the 4 mile mark. And he is only 12--the kid was awesome."
    10-mile results, Patsy Dorsey 5K results. (4/19)

Tough Enough Anyone who found a camera along leg two, please mail the webmaster. Thanks. (4/19)

Runner's profiles return From Joe Howell: "The Runner's Profile is back! I started the column in March 1993, starting with John Brennand. (That Profile noted John's 32:35 10K, at age 49, in the 'Favorite Race Distance.') Each month thereafter, the SBAA newsletter had a Profile of a different SBAA member. The only criteria were to make the range of featured runners as diverse as possible and to NOT include anyone who promoted themselves as a Profile subject (there were several!) The column ran consistently until the SBAA discontinued the mailed, hard copy newsletter in 2005. We continued the Profiles on the website, but unfortunately, consistency was lost, with the last Profile also appearing in 2005.
    "We're now introducing the 'new and improved' Runner's Profile, starting with Gene Deering. He is a UCSB soccer star turned runner, with some impressive performances. Gene made it through the rigorous selection process to emerge as official Co-Author of the Runner's Profile, so we will be sharing the responsibility. As well as his first-time 2:57 Boston, Gene was a last minute (as in getting a call two days prior) substitution on the Tough Enough relay team that won with a 65 second margin... Wow! I encourage you to hit the link and read about Gene.
    "One of our goals is to expand and reorganize the current 'Profiles" link on the SBrunning site. It now lists approximately 38 individual Profiles, but ultimately will include the almost 200 Profiles that have appeared since 1993. The task is a daunting one, but Gene is up to it!
    "Next month, we will feature Grand Prix Womens 35-39 age group winner Desa Mandarino, with many more fascinating Profiles to come, perhaps featuring.......you!!!" (4/18)

Pre-Boston reporting. Following the unbiased, "neutral point of view" model Steve Rider provides an overview of local and formerly-local prospective running at Boston. (4/17)

Our man in Los Angeles>. Terry Howell ran 1500 meters tonight in 4:28.98. This is a fantastic run. Outstanding. (4/16) Add, 4/17: "I really enjoy racing on the track and seeing how fast I can push. My times may be slower than when I was in my prime but the feelings I have when getting up to the line and then charging out with the sound of the gun are exactly as I remember them..."

Our man in London. Ed Mitchell writes, "The trip to Paris and London with my friend was a lot of fun, but the Marathon didn't go very well. The first problem happened early in the race. I had five gels crammed into a small pocket in my shorts, and during the first mile 3 of the 5 popped out. I thought "no problem, I still have two, and I'll just take a few handed out on the course". But it ended up being a problem, I never saw one station handing out gels. Even sports drinks were only offered at 9 miles, 13 miles, and 23 miles, all the other stations just had water. The other problem was the weather. The forecast was for 45-50 degrees with clear skies, with rain coming later in the day, more than three hours after the start of race. So I wore a cotton undershirt under my racing top. But about 75 minutes after the start of the race freezing rain came down. So I was freezing and suffering from 'brain drain,' and feeling like I might faint or something.  I made it to the finish in 3:08 by alternating walking and jogging over the last few miles.
    "Also, I have to say to anyone considering doing London, be forewarned it had by far the worst pushing, shoving, bumping and banging around of any race I've ever done. (It made Boston seem like nothing!) I was never able to get relaxed.
    "My next attempt at a sub 3:00 will be on Oct 12 in Chicago (my favorite race in the world!)" (4/16)

Marathoning big picture. Ryan Lamppa alerts to the annual Running USA marathon report. There are a LOT of people doing marathons--with over 20 thousand finishers, LA was tenth on the world list, and in the US, roughly 412 thousand finishes were recorded for 26.2 last year. ("Finishes" is not the same as finishers, since people run multiple marathons.) (4/16)

UCSB: Bethany hurdles for the first time this season. Lots of other strong performances, too--the facts, here. (4/16)

Science: antioxidants may suck. In a meta-analysis of the results of 67 studies, Danish authors found that taking antioxidant supplements didn't do any good, and in some cases were correlated with higher death rates. Oh, well. "Just eat well," is the recommendation, something particularly easy to do here in Santa Barbara. Press release if you'd like a little more. (4/16)

Nite Moves Things are pretty good. Still a few bugs to work out, but Jake's at it and things will go forward as planned while he does Regulatory Wrestling, one of the less-envy-inspiring race director duties. Go, dude. (4/16)

NRWC announces synonym shortage. The National Running Writing Center (Sioux Falls, Iowa) reported today that the supply of American English synonyms for running was nearing exhaustion. According to the NRWC study, unless synonyms for other popular upright activities are recruited, running writers will be left with prosaic, repetitive prose. (Curling was suggested as a possible source.)
    SBrunning was unavailable for comment. (4/16)

Nite Moves. Things are good. Jake went to Sacto to lobby--the author of the law in question is named Runner--it looks like it will all work out well. He very much appreciates all the support and (courteous) letter writing. April 30, the first race (and a GP, too). (4/14)

Teage sets Tough Enough CR. Teage O'Conner managed to shuffle up to Nojoqui Falls to bask and bathe in the cool water after working two minutes from the 1990 course record despite a warm, dry day. As well as the refreshment, it washed away the full-body champagne coating his support crew had given him after finishing. For the teams, The Young and the Restless outran We're the Fugawi??!! by 65 seconds (7:56:05 to 7:57:10), with the DP Alumni only two minutes behind. TYATR revised the mixed-team CR downward, as well. Write-up and results. Many participants took pics; here's Jon Lewis's, and here are Steve Miley's. (4/13)

Ten Mile Registration vols. Need 'em--easy volunteering because you can also run the race. Contact Patsy--click to mail, or call 452-1273. (4/13)

Joe Howell not currently dead or dying. Joe enjoyed a brief vacation in the most expensive hotel in town--Cottage Hospital--after a last-weekend bike crash. He's fine, the road rash is healing, minor fractures in various places, back to work this week. SBrunning has been unable to either verify or disconfirm rumors that the impact made him loquacious and prone to semi-coherent rambling. (4/13)

London Marathon. Former Big Bear high-schooler Ryan Hall ran 2:06:17 at London, a tremendous time, made moreso by placing him 5th, with the top three runners all in the 2:05's (and a runner behind Hall also running 2:06). Martin Lei won with a strong kick, and Irina Mikitenko won the women's. The fastest group marathon yet for the men. SBAA's Ed Mitchell ran 3:08:50; Ed said he'd write a race report. (4/13)

Running Shorts. New, one time only as a downloadable PDF file--here. (If you have the Adobe plug-in, it will display in your browser.) (4/12)

PCTR in Malibu. Props to Garrett Headley for a nice 5:09 50K, the day after getting home from Japan. Same as the Bulldog course (but opposite direction), gorgeous day, gorgeous course. (4/10)

Mixed emotions. Micah writes on the Olympics, on American distance running, and on running anonymity. Here. (4/10)

More mixed emotions. Bethany writes on her difficult season (so far), and UCSB emerging from their intense training to run well (and doesn't even whap the webmaster on the nose with a rolled up newspaper for neglecting to mention that Danielle Dominicelli ran an outstanding 16:39 5000 at Stanford). Here. (4/10)

Chuck's. Will be on June 22nd. Eight ayem (8:00 am), Leadbetter Beach. Gratitude. (4/10)