The Running Times Signs Off

The Running Times has ceased publication as of this last January edition and I am seriously bummed. Editions remain in news stands at the Running Hub and elsewhere. The last pure running publication, pure in the sense that a fresh copy of the RT best conveyed that running meant something. Its articles and writing best captured the sense of athlete performances in context of the sport, of the relevant history, and of whom was leading its newest charge. Other outlets will fill the void but they're varied and dispersed in a sport that carries niche attention. A sad day.

Gracing the final cover with Des Devila was an inspired choice. An everyman that penned her own arrival in a dramatic finish on Boylston. Like many that led the way before her, she broke into the elite from obscurity, years of careful ground work in place, and with her the intense belief that she alone could wear the champion's laurel.

No other publication or outlet brought the weight of RT. The sport will be different in its absence.

We have made the difficult decision that Running Times will no longer be published beyond its Jan./Feb. issue. pic.twitter.com/TFL2H8UJ5Y

— RW Advanced (@RWAdvanced) December 4, 2015

Another Year of Drought for Santa Fe - 2014

Santa Fe and surrounding areas had a terrific monsoon season this year, but as has been the case for much of the last decade our year-end precipitation totals fell well below the long term average. As measured at the airport, we ended 2014 with just more than 9.5" of rainfall/snowfall compared with the average of 13.5". Snowfall in the winter and spring months just hasn't kept pace.

Santa Fe Precipitation Chart - 2014

The chart above was provided by John Fleck, UNM water resources faculty and ABQ Journal contributor. John originally posted the precipitation chart for Albuquerque below, noting that it's the 7th consecutive year below average for the Albuquerque area.

Albuquerque Precipitation Chart - 2014

Related Posts:
 - Arroyo Washout (Oct. '14)
 - Frijoles Canyon in Recovery
 - River Gauges and Fall Floods

La Luz Trail Run (2014) - Live Blog

The stairs of infinite sadness

La Luz, it's here once again. Now in its 49th year. Driving down with Leigland at 5am. A fair number of Santa Fe runners in the field this year which is something grand to look forward to.

The start list is no longer available, but when reading through it last week I recall Kris Houghton looks to defend his title up front. Simon Gutierrez is out, but Rickey Gates of Colorado is in. Gates is very good. Jesse Armijo and Dustin Martin look to be at the start as well. Jesse's back from injury; don't know much about Dustin's current status.

Erica Baron was originally wait-listed but I believe will be on the starting line. She is the one to beat in the women's field. Uncertain if Alexandra Darling will defend her title.

Additional pre-race comments were put up here.

We're going to use Twitter once again to post updates, photos, and results as the morning unfolds. The news feed below will capture traffic tagged with #laluztrailrun, anyone can post to the feed using the tag.

Bueno suerte y hasta la cumbre.

#laluztrailrun Tweets
Related Posts:
 - La Luz Start List 2014 - Pre race comments
 - La Luz Trail Run (2013) - Live Blog
 - La Luz Trail Run (2013) - Recap



View La Luz Trail Run - Albuquerque, NM in a larger map

RAIN! - New Mexico River Levels Spike Upwards of 30 Times Average Flows

Lots of rain in New Mexico this week. How much? So much I can weed my yard without a trowel. A really cool novelty. Seriously though, it's so much rain that just about every drainage, rivulet, rito, creek, and river were bursting at the seams. Yay rain!

I don't have cool photos to post because my phone doesn't work well in the pouring rain, but I do have some cool graphs of the recorded water flows in the area via storm gauges. The information comes from the USGS water data website for New Mexico. Another great source to follow the storm has been Twitter, tag #nmwx (NM weather).

Here's the Santa Fe River (above the reservoirs). As can be seen the river has been running at a flow of 1.5 cubic feet per second (cfs) this Fall. The historical average for this time of year is 2.5cfs. Well, river discharge rocketed up to 170cfs last night and is at 140cfs as of Saturday morning. Up 100 fold. Think of the Rio Grande flowing through the gorge on the drive up to Taos. Near Embudo there the river has been running at around 250cfs the last several years. The Santa Fe Watershed approached that for a brief period last night.

Here's a view of the Rito Frijoles in Bandelier as a measure of the storm's intensity during the week. The Pajarito Plateau received rain in excess of 4" in places, half the year's average in a two day period. The canyon flashed from less than 1cfs to 1,000cfs. Four times the general flow of the Rio Grande near Embudo. That and the crests in the graph below are why Bandelier was closed yesterday and today.

A couple of images of just what 1,000cfs looks like in one of our little ritos, from the Bandelier Natl Monument Facebook page:

The Rito Frijoles near the visitors' center - Friday morning,  Sep. 13, 2013

The Frijoles wanders into visitor parking and the picnic area - Friday morning, Sep 13, 2013

And here's a view of what the Rio Grande looked like after all the arroyos and ritos and rios emptied their cargo into the mother drainage. From 250cfs to 9,000cfs yesterday near San Felipe. This is below the Cochiti dam. In other words, the pulse of water would have been much higher were not for the catchment below Santa Fe. A section of the Pecos River down near Roswell was gauged in excess of 30,000cfs on Wednesday morning. The highest measured flow on the Pecos since the 1930s. Now that, is no joke people.

Related Posts:
  - Frijoles Canyon in Recovery
  - Bandelier National Monument and Lummis Canyon
  - Santa Fe's Arroyos

Track and Field Nationals Waddup!

Simpson brings the pain in Daegu, 2011 WC

Track and Field Nationals start up this week - Thursday-Sunday in Des Moines, IA. Top three finishers in each event provisionally qualify for this fall's World Championships in Moscow. The way elite running is set up right now, months will go by without seeing the heavyweight matchups. Smaller meets through the early summer and spring and even back into indoor season and cross country nationals will bring out a few of the top runners but many will stay home either because they're targeting a different meet or race, or they're working through injury, or there's no money in it (i.e. cross country), or they do show up only to race down in distance to sharpen speed or up in distance to hammer on strength. Nationals however, brings out all the Big Dogs to battle their marquee rivals over their natural race distances. Get it on, man. The only athletes that get a pass to Worlds without a podium finish at Nationals are the defending World Champions, and our only distance runner returning to defend a title is Jenny Simpson (of CU Boulder!) in the 1500m. Steeple champ Emma Coburn (Go Buffs!) was the only sure thing on the women's side but she's out with a back injury after winning NCAA's. The men's distance talent has become so deep that other than Olympians Galen Rupp and Evan Jager, just about every other WC qualifying spot is up for grabs. Shit is gonna get real.

Steeplers battle at last year's Olympic Trials
in Eugene. Cabral and Jager (c,r) earned
their tickets to London, Olinger (l) crumbled.

Beyond the big battles on the track there are a couple of interesting developments for this year's meet:  Live streaming coverage will be available at USA Track & Fields' new internet broadcast outlet USATF.TV in what looks like a joint venture with Runnerspace. This is a big departure from the ordinary non-Olympic year coverage wherein NBC will sometimes provide edited broadcast coverage with comically bad announcing the following day - after it's well known who won and who crapped-the-bed. Of late, Universal Sports Online occasionally provides coverage at a fee, notably for European Diamond League events. Bandwith and login issues often plague the service. We'll see if the USATF can avoid similar issues in what amounts to their rollout of a new platform (I won't hold my breath). This is nonetheless a very positive development for a sport that can be difficult to follow even for the faithful.

Interestingly, without general access to live coverage on the cable networks or streaming coverage on the net, the best source to spring up (by a long shot) for major race event coverage has become Twitter. The platform doesn't crash, or stall, or attract nonsense and garbage as with the message boards. You can source your tweets direct from the top journalists and bloggers in the sport, from folks in the stands at the meet, and even from the athletes themselves. I've recently become a convert and have setup an account if only for the daily news feed (I've pinned a widget to the sidebar). For race previews and coverage as well as some of the best twitter feeds, I'd advise heading over to the Daily Relay.

Update: The USATF.tv link has been changed to one that works - http://www.livestream.com/runnerspace
Shocking, I know.

Update II (6/21): The first link is now the functioning one again - USATF.tv
Coverage and streaming last night for the 10000m were surprisingly good.

Related Posts:
 - Olympic 10000m Recap
 - Olympic Steeplechase Recap