URP Daily News 10/24/2016-Guest Blogger John Onate
Happy Ultramarathon Monday! Eric is starting stage 1 of the Himalayan 100 Mile Stage Race today, the first stage is 24 miles long.
A little about myself…My name is John Onate and I am a double board certified Internal Medicine and Psychiatry Doc at UC Davis School of Medicine and work with Sacramento County Primary Health. I am an Ultra Runner and have been volunteering at the Devil’s Thumb Aid Station for the past few years during the Western States 100 Endurance Run. I was on URP earlier this year with Nikki Kimball and have spoken at medical conferences on the relationship between depression and running.
Races Results/Previews:
Kacie won and crushed the course record at Nebraska’s GOATz 50K trail run in 3:45:46! If you did not read her blog post of winning the Bear 100 check it out here, look out Hardrock!
The 2016 Diagonale Des Fous (104 mile) was held this past weekend in Reunion Island. This race has been held since 1989 and similar to Tranvulcania, most of the population comes out to cheer to 2K racers as they cross the island. François D’haene and Andrea Huser won in 23:44:57 & 27:44:13 respectfully. The winning times hint at the difficulty of this race…
The 2016 IAU Trail World Championships will be held this weekend in Portugal in the Peneda-Gerês National Park. The race is a 85 KM point to point race with about 4.7 KM of climbing. Megan and Bryon have excellent preview articles on their website on the women and men racing from all over the world. YiOu Wang, Larisa Dannis and Corrine Malcolm will be representing Team USA. Sacramento local and masters superstar, Beverly Anderson-Abbs will be representing Canada. On the men’s team: Alex Varner, Mario Mendoza, Tyler Sigl and Jared Burdick make up a very strong quartet. Unfortunately for both USA teams, injury has sidelined some very strong runners.
Upcoming Races:
The Javelina Jundred on 10/29-expect lots of costumes and fast times at one of the last WSER100 qualifiers of the year. Zack Bitter and Heather Miller top the list of UltraSignup participants.
The Rio Del Lago100 will have a new course this year, combining the routes of American River 50 and parts of the Way To Cool 50 KM. I will be toeing the line and hopefully will finish this as my first 100 miler. Let URP know what you think of the new course!
Health Related News:
Congratulations to my friend and fast ultrarunner Taylor Maltz who along with 2000 other walkers raised nearly $300K for suicide prevention. I have been fortunate to meet incredibly talented and courageous people like Taylor and Nikki in the ultra running an trail running community.
Did you know that running is not only an evidence based and effective treatment for depression it is also very good for any brain, but you have to be consistent. Research is finding more evidence that long, less intense aerobic exercise like running is best for brain health.
I hope everyone has a great week of training or racing!