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A Beach Runners Tradition “Touching the Queen”
This 4 minutes video shows a Beach Runner Tradition, “Touching the Queen” (Mary). This run from our starting point in SE Long Beach to the Queen Mary is just short of 19 miles. For many Beach Runners it is a “right of passage.” Some of our runners added some mileage. We’re done with the long runs and all we have left is the Long Beach Marathon on Sunday, October 12. Registration is still open for this race, come join us.
Beach Runners (MarathonTraining.TV) Fall/Winter Marathon training and Half Marathon training start in November 2008.
Watch Focused, Steve Mackel – Head Coach Beach Runners
TIME CHANGE – Thursday’s Trail Run and Yoga for Runners moved up to 6 PM
Thursday’s Rose Bowl Trail Run
Join us for our last couple weeks of the Thursday Trail Run and “Yoga for Runners.” The bottom line is that it is getting dark earlier. That means we are moving our meeting time up.
We will now meet at 6:00 PM for the Trail Run and 6:40 PM for the “Yoga for Runners” ending around 7:30 PM.
All levels are welcome. Please bring a yoga mat or towel for yoga and we meet at Parking lot I by the Rose Bowl Aquatic Center.
Train Focused, Steve Mackel ChiRunning® Instructor
Mt. Baldy Run to the Top 2008 Runumentary
I posted a couple of race reports last week and here’s the long awaited video.
Please post a comment or rate the video. Thanks
Race Focused, Steve Mackel – Runumentarian
Mt Baldy Race Report by Roberto – SCR Member
Hope you all had a good Labor Day.
While I did enjoy the time honored tradition of dipping in the pool, having a few beers and eating some good food off the grill, I started it unlike any other in my life.
I joined Steve Mackel and some other PTC folks for the 43rd Annual Mt. Baldy Run to the Top…8 miles on fire road/single track trail, takes you from 6000 feet up to 10,064 feet on the summit. YEAH baby!
This is a great race with amazing scenery and very cool, grassroots vibe. This is also the hardest running ‘event’ I have ever done. I managed to run about 7 miles of the race and then BAM….I bonked. Between the fuel tank going dry and the altitude (about 9000 ft) I
started to experience some tunnel vision along with a little wooziness, not something you want on a trail with a decent drop on both sides
I walk/jogged the next 1/2 mile and then encountered
‘The Wall’ …OUCH!
At this point in the race everyone is walking, and each step was a struggle. Walk a few steps, catch your breath, repeat. Longest 1/2 mile of my life!!! I managed to get to the top without passing out and it was all worth it…the world is a different place when viewed from 10,000 feet. After pounding some water and eating 6 oranges worth of orange slices (childhood soccer game flashback) and taking in the views and talking to some folks, we headed back down….4 miles to the ski lifts, all down the same trail we just ran up. This was brutal, my legs were shelled and going downhill on fatigued muscles is a bitch. Got to the ski lifts, met some friends there, had a couple of beers and jumped on the lift back down to the cars and headed home to a much needed shower and power nap, then we were off to a BBQ at a friends house.
Between thoughts of the girls and Alethea, I thought a lot about Labor Day weekend last year and my ‘brother’ Manny and the accident he suffered that ultimately took his life 2 months later. I thought about how much I miss him and how he’d call me ‘crazy’ for dressing in spandex and running up a mountain…to be followed by a genuine “that’s cool bro”…and toasting me with a cold beer in hand.
I toasted him on top of that mountain and said a prayer for all of you.
Here’s to life,
Roberto, SoCalRunning.com Member
Run to the Top of Mt. Baldy – Labor Day 2008 Race Report
Darryl, Michael, Yogi B and Roberto relax at the top before the 4 mile walk down
Just another Labor Day Monday, 8 AM, and that means I am on the starting line of the “Run to the Top” of Mt San Antonio aka “Mt Baldy,” the tallest mountain in LA, topping out at 10,0064 feet.
The race starts at 6,000 ft and is some of the 8 toughest miles. In fact, this race is 43 years old and known as one of the hardest races in the country. It can take anywhere from just over an hour to 3+ hours. It takes even longer if you just try to hike it.
This is a race that separates the “the men from the boys or women from the girls.” Everyone I have talked to at the top says how hard it is and I have heard people say it is harder than a 26 mile marathon.
To be fair this is my secret “A” race every year. I feel like I have home field advantage. But, this year there was a little exception, I hardly trained for it and I was doing the Disneyland Half Marathon the day before.
At the same time Gary was training with his group in the hills of Palos Verdes with hopes of taking me down this year, he smoked me in Catalina.
I can’t explain it, yet that mountain feeds my spirit. I find places in my body and mind that I rarely find in any other races. I get a “don’t quit” attitude, and felt it strongly this year.
With that, I found myself passing Colin about 4 miles up the mountain, what I didn’t know was that Gary was close behind me. I never saw him in the parking lot or at the starting line, he was being sneaky. It didn’t matter I wasn’t going to let anyone pass me that I couldn’t pass by the top and all the runners around me were strong.
I finished with a 1:36:41. I finished 73th overall and 12th in my age group. 3 minutes slower than last year. 14 minutes slower than 2006, which I came in 17th overall. Now that I look at this year’s results, I was in the toughest age group. It seems the closer you get to 50, the stronger these other old trail runners are getting. It still feel good about my performance and not every race is a PR.
In the end, I struggled up the hill with grace. I ran my own race. I helped others and stuck to my plan. Out of breath at the top, I looked over LA and the desert feeling alive, proud, and proud of all the other warriors that were joining me at the top.
It is a race that you don’t get a medal for finishing, because you don’t need one, you know what you did. It is a race that can test your resolve and a race that teaches you humility. I believe it is a test of spirit that serves me through the entire year and helps throughout my life. It is a race to put on your calendar.
Look for a short Runumentary soon.
Live Focused, Steve Mackel – Mountain Runner
Disneyland Half Marathon 2008 – Runumentary by Steve Mackel
What a race! The happiest race on earth! Now you can see for yourself. I am sorry if I filmed you and you did not make it on this cut. YouTube limits me to a 10 minute maximum movie. (I just posted this video on viddler.com because the quality is a little better)
Another learning experience, it is not like I am new to this yet I think I had my camera on the wrong setting. Maybe it was the lack of light early in the morning. Not to mention, YouTube compresses the file I send them so the quality gets beat up but it could be better and I am working on it.
Thanks all of you for being in my Runumentry. I especially like some of you people jumping around and making faces in the background. I had a good laugh editing this.
Look for me out at your next race and say hi. Runners wanted!
Comments and Race Reports wanted, use the link below.
Race Focused, Runumentarian – Steve Mackel
Thinking makes people overeat… That’s my excuse and I’m stickin’ with it!!!!
Beach Runner’s Mentors Larry and Barb. Barb posted the following article on the “Community” page inside SoCalRunning.com
Food for thought: Intellectual activities make people eat more than when just resting, according to a study that sheds new light on brain food.
This finding might also help explain the obesity epidemic of an increasingly sedentary society in which people still have to think now and then.
Researchers split 14 university student volunteers into three groups for a 45-minute session of either relaxing in a sitting position, reading and summarizing a text, or completing a series of memory, attention, and vigilance tests on the computer.
The scientists had determined beforehand that the thinking sessions consumed only three calories more than resting. After the sessions, the participants were invited to eat as much as they pleased.
Though the study involved a very small number of participants, the results were stark.
The students who had done the computer tests downed 253 more calories, or 29.4 percent more than the couch potatoes. Those who had summarized a text consumed 203 more calories than the resting group.
Blood samples taken before, during, and after revealed that intellectual work causes much bigger fluctuations in glucose levels than rest periods, perhaps owing to the stress of thinking.
The researchers figure the body reacts to these fluctuations by demanding food to restore glucose, a sugar that is the brain’s fuel. Glucose is converted by the body from carbohydrates and is supplied to the brain via the bloodstream. The brain cannot make glucose and so needs a constant supply. Brain cells need twice as much energy as other cells in the body.
Without exercise to balance the added intake, however, such “brain food” is probably not smart. Various studies in animals have shown that consuming fewer calories overall leads to sharper brains and longer life, and most researchers agree that the findings apply, in general, to humans.
And, of course, eating more can make you fat.
“Caloric overcompensation following intellectual work, combined with the fact that we are less physically active when doing intellectual tasks, could contribute to the obesity epidemic currently observed in industrialized countries,” said lead researcher Jean-Philippe Chaput at Laval University in Quebec City, Canada. “This is a factor that should not be ignored, considering that more and more people hold jobs of an intellectual nature,” the researcher concluded.
The study was published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine.
Barb, Beach Runner Mentor
Marathon Training: Surviving the Heat
Marathon Training in the heat?
Coach Gary and Beach Runner April show how to survive the heat and how to keep going even when tired.
Often when training for a marathon, you get exhausted after hitting the wall the second half of a long training run.
So in this video Coach Gary shows how he helped April get through the last part of her long run.
You can use these marathon training tips to keep moving even when tired.
Dean Karnazes film limited viewing this Thursday
Here’s a special viewing of a new film about running, featuring Dean Karnazes. The film be showing the film on Thursday, September 4, at 7:30pm at the Ince Theater, Culver Studios – reception to follow. As a benefit for the National Brain Tumor Foundation there’s a sliding scale suggested donation of $1-26. The theater is located at 9050 W. Washington Blvd, 90232.
You must RSVP, to RSVP please visit www.runningformyfather.com If you are free you should check this one out and it is for a good cause.
Watch Focused, Steve Mackel Beach Runners Head Coach
Founder – Coach Steve
Running Shoe Store of the Month – Jan/Feb 2017
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