Woodminster XC

The Dick Houston Memorial Woodminster is a cross country race here in Oakland now in its 42nd year. You might not normally associate Oakland with cross country racing opportunity, but in fact Oakland is bordered to the East with beautiful hills that hold some great trail running. Redwood shaded creeks that are great for hiking and steep rough terrain which makes for tough running.

Originally we were going to run this race, a 9 mile event which runs over some of the toughest course you could imagine around here. Instead, we decided it was time to work on running longer and not potentially injure ourself on this. So, rather than run it I decided to take some photos.

Woodminster is a handicap race, different age groups leave one after another. If I was in it I'd be 4 minutes in front of the fastest group (the young men), and about 20 minutes behind Patty in the old ladies group. Here's a couple of photos from the start:



Runners coming down the hill near the finish:


The trails are mostly like this, although there's hills which bring the whole field to a walk. Last year we were hiking on the day of this race and had a nice conversation with one of the racers as we walked up one of the more serious hills.

Here are a few more photos of the runners. This first one is the winner, Roy Rivers.


And I think this is the first place woman:

The rest of the photos are here, and the organizers were excited enough to have some one take photos they sent out a link to my photos with the race results and on their page.