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Running in California

Training

In California I ran about 30 - 40 km a week. Here's what I wrote then: "I try to run every other day (I've always felt that rest is an important part of training). I run in the neighborhood after work or in the great open spaces parks nearby, or in parks around reservoirs. I put maps on the stairway walls in our house and I try to explore green spaces on those maps and find new running room now and then."

Hashing (not a substance) in California

Bobbi and I run on Thursdays with the local Hash House Harriers. The HHH run Saturdays and Sundays as well but we rarely make these runs as they charge $5 a head, for which price you feel obligated to drink excessively in the middle of the afternoon, and we've outgrown that nonsense. These days, we only drink excessively in the evening.

Anyway, hashers typically run about 5 miles on a Thursday. My fellow hashers claim a recent run I set was 10 miles, and this put me in the doghouse with the crowd, who were not as amused as I expected they'd be. Here, we do "live" hares, which I find convenient because, aside from a little preliminary scouting of the route, all done in training as far as I'm concerned, a hare just turns up for the run and sets off early. A lot less time consuming than being a hare in Oman, with its endless reconnoitering and sweaty Fridays getting all the flour down just right. Hashers of Muscat, eat your hearts out.

A more recent lay was a much reduced affair, just 8 km through a neighborhood and into a park area which opened onto open spaces not unlike the scrubby wilds of Oman. This led in turn over a hill to another park, through a neighborhood, and into two privately owned ranches (hole in the fence trick) in succession before leading back along a bayou and up to the streets leading home to the park where we'd originated. This run abuts on my occasional lunchtime break run, the scrubby wilds having now been incorporated into that.

• Silicon Valley Hash House Harriers
• Monterey Bay HHH at http://www.freeyellow.com/members/mbh3, is not always appropriate for casual browsers from the UAE, my new home.

Bay to Breakers, a San Francisco treat

The great entertainment run of the year is the annual Bay to Breakers run in San Francisco, 12 km across town from the bay to the Pacific breakers. Imagine:

• 70,000 runners convening at 8 a.m.on a single street corner in downtown San Francisco.
• Starting a race so hemmed in that for three city blocks all you can do is make tiny steps like a Japanese geisha.
• Where's Waldo? There were people there dressed as Waldo. Some people dressed as salmon and ran the race backwards, against the throngs. One guy dressed as an alligator and crawled the whole way.
• Costumes are optional for this race, and some people take this quite literally. You hardly notice them except when overtaking from behind. Then their behinds are quite noticeable.
• San Francisco has lots of street people, and it's cold there in the mornings. Affluent runners show up with wraps that many strip off and pitch aside at the start of the race. Street people converge at the start after the runners have left and pick up the garments.

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Last updated: October 29, 1998; Internal links verified June 7, 1998