Semana Nautica 15k 2013

by: Vivian Valdivia

Semana Nautica 15k took place in Santa Barbara on July 4^th, 2013.  Gritty City runners arrived at Santa Barbara to find it was overcast, drizzling and slightly humid. 

A quick picture at the starting line

 As the race started, Jason quickly took the lead followed by Hugo.  Jason finished first for Gritty City with a time of 1 hour flat.   Hugo was came in right after with a time of 1:01 and placed third in his age division.  John waited at the finish line to cheer and capture all the great finishing moments.

Jason coming in first for Gritty City

Danny improved his time from last year by several minutes and was the third Gritty City finisher.  Antonio and I were reunited at the last kilometer and finished less than a minute apart.  Annie had a great race after being given the race number "666"(this is true), but she flipped over the bib and wore "999" instead.  Sunny came in next and had her husband and daughter cheering her on.  The next person to come down the finish line was Adrian, who received third place in his age division. Leeland, who was wearing his tuxedo shirt for his upcoming wedding, came in fast because Erika was only a few feet behind him.    

 The next person to come through the finish line was Joe.  As I was running near Joe during the first mile of the race, he was talking to someone about the importance of tying shoe laces.  Joe was able to look out for others and still finish second in his division.  Great job!   Jason(not to be confused with Jason Wang) came in proudly representing his team and had a strong finish. Pureza ran through the finish line as Gritty cheered her on and  Janet Gutierrez rounded off the Gritty City runners in style with her white running suit and veil with Leeland by her side.  Janet is getting married to Leeland who she met while running. Yes, love happens on the run sometimes(checkout the running wedding pictures at the bottom).

Joe and Adrian with their age group awards

The Gritty City Track Club happy after the 9.2 mile challenge

Before heading to eat, we took wedding pictures with our "Gritty Getting Married" shirts. 

Congrats to Leeland and Janet, the second Gritty couple to get married

The food took a while but it gave us a chance to mingle

Griffith Park Marathon Trail Marathon Relay

The Griffith Park Marathon Relay was a tough course.  With almost two miles of steep uphills, a few rolling hills and sharp downhills, the race was a challenge to say the least.  There were about 60 teams with 5 people in each team.  Each leg had to run 5.2 miles around the same loop.  The Gritty City Track Club represented with two teams: a male team and a co-ed team.  The male team started off strong with Bert running a 32 minute time.  Paul, Danny, Jason ran great races and Richard brought the team home.  Their efforts paid off and they finished in 1st place in the mens-club division.

L-R: Danny, Bert, Paul, Jason and Richard

The Co-Ed team also did a great job finishing in a very close 2nd place in the club co-ed division.   Jorge put the team in the lead by running an amazing 39 minute time.  Brian continued the effort by running the course in just over 42 minutes. Tamera, John and I ran up and down those hills as hard as we could and finished only a minute and 18 seconds behind the first place co-ed club team. The official results and pictures can be found here: http://griffithparktrailmarathonrelay.com/

L-R: Jorge, Brian, Tamera, John and me.

There was one Gritty City runner who was behind the scenes but showed up at 5a.m. to make sure the run went smoothly: Alex Bruno.  Congrats to Alex Bruno for his great organizing efforts and a great job to Dino for putting on a fun race.

Alex relaxing after a hard day's work.

Guys relaxing after the relay.

Summer Watermelon Run

This Tuesday, Gritty City runners started the summer with 7 grueling hills. The entire run was 7.5 miles.  Runners completed 7 of the 10 hills that surround the Rosebowl.  Jason took the lead up the hills with the rest of us following behind.  We ended with the curved hill next to the golf course.  Jason, Vanessa and George raced each other up the last hill and I noticed everyone else pushed really hard up this last hill. 

http://www.mapmyrun.com/workout/299617889

After the run, we enjoyed some refreshing watermelon. The giant watermelon (courtesy of Janna)was delicious and cold.  The group actually finished the entire watermelon that Max is holding.  The mini watermelon I brought was not as appealing but it came out well in the picture.

Alex and Suzanne also joined us for this run.  Great job everyone for completing this run!

Volunteering at the LA River Run

On 5 de mayo, Gritty City Track Club members volunteered at the LA River Fun Run.  About a dozen members passed out water to runners at mile one. The run was benefitting "Friends of the LA River", a non-profit organization founded in 1986 to protect the river.  Several members came as early at 5am to set up the water station.

Gritty City members served as enthusiastic cheerleaders. As runners, every volunteer knew how important it was to keep fellow runners motivated.

 Stacking water cups on top of one another was sort of like playing Jenga.  Fun!

A final pictures before leaving the event in front of the LA River gate.

Boston Unity Run

Today runners from various clubs in Los Angeles united to show support for Boston Marathoners.  The events that occurred last Monday inspired John Beatty, who has been a regular at the track, to organize a Boston Marathon inspired 5k.  There were  balloons with the blue and yellow Boston colors and many of our own Gritty City runners wore their blue and yellow shirts from previous Boston Marathons. 

Gritty City Runners: L-R. Tina, me, Alex, Richard, Max, Antonio and Tamera

There were easily over 200 runner that came together for this event.  There was an emotional song and flag salute and a commemorative wrist band given to finishers. 

Post Race Photo. 2013 Boston Unity Run. Los Angeles

2012 Semana Nautica Recap

This race report was submitted by Gritty VP, Ann Wilson.  Enjoy!

Semana Nautica 15K is given a rating of 5 out of 5 stars on the Active.com site.  It should be noted that only one person has rated the race.  Let’s see the rating you would give it after reading this newsworthy race report.

The start time was 8:00 so we worked our way backwards and decided to meet at 5:00 a.m. in the South Pasadena High School Swimming Pool parking lot for carpooling/caravanning.  When I pulled into the lot at 4:55 I could NOT believe my eyes.  The lot was littered with Grits and their gym bags.  At first I thought they were large raccoons, but it was clear from the sports paraphernalia that everyone was ready to load into the cars and head up north for a run.  After a quick stop at Starbucks for the java heads in my car we were on our way. 

The roads were empty so we made record time and we were afforded the luxury of picking from any parking space in the San Marcos High School.  The skies were gray and soon it was misting.  It was perfect running weather.  The restrooms were vacant and the bib pick-up tables were eerily quiet, so we just waited for our fellow Grits and ARC members to arrive  … Danny, Pureza, Eddie, Janet, Talia, Sophia, Brian, Colleen, Antonio, Dino, David, James Michael, Vivian, Pureza, Donna, Dave, John, Mandy and Craig.  What a group!

The minutes were ticking by, so soon it was time for a quick mile warm-up, final pit stops, and the discarding of our top layers at the car.  (It was actually chilly.)  They warn you that the Start Line is about 15 minutes from the parking lots and that’s pretty accurate.  You feel a bit like Little Red Riding Hood on her way to grandma’s house. 

After you’ve trekked through the forest you see a clearing.  There’s the loosely organized group of folks milling around the Start Line, waiting for the race to start.  This is also where you can start to take in the festive race attire.  The men were tame.  The women on the other hand took advantage of the holiday and dressed-up.  Err… they dressed-down.  Generally speaking, less was more when it came to the women’s outfits.  Picture bikini tops with sequined shorts.  Okay, you get the idea.  Hey, maybe that’s why the fellas all had such a good race?!

Back to the race … A general announcement was made, no National Anthem was sung (on the 4^th of July.  REALLY!?!), and then a muffled, “3, 2, 1”.   We were off.  I started the race with Danny and Vivian, and we did manage to stay together for a time.  Oddly enough, just when I was about to commend Danny for his ability to pace me, the distance between he and I seemed to be getting wider, and wider, and wider.  Bye Danny!!  Antonio and I have a pattern of treating races like an Indian run around the track.  He leads, I lead, he leads, I lead.  You get the idea.  Thankfully, he was kind enough to slow his pace and cross the Finish Line with me.  Such a gentleman.

The route is a mess of different terrain … bike path, paved highway, and residential streets and it’s not blocked off for the race, so you are in enemy territory (so to speak).  We rewarded ourselves with breakfast at Derf’s.  They had more than one chef working that day, so the feeding of 14 plus people wasn’t nearly as daunting for them as last year. 

Congrats to Mandy and Donna for placing.  Amazing!!  To the runners, cheerleaders and photogs who participated that day… You are the best!

Back to the beginning … How many stars would you give it?

2012 Pasadena Marathon Relay Recap

The inaugural Pasadena Marathon Relay was the idea of a select few who thought it would be great to run such an event along side a USAT&F road race. The organizers and volunteers worked very hard in the few weeks leading up to the race to ensure that the events went as smoothly as possible. As with any first year events, lessons were learned, but all the efforts paid off to run a successful event.

The race consisted of 5 legs: 10K, 5K, 10K, 5K, and 12K. The 2012 event was invitation only and consisted of 6 teams:  3 from A Runner’s Circle, 2 from our very own Gritty City and 1 team from the Pasadena Pacers.

My vantage point was that of a participating relay runner that Sunday morning. I was part of team “To LeGrit To Quit”, one of the 2 Gritty City teams. On my team were Miguel Villegas (10K), Pureza Bacor (5K), myself (Brian Reitz - 10K), Annie Fu (5K), and our very own President, John Burgos (12K). The race went off without any major hiccups and full, half and relay runners were on their way. Runners for legs 2-4 piled into the vans and we were off to our exchange points while the first runners took off down Hill Ave towards Old Town and the Colorado St. bridge. 

I had the fortunate opportunity to watch the lead relay and marathon runners pass my exchange point at mile 9 before becoming one of the runners myself. They looked strong with effortless strides. About 15-20 runners passed before it was my turn to run, then I was off. 

After completing my leg I jogged back to the starting line to meet up with other teammates and to see how we faired as a team and as a club. Our other Gritty City Team, “True Grit” placed 2^nd in the relay division with a time of 2:42. This was no surprise considering this team had some fairly fast runners in Craig Pansing (10K), Eddie Villegas (5K), Dean Galez (10K), Jason Wang (10K) and Bert Whitson (12K). As for our team, well we came in 3^rd, good enough for the podium! It’s amazing to see a lot of the same lead runners I saw at mile 9 now come through the finishing chute. A lot of them looked to be having an easier time after running 26.2 miles than I did after completing just a 10K. Even the lead female runner, Mandy Grantz, looked just as strong at the finish as she did when she first passed me at mile 9!

We are hoping that the experience gained through this years relay can help open the door to making this an annual, larger event in the future.

Stay Gritty and Happy Running!

 Eddie, Pureza, Brian, and Craig before the relay.

 Alex driving relay participants to their handoff points.

 Wayne from USATF, Sergio, and Bert.

 Jason handing off to Bert at the final handoff.

 Mandy looking strong at mile 17.5!

 Post relay hanging out.

The ladies.