USATF: need to play to win

In PAUSATF, USATF stands for the USA Track and Field Association and PA for its Pacific Association chapter (North California down to San Luis Obispo and just beyond Reno, Nevada on the East side).

I joined PAUSATF in 2006 when I switched to ultra-running and I havebeen a passionate and avid participant in the Mountain Ultra Trail running Grand Prix since (65 ultra competitions of the GP these past 7 years), winning my age group for the last 6 years. I had been a member of the Fédération Francaise d'Athlétisme (FFA) since I started running seriously in 1998 and that allowed me to run races and championships in France. I left the FFA after taking the US citizenship in 2008 and running almost exclusively in the US anyway. As I looked at both associations again, I actually found an interesting fact: despite the supremacy of the US in Track and Field at the international level, and a population 5 times larger than France, USATF would have only 100,000 members according to wikipedia while the FFA is 220,000-member strong. Interesting... Note that a major difference is being member of the FFA exempts you from having to provide a medical certificate for every race you enter, a mandatory requirement otherwise. That may be part of the explanation.

Anyway, back to the title: having studied enough maths to know the odds, I don't play the lottery except for a few ultra races (e.g. Way Too Cool or Miwok and of course Western States if I can be in town in June) but, while browsing the association's web site in December, I decided to put my name in a particular hat, the members-only monthly drawing. And... ta-da... I won a bronze medal (i.e. a $50 voucher for USATF merchandise which I converted into a couple of gifts for Agnès as I can't wear gear from a competitive brand which I wouldn't name in my blog... ;-).

So, my dear fellow USATF members, if you were skeptical, here is a proof that it is a real draw, take your chance! And you don't even have to sweat to win such a medal... ;-)

As for running, none this week again for me, I'll resume training by running the Jed Smith 50K next week in Sacramento. See some of your there and hope the calf will hold this time; needless to say, I plan on taking it much easier than last year and not aiming at a PR this time (3:19:09 in 2012, great memories...).

New Almaden: less trail running, more trail work

The good thing (gasp!) with running injuries is that it gives you more time to do something else, rather than just running for hours on weekends in particular... Still, the weather is so great these days though, with blue and crisp skies, I wish I was ramping my mileage up. Patience, patience...

This Saturday, Paul was organizing another of his monthly trail work sessions on the New Almaden trail that Dorsey (Moore) got our Quicksilver Running Club to adopt more than 10 years ago. We double the size of the crew we had in December, this weekend, a total of 9, from left to right on the picture: Marco, Amy, Morgan, Jeremy, Paul, Dorsey (back), Jim (front) and Pierre-Yves.

No, we are not praying the trail gods on the picture, just paying attention to Dorsey's instructions. Note the pretty damaged section with Jim standing a good feet down a ditch dug by water. This section is always problematic and will need more work (e.g. wood logs to consolidate and avoid water erosion) but we left it in much better conditions after a couple of hours of hard work, moving earth from the side of the trail and creating transversal gullies to capture and divert water streams from the trail. I did so much packing of the ground with my McLeod that my arms and shoulders were sore this Sunday, definitely some good cross training! :-) This tool is really the perfect and polyvalent/multipurpose companion of the trail worker: from digging, smoothing, leveling or packing the soil to cutting roots or raking dead leaves, stones and branches. Here are a couple of pictures from the trail after we worked on it and before we moved to other sections to complete our 5 hours of trail work.

Hopefully the water will get the memo next time and gently slide on the side of the trail rather than digging its way in the middle! We'll see in a few weeks hopefully as we need more rain this season.

Here is a small snake that Marco found while digging. The poor guy was still hibernating and so sleepy, quite harmless.

Our next session is scheduled for February 16 but check our club website for any weather-related changes. If you live in the Bay Area, hope you can join this fun and essential trail activity. And run this great trail, New Almaden, in the Almaden Quicksilver County Park. We start the Quicksilver 50K and 50-mile on this single track trail and it's in May so it will be much drier by then!