The Janes post open race

The Janes traveled up the coast this past weekend to compete in the USATF Club Nationals at Jefferson Park Golf Course in Seattle, Washington. The weather during the meet was chilly, but ideal–no wind, some drizzle for the later races, and the mud was an issue throughout the for the most part flat, grassy course for most of the runners.

The masters team, consisting of Tania Fischer, Amanda Marks and Kelle Taylor, finished in fourth place with 52 points following Tania’s strong third place individual finish in a time of 22:22. Amanda was the second Jane running 24:00 in 22nd place and Kelle ran 25:30 in 57th place. Club Northwest was the first team with 10 points and unattached runner Chris Kimbrough was the overall winner in a time of 22:12.

The open team ran later in the day. They finished in 24th place in the highly competitive meet. Kim Ramirez led the team in a time 22:33 and 131st place followed by Cambria (22:48, 150th place), Tania, who had to run both races so that the team could have a scoring five in the open race was next running  23:06 in 173rd place. Sam Jones (23:20, 188th place) was the next Jane followed by Adrienne Flores (23:41, 200th place).

“I was hoping to break 22 minutes, and from my last few races, I knew that was a reasonable goal, so it was a bummer for me personally to end an otherwise strong season with a weaker performance.” Cambria stated after the race, and continues “It feels like the competition gets stronger each year, and I’m no longer one of the ‘younger’ runners, but that’s great for the sport! We love coming out each year and seeing where we stand against a talented field; hopefully we can get back to earning a higher finish, like we did in years past. Congrats to our inspiring master’s team, who earned a 4th-place finish! It was exciting to watch Tania battle up front for the lead for most of the race!”

For complete results, click here.

To see a photo album from the meet, click here.

To see a masters photo album taken by Michael Scott, click here.

Erika Aklufi went up north to Sacramento to run in the California International Marathon this past weekend. She ran a PR of 2:50.04 as the 44th overall woman. Serkalem Abrha was the first woman in a time of 2:33.40.

Erika felt pretty good starting out in the early cold morning on the point to point course (the course starts at Folsom Dam and finishes in downtown Sacramento) so she felt she went out a little too fast. There was a huge contingency of women who were looking for an Olympic Trials marathon berth with an “A” standard of 2:39.00 or a “B” standard of 2:46.00 that were being paced at the CIM. (27 women qualified for the Trials that are going to be held next month on January 14th in Houston, Texas.) Erika found herself ahead of this pack for most of the race but then at mile 18, that pack caught her as she started to struggle with her pace. She went with this group until the 21st mile and then let them slip away as she found the race getting more and more difficult. For someone who doesn’t train for this specific distance, Erika did an incredible job!

For complete results, click here.

The Janes finished in second place as a team for the second year in a row in the Southern California USATF Road Racing Grand Prix series. The series is a nine race series that started at the Redondo Beach Super Bowl Sunday 5k and culminated at the Dana Point 10k Turkey Trot. The races ranged from 5k distance to a marathon distance over the series and individuals were scored in their top five races over the course of the season. Individuals did not have to run each and every race. For the second year in a row, Club Ed was the winning team with a team score of 21,592 points. The Janes had 20,961 points and Cal Coast was third with 20,833 points. The Janes are the only team of twelve teams competing in this series that consists soley of women.

Tania Fischer again prevailed this year as the individual winner scoring 4495 points to Alison Atkinson’s second place points of 4312. Cambria Wu finished in fourth place with her great finish in the Dana Point Turkey Trot race where she ran a PR of 36:05.

For more details about the Grand Prix series and to see results, click here.

Cambria Wu and Kim Ramirez were both up for a pre-turkey meal race at different races this year. Cambria ran at the Dana Point Turkey Trot running a 10k in a PR time of 36:05 for 8th place in the always competitive race. Stephanie Rothstein won in  a time of 33:16. This race was the final race of the Southern California USATF Road Running Grand Prix series and locked in 4th place overall for her for the final tally.

Kim ran in the Plymouth RockNRun Turkey Trot in Anaheim winning in a time of 18:13 over the 5k course.

For complete results of the Dana Point race, click here.

For complete results of the Plymouth RockNRun race, click here.