Brazen's (Almost) New Years Eve Half Marathon 2014 race review

Brazen always does 2 New Years events every year. One on New Years day and one just a few days earlier. This year I ran the (Almost) New Years Eve event on December 27th over the holiday break. I have ran this race before and this years event was a stark contrast to my last time running this event back in 2012 and in more ways than one.

 For starters the weather could not have been better. It was cold in the morning. Colder than I thought it would be but not as cold as 2012. I stepped outside at 6:30 in the morning in a pair of tights and a long sleeve shirt and knew within a second that I was way under dressed. I returned to the warmth of my house and emerged with a Nike Combat base layer shirt that is made for cold weather running and I put on an Asics 1/2 zip with thumb holes in the wrists so that my hands were mostly covered. This was much more appropriate for the 32º temperature outside. It warmed up within the first few miles and I eventually tied the 1/2 zip around my waist. For most of the race it was perfect running weather. This was not the case in 2012 when it was again cold but also misty/ rainy. I wore a rain jacket in 2012 and stayed fairly dry (except for the sweat sauna inside my jacket) but remained frozen to the core for the entire race. Keep that in mind when you sign up for this one!

Bad Bass 2014 race recap

Race #5 for me in Brazen Racings Ultra Half Series was the Bad Bass at Lake Chabot in sunny Castro Valley this past Saturday. Up to this point I am in 41st place in the series with an average time back of 57:40. That means I am finishing these races, on average, 57 minutes behind the 1st place finisher. I would like to bring that down (obviously) and this race might be the one to do that with. I say that because of all of the races in the series so far I think this one is the most runnable with the least amount of steep vert. My goal for this race is sub 2 hour for 2 reasons. First of all that time will only be about 30 minutes behind the leader based on previous race results. My second reason is because I ran this course on New Years Eve 2012 and got a 2:03:00, just missing the highly coveted sub 2 hour mark. I want revenge on that shortcoming!

Upcoming races for the weekend of 2/23 & 2/24



The weather has been nice lately and I've been able to get out on the trails a lot more lately. I think I'm getting a touch of spring fever with this lucky streak of great weather. I find myself getting excited about my upcoming trail races and then I start researching what races are coming up for this article and I get even more excited because great races are poppin up more and more as we cruise through the end of our winter. Three excellent choices for the weekend of 2/23 & 2/24 are coming up and between the three you have every distance choice from 5 mile to 50k and every ability level from the novice Vasona Lake 5 mile to the experienced Montara 50k.

Brazen Racing's New Years Eve Half Marathon Review

The Christmas Season has kept me fairly busy lately but not so much that I couldnt squeeze a last race in before the year's end. I didn't really need to train specifically for this race as the half marathon distance is not new to me anymore. I ran my first half in 2011 and have since ran at least a dozen more. I have routinely ran training runs beyond this distance and quite a few races have been beyond the half as well. My, my, my how the times have changed since 2011!!! 2012 had me off road way more than on road in both training and racing, so I did not have to train or get prepared for a trail run in the hills. Im used to the trails and the copius amounts of climbing that accompany these races. It's become the "norm" for me. All I had to do was sign up and show up ready to work hard. Thats a nice way to approach a race. Usually I choose races that expand my skill set somehow. Longer distance, more elevation gain or super flat 5k's for PR's etc etc. This leads me to have to train in the weeks leading up to the race in a very specific way to (hopefully) achieve a very specific goal. I had no real goal for this race. I wanted to run this as hard as I could and use it as a gauge against future performances. Whatever my best turned out to be for this race will become the bar with which my fitness level can be measured against in 2013.

Running Races of note for Halloween and the weekend of 11/3 & 11/4

It's Halloween!!! Today and this weekend feature a costume race and a ton of great trail races. We also have a major road race in San Francisco this weekend. We are blessed in the Bay Area to always have quite a few races to choose from and that goes double around holidays. So pick one of these great runs and get their and have a great time.