On October 21st, Steve Singer ran the Orange County Half Marathon and ran a personal best of 1:29:41. The general consensus, however, was along with the new course, they reduced the half marathon distance by about 1/10 of a mile.
That same day, I ran the inaugural Four Bridges Half Marathon in Folsom in a two-year best of 1:37:40. I had originally planned to run the Humboldt Half Marathon, but my ride to Weott, CA, fell through. It was a beautifully done, scenic, cool temperature race, with a Coolmax shirt with logo, instead of another white T-shirt.
On October 28th, Victor Hernandez and Todd Rose ran the inaugural Pumpkin Run in San Dimas. “Lots of hills” was the prognosis. The race director was very supportive of clubs and offered discounts to all club members. Victor ran a personal 10K best of 39:20 and placed 9th overall and 3rd in his difficult division.
That same day, hours earlier, Todd Byers and Laura Chaides participated in the post 9/11 Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, D.C. Laura broke 4 hours for the 4th time this year (3:53:31), while running by the plane-wounded Pentagon and the terrorist-beleagured capital.
Finally, on Monday, October 29th, Mark von Leffern ran the Dublin City International Marathon, completing in a personal best of 3:25:23, which bested Todd Rose’s 1999 Long Beach AREC Men’s Record of 3:25:29 by 6 seconds. To celebrate, he went around to many of Dublin’s fair city bars, partying until 3 am. In other words, he acted about the same as when he finishes first at the Wednesday workout!